Sign in

Kaitlin Stack Whitney

@kstackwhitney.bsky.social
2.9K followers 784 following 503 posts

STS / enviro studies prof, on unceded Seneca lands. mostly thinking with insects and about ableism in biology. own views, etc. she/they

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA @arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"Drudgery" is very much a gendered concept
2306
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa @benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Working on a list of insects in silent films if people have recs. boxd.it/WH2sK
boxd.it
Silent Film Insects
A collection of early silent films featuring insects
85222
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
it's happened - am first and corresponding author on a team collaborative paper. yet the second author, a man, was invited to give a presentation on it. 🙃
001
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
lol at univ saying first time wild game cooked/stored in a campus residence communal kitchen, having lived in EcoHouse ...
132
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Dr Madeleine Pownall @maddipow.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
New paper! Values such as openness, transparency, collaboration, clarity about conflict of interests have been promoted by women for *decades*, and now we have reframed this around the branding of 'open science' that we start to take them seriously. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Women as the First Open Scientists: Five Stories of the Neglected Contributions of Women in (Social) Science Reform History - Madeleine Pownall, 2026
Recent years have seen growing emphasis on “Open Science,” a movement to enhance research transparency, robustness, and accountability. Prompted by concerns ove...
311762
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
the air quality today 😵‍💫
000
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
also now have a gold panning permit and actually tried it - shocker, did not find any 😂 but quite beautiful and lots of other interesting finds
A shallow freshwater stream with lots of rocks in it and rocky banks - lined on both sides with deciduous leafy trees and a hazy cloudy blue sky above
130
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Yes! Recently had the fun experience of looking for smoky quartz in the White Mountains (USFS permit/location info: www.fs.usda.gov/r09/whitemou... )
White person's hand holding three jagged rock fragments streaked with purplish grey smoky quartz embedded in them
041
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Dr Manu Saunders FRES @manusaunders.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
A 2019 paper that is often used as evidence of the flawed 'windscreen phenomenon' has been retracted. I cited this paper a few years ago in explainers about why this particular anecdote cannot be used as evidence of insect decline. See thread below 👇 retractionwatch.com/2026/06/23/a...
retractionwatch.com
A prolific evolutionary biologist caught faking data decades ago notches a new retraction
A study claiming a tenfold decrease in bugs splattered on evolutionary biologist Anders Møller’s windshield over two decades has been retracted. shanecotee / iStock Anders Møller, an influential ev…
25238
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Yale University Press London 📖 @yalebooks.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
This extract from @rossbrooks.co.uk's Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life reveals some of the tensions between the rich complexity of biological reality and the social norms that sought to contain it. yalebooks.co.uk/how-darwin-a... #history #pridemonth #naturalhistory #skystorians
yalebooks.co.uk
How Darwin and Modern Biology Obscured the Queerness Of Evolution - Yale University Press London
This extract from Ross Brooks’ Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life challenges one of the most enduring assumptions in the history of science:
0187
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
kids are running a plant/yard sale this weekend to benefit RDK, one of the most rad orgs around #ROC www.rochesterdeafkitchen.com
rochesterdeafkitchen.com
Rochester Deaf Kitchen
We rescue food that would otherwise go to waste and deliver it directly to Deaf families experiencing hunger – with full communication access in American Sign Language.
010
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
they left the nest yesterday! fledglings hopping around 🥺
010
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Warren Burger's response when a deaf lawyer asked for real-time transcription (at the lawyer's expense) when arguing before the Court (in a case about disability access!).
A memo from the Chambers of the Chief Justice on January 26, 1982, in the case of Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley:

"MEMORANDUM TO THE CONFERENCE.
"We have another 'first' under the attached material.
"Question:  Is this different from a lawyer who can't understand English or who is a deaf mute and who, therefore, needs an 'interpreter' to convey our questions?
"The oral argument is for our benefit.  It is not a right of a party.
"Regards, WEB."
2726663
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
We have recently launched a Visiting Scholar Grant at Rochester to work with the Edward C. Atwater Collection of American Popular Medicine and Health Reform. See attached flyer for details! #histmed #fellowship
The History of Medicine Section in the Edward G. Miner Library at the University of Rochester is pleased to announce its first annual Edward C. Atwater Visiting Scholar Grant for the study of materials in the Edward C. Atwater Collection of American Popular Medicine and Health Reform.
In the autumn of 1994, Edward C. Atwater, M.D. made the Miner Library the repository for his personal collection of books, periodicals, pamphlets, almanacs, trade cards, printed ephemera and manuscript material pertaining to American "popular medicine." Materials in the Atwater Collection represent the full range of medical self-help among Americans throughout the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century. For a full description of the collection and how to search it, visit the History of Medicine’s website.
The Atwater Visiting Scholar Grant provides support to scholars or graduate students to cover the cost of their travel to Rochester, accommodation, and expenses during their time of stay. The award is up to $2,000 for one week of research in any given year.
We welcome applications from all interested researchers currently residing in the United States or Canada, regardless of their institutional association, race, cultural background, ability, sexual orientation, gender, or socioeconomic status. Applications from scholars utilizing traditional methods of archival and bibliographical research are encouraged as are applications from individuals who wish to pursue creative, interdisciplinary, and non-traditional approaches to conducting research using the Edward C. Atwater Collection.

A complete grant application includes:
A research proposal (2 pages, single-spaced, maximum)
Two references
Budget, including proposed dates for research trip
A successful applicant will be expected to share their findings after their visit.
Please submit your proposals and any questions to Anna Smith, Head of History of Medicine Section, anna_smith1@urmc.rochester.edu
02414
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
@slaydok.bsky.social
140
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
good morning to my 4 new housemates (robin parent and 3 nestlings living in the porch rafters)
060
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 02/06/2026
a yellow background bumper sticker with black text reading: Keep Honking! I’m reading Donna Haraway’s germinal 1988 essay, ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’
310223
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
spotted: hummer with 'tr33hggr' plate 🤔
221
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
read @novicsara.bsky.social 's new book 'Mother Tongue's on the sidelines of soccer practice this evening - great book that moves between the personal and the structural! 🙌 www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670270...
210
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
tell me you don't sign or know any signers without saying so 🤪
162
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 29/04/2026
More evidence of how fucking chock-full of eugenics silicon valley iss, has been, and will continue to be if steps aren't taken to name, acknowledge, and dismantle those connections. '“All my fundees have blue eyes.” [Jeffrey] Epstein and the tech world’s dark ideology'
codastory.com
"All my fundees have blue eyes." Epstein and the tech world's dark ideology - Coda Story
The Epstein files reveal beliefs about race, eugenics, and engineering humans that run to the heart of Silicon Valley.
8371155
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
so excited to attend Julia's film premiere today 🎉🥳 - with captions from @aat-transcribes.bsky.social 🙌 - check out the virtual premiere of "Where the Bomb Trains End" on May 4 m.youtube.com/@wherethebom...
m.youtube.com
Where the Bomb Trains End
Where the Bomb Trains End is a documentary made by Julia Resciniti as a part of the Aberg Family Fellowship. She was a fellow during the 2025-2026 academic year at the Rochester Institute of Technolog...
001
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Case Studies in the Environment @casestudenv.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
A case for inclusive climate-disaster communication for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, from Abigail Block and @kstackwhitney.bsky.social doi.org/10.1525/cse....
doi.org
Closing the Preparedness Divide: A Case for Inclusive Climate-Disaster Communication for People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in the United States
Climate-related disasters and extreme weather are becoming more common and severe. People with disabilities experience increased negative consequences from these disasters, largely due to social barri...
032
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
"Brushing off these practices as unscientific implies that 'true' science is, and always has been, unimpeachable. It denies us a chance to examine what flaws may fuel our own ways of thinking." A new mailbag from @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social
contingentmagazine.org
They Thought What?
Unpacking the history (and present) of science
25226
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Come join @civicsoftech.bsky.social's May book club on Wed, May 20, at 7pm ET. I'll be leading a discussion of @fractalecho.bsky.social's Disabling Intelligences: Legacies of Eugenics and How We Are Wrong About AI - and Dr. Williams is joining too! Register at: www.civicsoftechnology.org/book-clubs
The cover of Rua M. Williams' book "Disabling Intelligences: Legacies of Eugenics and How We Are Wrong About AI". The cover image is a spiral of yellowish orange leaves set against a red background.
14820
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 10/04/2026
Getting some thought provoking emails this morning
OBEY THE INSECT GOD
813919
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 24/03/2026
Both the Wall Street Journal and The Information confirming that OpenAI is killing Sora - both the app and *access to its video-generating model for developers*. This is a huge move that suggests things are a bit desperate www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open... www.theinformation.com/articles/ope...
OpenAI is planning to discontinue the app for its Sora video platform, a product it released to great fanfare last year that has since fallen from public view, according to the company.

The move is one of a number of steps OpenAI is taking to refocus on business and coding functions ahead of a potential initial public offering as soon as the fourth quarter of this year.

CEO Sam Altman announced the changes to staff on Tuesday, writing that the company would wind down products that use its video models. In addition to the consumer app, OpenAI is also discontinuing a version of Sora for developers and won’t support video functionality inside ChatGPT, either.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has relinquished direct oversight of the company’s safety and security teams so he can focus on raising capital, supply chains and “building datacenters at unprecedented scale,” he told staff on Tuesday.

At the same time, he said the company had completed the initial development of its next major AI model, codenamed Spud, and would wind down the Sora AI video mobile app, which employees had complained was a drag on the company’s computing resources during a time of heightened competition with foes such as Anthropic and Google.
993570984
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Three years into the AI era, educators say they face a major crisis. Bosses and clients replacing tutoring jobs with AI. Replacing *athletic coaching* with AI. Many students now cannot grasp why they would *not* use AI for schoolwork. And worse. The 5th installment of AI Killed My Job—educators:
bloodinthemachine.com
"If AI is writing the work and AI is reading the work, do we even need to be there at all?" Education workers reveal a growing crisis on campus and off
AI Killed My Job: Educators.
20590261
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
🚨 A new frontier of coordinated disinformation. Fossil fuel industry front groups are using AI platforms to flood clean air regulators with fake public comments—submitted under real residents' names, without their consent. @robbonta.bsky.social www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...
sfchronicle.com
‘This was forged’: Residents deny sending emails pushing Bay Area air policy change
At least 10 people listed as sending letters in favor of an air quality policy change said they have no recollection of doing so and weren’t even aware of the proposal in the Bay Area.
18543359
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
the county is putting public records behind a paywall online, in large part due to bots/scrapers 😕
101
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 11/03/2026
“Overall, the study participants who saw the biased AI text shifted their positions toward those espoused by the AI.”
scientificamerican.com
AI autocomplete doesn’t just change how you write. It changes how you think
AI-powered writing tools are increasingly integrated into our e-mails and phones. Now a new study finds biased AI suggestions can sway users’ beliefs
15417184
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 04/03/2026
Daily reminder that calling ai dead labor and stolen labor is literal.
futurism.com
Grammarly Offering Manuscript Reviews by AI Versions of Recently Deceased Professors
The Grammarly "Expert Review" feature uses AI to provide feedback on papers using the name and work of real professors, dead or alive.
7319122
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
I have said this before, but eliminating programs that teach a lot of students but don’t have many majors is like a restaurant not buying flour in its grocery delivery because people aren’t ordering flour on the menu.
171540435
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
over and over they say it out loud: big ideas for the elite class, and only widget grunts for the working people. ideas are for everybody. art is for everybody. education is for everybody.
216769
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
gallaudet.edu/education/wh...
020
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
foggy rainy afternoon, no blizzard here, alas
A view up grey river from the gorge edge, under a grey sky, fog apparent in the distance upriver. Brown dead leaves on some of the trees in the foreground and across the river. A light snowfall is dusting on top of crunchy old snowy ice from a few weeks ago.
130
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
the closest I've ever felt to an Olympic athlete = Elana Meyers Taylor signing to her kids
media.tenor.com
a man in a yellow shirt is sitting in a chair holding a cup and pointing
Alt: a man (Leonardo DiCaprio ) in a yellow shirt is sitting in a chair holding a cup (beer) and pointing at a screen in recognition. Popular meme gif
130
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Helena Fitzgerald @hellafitzgerald.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
“why do you hate technology” as though “technology” were some discrete entity divorced entirely from the context of what it does and what it creates, rather than a category so broad as to constitute reality itself
291653324
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
A genuinely alarming piece in the NYT about how the developers, scientists and assorted techbros behind "AI companions"/"synthetic care" do not even know or understand the potential harms of the tech they're developing but they're too greedy to stop themselves from developing it.
“Confusion” doesn’t begin to describe our emerging predicament. Seventy-two percent of American teens have turned to A.I. for companionship. A.I. therapists, coaches and lovers are also on the rise. Yet few people realize that some of the frontline technologists building this new world seem deeply ambivalent about what they’re doing. They are so torn, in fact, that some privately admit they don’t plan to use A.I. intimacy tools.

“Zero percent of my emotional needs are met by A.I.,” an executive who ran a team mitigating safety risks at a top lab told me. “I’m in it up to my eyeballs at work, and I’m careful.” Many others said the same thing: Even as they build A.I. tools, they hope they never feel the need to turn to machines for emotional support. As a researcher who develops cutting-edge capabilities for artificial emotion put it, “that would be a dark day.”Developers I spoke to said the same incentives that make bots irresistible can stand in the way of reasonable safeguards, making outright abstention the only sure way to stay safe. Some described feeling stuck between protecting users and raising profits: They support guardrails in theory, but don’t want to compromise the product experience in practice. It’s little wonder the protections that do get built can seem largely symbolic — you have to squint to see the fine-print notice that “ChatGPT can make mistakes” or that Character.AI is “not a real person.” “I’ve seen the way people operate in this space,” said one engineer who worked at a number of tech companies. “They’re here to make money. It’s a business at the end of the day.”But even if companies can curb serious dependence on A.I. companions — an open question — many of the developers I spoke with were troubled by even moderate use of these apps. That’s because people who manage to resist full-blown digital companions can still find themselves hooked on A.I.-mediated love. When machines draft texts, craft vows and tell people how to process their own emotions, every relationship turns into “a throuple,” a founder of a conversational A.I. business said. “We’re all polyamorous now. It’s you, me and the A.I.”
20309130
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
can't find a single *local* #ROC TV or print clip covering this! (plz send if you see one!) more info: www.yahoo.com/entertainmen...
010
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
great performances! (folks who didn't watch the [sadly separate] signed stream may not know that the halftime show was signed in Puerto Rican Sign Language by a Puerto Rican deaf interpreter who tours with Bad Bunny!)
14315
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
👀
012
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Felicity Callard @felicitycallard.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Every morning I wake up with a hollow anger that I have been enrolled, as a university worker, into a long-term objective of “enhancing” AI integration (“where appropriate”) into my undergraduate teaching
2306
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
just finished @thewaroncars.bsky.social 'Life After Cars' - so good, myth-busting and oriented towards action + community building. excited to co-host a book club discussion w/ local walk/bike grp at library next month and dream up next steps for our (car-centric 😭) town
0101
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
how your email finds me (until everything starts up again tmw...)
My glove-clad arm holds a cross country ski pole and the tips of two skis are in the foreground, with a snowy flat trail between trees ahead
1100
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
not exactly a resolution but read a lot of poetry + cut off a foot of hair to welcome in the new year
250
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Rua M. Williams @fractalecho.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
This book is titled “Disabling Intelligences” for many reasons. First, because so-called “AI” is built from historical commitments to the excision of disability from the classification of humanity. link.springer.com/book/10.1007/9…
Rua M Williams's Disabling Intelligences: Legacies of Eugenics and How We are Wrong about AI, publushed by palgrave macmillan, is held in front of rainbow glass. The cover is deep pink with orange vines.
330994
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
kid#2 found a US history book in the little free lib nearby. it seemed ... off from even the first page. looked up the pub-- turns out it's a phonics reader published by a higher ed institution that doesn't allow women to wear pants on campus
130
Kaitlin Stack Whitney @kstackwhitney.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
👀👀👀
030
Reposted by Kaitlin Stack Whitney
Society for the History of the Philosophy of Technology (HPT) @hptsociety.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
OTD in 1950, Judy Wajcman was born. A pioneering sociologist and feminist theorist, Wajcman reshaped the philosophy and sociology of technology by showing how technological systems are deeply entwined with gender, power, and social organization. 1/
56217