Sign in

Melissa Sands

@msands.bsky.social
1.5K followers 611 following 40 posts

Social scientist and Associate Professor at Cornell University

PostsRepliesMedia
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Kids in 1996: Yay, school’s closed! Let’s play in the SNOW! Kids in 2026: Yay, school’s closed! Let’s play in our HOT homes because it’s too HOT for school to stay open. (Maybe UK schools need to wrap up the school year earlier, like the US, now that summers are properly hot.)
020
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
London in a heat wave: all classrooms in the local *private schools* have *air conditioning* while *state schools* (what Americans call “public”) are having to *close* because it’s too hot.
032
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
“Long Covid is chronic. Masking is iconic.”
050
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Keep an eye out for these fantastic early-career scholars working at the intersection of politics and geography. The future is bright 💫
0100
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Michael Hankinson @hankinson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
In sum, homeowners & renters are “the policy adjacent”—indirect winners & losers of affordable housing. We identify similar groups for other policies (eg, SNAP) & set an agenda for studying the spillover effects of policy on long-term support. Replication: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm... 9/9
dataverse.harvard.edu
051
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Michael Hankinson @hankinson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Our findings present a trade-off. Renters want local priority, but the FHA limits such prioritization due to entrenching segregation. NYC was recently forced to lower local prioritization via court order, but Jersey City is pursuing 100% local priority by using only local funds. 8/9
121
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Michael Hankinson @hankinson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
But the ability of affordable housing to ⬆️ home values may threaten renters, who are unlikely to receive a unit in the project due to long wait lists. The renter backlash to new affordable housing is driven by gentrifying neighborhoods, where housing instability is greatest. 7/9
131
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Michael Hankinson @hankinson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Why do homeowners & renters respond differently? New affordable housing often replaces blight, increasing nearby home values. Homeowners like this. To quote a homeowner who had written to his mayor to try to block a LIHTC development: "If they wanted to build another, more power to them." 6/9
121
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Michael Hankinson @hankinson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
We also find null results using a placebo of the “near-far” design. Results consistently polarize by homeownership status, not other block-level traits (e.g., race). We also conduct a bounding exercise to estimate how much of our effect may be driven by residential sorting rather than persuasion 5/9
121
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Michael Hankinson @hankinson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
But affordable housing may be targeted at the micro-level. So, we compare blocks near housing built from '03-'06 to blocks near housing built from '07-'10. These blocks are equally targetable for housing, but only some are treated prior to the '06 bond. Results are comparable. 4/9
121
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Michael Hankinson @hankinson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Comparing blocks near new affordable housing to blocks slightly farther away, majority homeowner blocks ⬆️ support for the '06 bond by 2 to 3 p.p. In contrast, “renter blocks” ⬇️ support by 1 to 2 p.p. Results are the same if treatment is defined by proximity or # of units. 3/9
121
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Michael Hankinson @hankinson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
In '02 & '06, Californians voted on nearly identical $2+ billion housing bonds. We measure how affordable housing built from '03 through '06 affected support for these bonds at the block-level. Thus, we have pre- & post-treatment behavioral data on how policy implementation ➡️ policy support 2/9
121
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Michael Hankinson @hankinson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Building affordable housing ➡️ support for funding housing. Nearby homeowners ⬆️ support; renters ⬇️ support. Both are “the policy adjacent”—secondhand recipients & drivers of policy feedback. Forthcoming @ajpseditor.bsky.social ( doi.org/10.1111/ajps...) w/ A. Magazinnik & @msands.bsky.social 1/9
24621
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
covid is “a vascular disease masquerading as a respiratory one” www.bmj.com/content/392/...
bmj.com
Why covid-19 is “a vascular disease masquerading as a respiratory one”
Covid-19 is not just a respiratory infection. Cardiovascular symptoms are seen in both acute and long covid. Katharine Lang reports on what we’ve learnt since the onset of the pandemic Cardiovascular...
052
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Hannes Rusch @hannesrusch.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
📢 Call for Hidden Papers & Data on Ingroup Favoritism in Dictator Games We look for unpublished and hard-to-access experimental studies for our meta-analysis! Inclusion criteria: no deception, adults, manipulation of group membership of dictator game recipients. All tips and data very welcome!
1612
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Early career researchers (especially in Europe / UK, but all are welcome): Apply to present your work on the urban/rural divide (very broadly defined!) @ LSE @lseinequalities.bsky.social @lsegovernment.bsky.social
012
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Can Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) extract features of urban neighborhoods from street-view images? New with Paige Bollen (OSU) and @joehigton.bsky.social (NYU): Sometimes, but the models better recover national assessments that local ones, even w/additional prompting (which can make things worse!)
1215
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Sara Hobolt @sarahobolt.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
🚨Job News: Postdoc positions in LSE Government Department 🚨 Apply to work with the brilliant and wonderful Carl Muller-Crepon @carlmc.bsky.social on his BORDERS ERC project at LSE @lsegovernment.bsky.social jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
14332
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Felipe @ftraposo.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
📢 Call for Submissions UK-based early career researchers in political science, political economy & public policy: apply to our January Early Career Workshop at LSE. 🗓️ Deadline: 28 Dec 2025 🔗 forms.gle/HXU4DnBq9HmX...
forms.gle
LSE - Political Economy and Political Science Early Career Workshop
We invite submissions for the LSE Political Economy and Political Science Early Career Workshop. This workshop is designed to support the development of early-career scholars’ research, including PhD,...
12833
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
the case for slower, better/more careful research papers in poli sci gets another data point in its favor
0121
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Daniel de Kadt @dandekadt.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
2. Popper tells us that we should be our own best skeptics. Unfortunately our professional incentives often make us the opposite. As we conduct research, we should all be self-skeptical and self-questioning and self-doubting. We should expose our own thinking and decisions to close examination.
1151
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Daniel de Kadt @dandekadt.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
As I reflect on this, three thoughts: 1. This case is only symptomatic of a bigger problem; increasingly broken incentive structures in our disciplines and industry. Our job is *not* to publish for the sake of publishing. It is to produce and advance *knowledge*. This process is hard and slow.
1232
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Certainly comports w/ my personal experience
010
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Daniel de Kadt @dandekadt.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
Biased as I am, this is a great paper on the limits of current generative AI models for learning about fundamentally subjective assessments (in this case, evaluating features of neighborhoods from photographs).
cambridge.org
Nationally Representative, Locally Misaligned: The Biases of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Neighborhood Perception | Political Analysis | Cambridge Core
Nationally Representative, Locally Misaligned: The Biases of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Neighborhood Perception
1161
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · 07/10/2025
#OpenAccess from @polanalysis.bsky.social - Nationally Representative, Locally Misaligned: The Biases of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Neighborhood Perception - cup.org/3Kw6VkD - Paige Bollen, @joehigton.bsky.social & @msands.bsky.social #FirstView
Logo of Political Analysis on a yellow and red background with the hashtag OpenAccess at the bottom.
011
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Anton Strezhnev @astrezh.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
New working paper! - zikai.li and I look at the problem of assessing pre-trends using one of the "new" DiD methods - fixed effects regression imputation. tl;dr - don't use the same regression you used to impute post-treatment to also impute pre-treatment. osf.io/preprints/so... (1/14)
"Benchmarking parallel trends violations in regression imputation difference-in-differences" https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ngr3d_v1
35716
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Best consumed in it’s entirety in one sitting… like their 1998 album
030
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Excited to share this new project, coauthored w/ @brycejdietrich.bsky.social , a VR extension of our field experiment on racial avoidance on NYC sidewalks.
081
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
PSA: stay👏🏼 home👏🏼when👏🏼you’re👏🏼sick If you can’t stay home, wear a mask. Lots of sickness, including covid, going around. Chances are you have a vulnerable friend, colleague, etc and may not even know it. Do it for them, if not for everyone around who doesn’t want your germs.
010
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
RFK Jr’s ACIP pick, Martin Kulldorff, said one of the most disturbing images from the pandemic was a toddler crying about having to wear a mask. I see toddlers cry about everything all the time, and I found it far more disturbing to see refrigerator trucks full of body bags outside of the hospitals…
Martin Kulldorff & @MartinKu...•9/10/23 S.••
"One of the most disturbing images of the Covid-19 pandemic was when a teacher .. forced a mask on a crying toddler ..
In some ways, the U.S. government.. treated all of us like toddlers, compelling us to endure draconian Covid measures" - @HRaleighspeaks
28384541852
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
In the modern era, even “riots” generate support, not backlash www.cambridge.org/core/service...
American Political Science Review (2019) 113, 4, 1012-1028
doi: 10.1017/S0003055419000340
© American Political Science Association 2019
Can Violent Protest Change Local Policy Support? Evidence from the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Riot RYAN D. ENOS Harvard University
AARON R. KAUFMAN New York University, Abu Dhabi
MELISSA L. SANDS University of California, Merced
iolent protests are dramatic political events, yet we know little about the effect of these events on political behavior. While scholars typically treat violent protests as deliberate acts undertaken in pursuit of specific goals, due to a lack of appropriate data and difficulty in causal identification, there scant evidence of whether riots can actually increase support for these goals. Using geocoded data, we alyze measures of policy support before and after the 1992 Los Angeles riot - one of the mosthigh-profile events of political violence in recent American history — that occurred just prior to an election. Contrary to some expectations from the academic literature and the popular press, we find that the riot caused a marked liberal shift in policy support at the polls. Investigating the sources of this shift, we find that it was likely the result of increased mobilization of both African American and white voters. Remarkably, this mobilization endures over a decade later.
519757
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Daniel de Kadt @dandekadt.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
A close friend of mine sits on the board of Bophelo Daycare in Johannesburg, a place for children with severe disabilities. They're extremely well run & high impact, but have financial difficulties due to low enrolment. We've just sponsored a child from 6 months. If you want to match, please DM.
Info sheet about Bophelo. Check out https://bophelodaycare.co.za/.Check out https://bophelodaycare.co.za/
101
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
…Except for the UK, where Labour wants to discourage international students from coming here www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/b...
nytimes.com
The World Is Wooing U.S. Researchers Shunned by Trump
030
Reposted by Melissa Sands
NIH Fellows United @nihfellowsunited.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
📢FUND DON’T FREEZE!📢 Join researchers and academics in DC on February 19th at 12 PM to stand up for research, education, and jobs! Federal attacks on science and academia put all of our futures at risk - let’s show them we won’t back down! RSVP Here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
412995
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Daniel de Kadt @dandekadt.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
These are great roles -- postdoctoral positions with reasonable teaching load and an excellent research community (seminars every day, pretty much). In general, people in these positions tend to go on to secure good permanent roles afterward.
0129
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
Well, it may be our last Super Bowl under the Philadelphia-founded constitutional order, so let’s do this #FlyEaglesFly 🦅
1114210
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
This year, 10 U.S. billionaires gained $787B in wealth. That's nearly 4X more than the $214B earned annually by all 3.2M U.S. public school teachers combined. In fact, more wealth went to a *single person* than to all teachers combined. Is that fair? This is what extreme wealth costs society.
A table from Bloomberg's Billionaire Index showing top 10 U.S. billionaires ranked by Year-To-Date (YTD) wealth gains. Elon Musk leads with +$245B YTD, followed by Zuckerberg (+$92.6B) and Bezos (+$74.5B). Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
24286158
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Celebrate the holiday by roasting this bird (delete your Twitter account; it feels good 🎉):
media.tenor.com
a twitter logo on a blue background with lines
ALT: a twitter logo on a blue background with lines
1101
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Macartan Humphreys @macartan.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Here’s a starter pack of people doing amazing experimental work on political issues —- please send on names of people here to add go.bsky.app/VgKGKz2
255419
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Dan Goldstein @dggoldst.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
🎇 PhD student internships in Computational Social Science at Microsoft Research NYC 🎇 These are 12 week, in person internships with some combo of Dan Goldstein, Jake Hofman, & David Rothschild Early (January - April) start dates somewhat preferred jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/jo...
jobs.careers.microsoft.com
Search Jobs | Microsoft Careers
02828
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Tomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
going to create a starter pack for researchers studying in-group/out-group dynamics and leave about half the relevant people out of it
2675948
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Maricruz @cruzita.bsky.social · 27/09/2024
If you need some help on writing your job market materials, check out this resource below!
033
Reposted by Melissa Sands
jenn m. jackson @jennmjacksonphd.bsky.social · 30/08/2024
APSA is next week. Political scientists, go get your flu shot and COVID booster BEFORE traveling to Philly. Pack some N95 masks and hand sanitizer. Let's be responsible together!
2122
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Katherine Stiles @katherinestiles.org · 17/04/2024
An analysis by University of Michigan researchers of more than 30 million grading records from U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades. This is due to sequential grading biases and the default order of students' submissions in Canvas. #AcademicSky #EduSky #Bias
phys.org
Researchers find lower grades given to students with surnames that come later in alphabetical order
Knowing your ABCs is essential to academic success, but having a last name starting with A, B or C might also help make the grade.
816697
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Ryan Jablonski @ryanjablonski.bsky.social · 25/03/2024
We're hiring for a post-doctoral fellow in political science. A core part of the role is teaching on a core comparative politics course with amazing folk like @msands.bsky.social @pavisuri.bsky.social (and me!). tinyurl.com/5n743sma #psjobs
11413
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 23/03/2024
Need your help: I’m putting together a lecture on the use of generative AI in politics research. Please share your suggestions, especially where genAI is used in the actual research (ie, not just as a productivity tool), and working papers!
7102
Reposted by Melissa Sands
Pavithra Suryanarayan @pavisuri.bsky.social · 21/09/2023
EuroWEPS VIII is here! We'll meet in Munich on Dec 15 to discuss designs/papers with a focus on causal inference. No presentations, just constructive discussions. Early career scholars are especially welcome to apply! Submission deadline is Oct 10.
13436
Melissa Sands @msands.bsky.social · 21/09/2023
Hello world, hello sky. Hope to see Elon’s ego die. Looking for fellow social scientists, data-wranglers, academic mamas*, live music lovers, and covid-avoiders to follow, especially if you have a sense of humo(u)r.
0120