iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Parenting in 2026 is like: “we have Olivia D’s birthday on Saturday and Olivia H’s birthday on Sunday morning but we have to miss Olivia R’s party in the afternoon because of the Abolish ICE protest and zine workshop”

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

What a beautiful article about a beautiful icon! I can’t think of a better pairing of subject and authors — Hollywood glam, queer culture, AND Philly? Match made in heaven. Your warmth and insight shine through and do justice to Harlow’s tremendous life story.

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Reposted by Emily Barkley-Levenson

The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 09/10/2025

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

Been staying with family in MN for the last two weeks watching every Twins game, and we were so sad to see Bader go! Will miss him and his epic villain-in-an-80s-ski-movie mullet. Glad he’s getting a big welcome.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

If you ever need to explain to someone what “don’t threaten me with a good time” means

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Yes, this! Plus, every researcher is already applying 3 Rs of animal research (replacement, reduction, refinement). Use fewest animals of least biological complexity and treat them as humanely as possible. Animal research is still essential to advance science/medicine for humans AND animals.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Proud parenting moment that my 6-year-old makes a legit excellent protest sign #nokings

Protest sign in kid’s handwriting that says “put Trump in the dump! (The government too) (for now)”

Protest sign in kid’s handwriting that says “protect everyone” in uneven lettering, with a circle saying “ceasefire now and forever” and a 🚫 over Trump’s name

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

For undergrads this shit is an automatic F and an honor code violation, just saying.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Anecdata supporting this: most PhDs I know (myself included) are from lower-middle to middle-middle-class families. Smart kids who couldn’t fathom paying $200K for grad school so we TAed for $20K salary & no debt. The rich kids went to law school or business school, some med school.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

But seriously, if you or a loved one have dealt with mental illness or substance abuse and wish there were better treatments, making more researchers scramble for less $$ is not the way. Time to tell your senators that proposed FY26 is hot garbage and that you expect them to stand with NIH & NSF🧪🧠

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Also, this combining of institutes is just nonsensical. Teeth and eyes, now they’re brains! Child health and deafness go together because, uh, kids can be deaf? (But vision isn’t part of sensory disorders? It’s with brains) It’s like they put them on a dartboard and threw randomly. 🧪🧠

Proposed consolidation of NIH institutes in a truly hodgepodge fashion, such as “while and women’s health, sensory disorders and communication“

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

In the FY26 proposed budget, an almost 50% cut to funding for mental health and substance abuse research. That “Behavioral Health” bucket includes NIMH, NIAAA and NIDA, but funding is approx what NIMH *alone* currently has. 🧪🧠

Chart from proposed budget FY26 showing funding to NIH institutes (it doesn’t state explicitly on the chart but these are massive budget cuts)

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Have you needed their customer service at all? In grad school I had some issues with ornate survey flow/randomization and found their staff shockingly, pleasantly helpful.

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Reposted by Emily Barkley-Levenson

Josh Gondelman @joshgondelman.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

This Passover I’m thinking hard about the holiday’s history of resistance to tyrannical leaders, and the imperative for Jewish people to stand with all oppressed peoples of the world.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Also at risk? The postbac program, 2 years of training for the brightest grads who go on to become doctors & researchers. Foreign scientists whose NIH contracts aren’t renewed lose their visas. American science used to attract and retain the best people in the world. No hyperbole, that’s ending.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

These are folks on renewable contracts doing “blue-sky research with high stakes but potentially high reward.” Lifesaving stuff made possible by NIH’s unrivaled research infrastructure, bigger than any one university. “There are entire branches that would be gutted within 6 months.”

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

More devastating assaults on American science research, this time trying to purge 3200 NIH senior scientists doing cutting-edge research at agencies like the Natl Cancer Institute, Natl Institute on Aging, Drug Abuse, Mental Health, Heart, Lung & Blood Inst, etc. 🧪🧠

science.org

NIH ban on renewing senior scientists adds to assaults on its in-house research

Policy follows firings of tenure-track scientists and suspension of training programs

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Reposted by Emily Barkley-Levenson

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

This is a de facto massive budget cut to research universities. We are talking Great Recession size impacts.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

I get to stand in solidarity with union comrades AND with Bowen Yang? John Early? Maris Kreizman? Julia Fox? Zohran Mamdani? Damon Lindelof? Hari Nef? Truly I will never be this cool again.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

This piece also has great, succinct talking points to use when calling your reps about this! It’s worth creating a big, noisy backlash.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Fantastic, super clear explanation by Dr. Choo of NIH grants process: takes “tens of thousands of reviewers annually on more than 1000 meetings with study sections like the one I should have been sitting in Thursday.” Even if/when the freeze ends, can’t just be restarted with a snap. 🧪

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

🤝 outdoor summer stock production of West Side Story

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Biomedical research can’t just pause and start up again. An extended freeze like this is potentially dire for science in this country. Call me naive but I’m gobsmacked that the orgs doing research to cure cancer and COPD and Alzheimer’s are seen as partisan and expendable.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

NIH employees aren’t even sure if they are allowed to publish papers under the “communications freeze”. I used to promote the NIH Postbac program to my students, but with the hiring freeze its future is in question.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

There are layers upon layers of devastating policy coming out of this administration, but this one is massive. Freezing meetings includes freezing the study sessions that award new research grants.

science.org

Trump hits NIH with ‘devastating’ freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring

Researchers facing “a lot of uncertainty, fear, and panic”

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Reposted by Emily Barkley-Levenson

Sam “The Great Pumpkin” Thielman @samthielman.com · 12/03/2024

oh your neighborhood has five guys burgers? haha yeah I guess that does sound like a lot of guys

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Anyone who thinks academics are colluding to perpetuate a global conspiracy about vaccines, climate change, etc. has never spent time with academics. We just spent 45 minutes at a faculty meeting in heated argument about whether a sentence should say “opinion” or “perspective.”

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Emily Barkley-Levenson @emilybl.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

…With the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one 😄

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