iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 14/07/2026

The child said our bedtime reading has become too Orwellian... and she's not wrong.

Photo of two books: animal farm and 1984

Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 27/06/2026

I just noticed they removed "Behavioral and Social Science" from the list of Science Area Designations in the 2026 DP2 RFA... Anyways, I am now a bench scientist. files.simpler.grants.gov/opportunitie...

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 16/06/2026

Literally, and metaphorically, in the academic prison.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 03/06/2026

Harvard: We're older than America! Meanwhile, University of Bologna:

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 11/05/2026

I had my mid-tenure review recently. Today, the child asked me how it went, and I told I needed more awards and more grant money. So she gave me this award. Which is fine, I guess, but I'd rather have the money.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 09/05/2026

Yosemite Falls was falling today.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 22/04/2026

Yesterday, I gave an unjustifiably opinionated talk about academic publishing for @iaphs.bsky.social's "How To Tuesday" series. It was mostly about things I wish I knew when I was a grad student / post-doc. May be useful to others? Slides, data, and code here github.com/mkiang/paper....

Plot showing the rejection rate (vertical axis) and median/mean time to first decision (horizontal axis) of different journals. In the upper left are highly selective journals that have very high rejection rates and very fast time to first decision. Points are colored by journal type or field.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 26/02/2026

Packing for a work trip when your side hustle is Girl Scout Cookie Pusher:

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 15/01/2026

🥰🤩✨ fan mail ✨🤩🥰

Email body says: Regarding:
Trends in County-Level Childhood Vaccination
Exemptions in the US
We are eliminating vaccines and prosecuting all of you mass murderers. Exemptions? You rotten mass murderers want us get "exemptions" from your poison injections?

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 14/01/2026

The letter was submitted long before the current South Carolina outbreak, but data show Spartanburg (where the outbreak is centered) has experienced an increase in exemption rates for years. Vaccine policies work even if you don't see the consequences of their destruction until years later.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 27/11/2025

Two years in a row — start of a tradition?

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 24/09/2025

I use Slack for precisely one thing.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 08/08/2025

I'm just saying I've never took the day off work, went for a bike ride, enjoyed the summer inversion and then regretted it.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 31/07/2025

Making travel decisions at this point in my career:

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 10/06/2025

The people change but the coffee stays the same.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 03/06/2025

When your child is reading a pick-your-own-adventure book and asks how many different ways you can get to the various endings, and you've got too much time on your hands...

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 24/04/2025

Key result 2: We won't see the full impact of policies being made today for years. Our model suggests measles would become commonplace in about 20 years — sooner with lower vaccination rates. As vaccines are attacked, they'll say, "See? Told you it'll be fine." Reader: it won't be fine.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 24/04/2025

Key result 1: We are right on the precipice of disaster for measles. Just a small drop (e.g., 10%) would result in millions of cases over 25 years and return to a world where measles is commonplace. But there's good news! Just a 5% increase would bring us back above the critical threshold!

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 24/04/2025

The two types of academics at conferences these days:

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 03/04/2025

I got bit by the weirdest R bug I've seen yet... Turns out seq() and c() don't produce the same representation of 0.85?

## seq() produces unexpected floats?
df <- data.frame(
a = 1:11,
b = seq(.5, 1, .05),
c = c(.5, .55, .6, .65, .7, .75, .8, .85, .9, .95, 1)
)
df[df$b == .85, ] ## doesn't work
df[df$c == .85, ] ## does work
df$b == df$c ## only FALSE for .85

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 18/03/2025

When your coauthor asks if you think you'll hear back about a manuscript under review today and you've got too much time on your hands... ("Hopefully we won't hear back until at least Thursday...")

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 04/03/2025

Me, watching the Census, NIH, CDC, and FDA get dismantled while trying to make rent.

Conflicts of interest disclosures: Dr Kiang reports no financial conflicts of interest, but he wants potential donors and companies to know that given the current state of scientific research in the US, he is open to it.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 08/02/2025

They capped the NIH indirect cost. This isn't a surprise — they very literally said they would do this last year. That our institutions didn't have a plan and seem unequipped to fight back is... disappointing.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 24/01/2025

Every ECR text group right now...

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 23/01/2025

I mean... this is how I cope.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 07/01/2025

There are some prolific traffic violators out there. One vehicle owes nearly a quarter million (!!) in fines, spread across 2800 citations. All prolific violators get their citations (mostly) in downtown. In 2024, the top 0.1% (~500 cars) accounted for 3% of *all tickets*. 50% belong to just 15%.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 07/01/2025

For example, most citations happen around noon on weekdays... But notice the bumps *within* each hour? Turns out the parking officers heap to the nearest 0 or 5 minute mark. Also, oddly, more parking tickets happen earlier in the hour (?).

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 07/01/2025

Almost got run over the other day. He had a memorable license plate so I looked it up when I got home and found out he had over 20 parking violations in 2024 alone! This, obviously, sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. For example, did you know SF issues ~5000 citations a day?

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 12/12/2024

I was inspired by @lisahornung.bsky.social to try to generate my own "Year in Review" using the Strava API, R, and ggplot. Needs some work and a lot of polish but I think the bulk of the code is there.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 28/11/2024

US Census projection model is just like "shrug I dunno -- just LOCF it... lol"

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 25/11/2024

Spent the day doing a thing: www.strava.com/activities/1...

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 04/05/2024

Parental deaths due to drugs have been increasing steadily over the whole time period — reflecting the larger overdose crisis in the US. In contrast, parental deaths due to firearms have been fairly stable with a sustained increased risk among Black youth that accelerated in ~2015.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 04/05/2024

In a new paper lead by Ben Schlüter, we estimated about *1.2 million* youth (<18y) in the US have lost a parent due to drugs or guns since 1999. In 2020, drugs and guns accounted for about one in four parental deaths — about double the proportion in 1999. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Paper titled: Youth Experiencing Parental Death Due to Drug Poisoning and Firearm Violence in the US, 1999-2020. Key points section reads: Question What are the estimated rates of US youth (younger than 18 years) who have lost a parent due to drug poisoning or firearms?

Findings In this cross-sectional study of the US population using publicly available data between 1999 and 2020, an estimated 1.19 million US youth had a parent die by drug poisoning or firearms. In 2020, drugs and firearms caused 23% of all parental deaths compared with 12% in 1999, and Black youth experienced a disproportionate burden, mainly due to firearm deaths of fathers.

Meaning Results of this modeling study suggest that US youth are at high and increasing risk of experiencing parental death by drugs or firearms.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 16/02/2024

The Festive 500 is a tradition where people try to bike 500km in the 8 days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. To make it a little extra, I wanted to see if I could do all 500km on the GGP Polo Fields bike track (.68 miles per lap). Here are all 456 laps and the average speed per lap.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 16/02/2024

Finally got around to downloading my biking data from last year. I missed my distance goal (4000 miles) but made my elevation goal (100k feet). I crashed in Feb which set me back but this year I tried (and finished) the Festive 500 which you can see at the end of the year.

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Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 07/10/2023

I spent way too much time making this because the child kept asking me the exact day and time her Halloween costume would arrive ("probably next Tuesday between 10am and 11am")... And then it arrived this morning at 6am.

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