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Dr. Riley Pizza

@rileypizza.bsky.social
1.7K followers 193 following 214 posts

Postdoc at Arizona State University || Equitable teaching practices & Restoration Seed Sourcing|| PhD Michigan State University || M.S University of Minnesota Duluth || 🏳️‍⚧️They/Them🏳️‍⚧️

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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Build more artificial reefs! This is a super encouraging result, and awesome work to synthesize this data.
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · 27/08/2026
Old-growth grasslands are slow to recover once destroyed. Characteristic plants of such grasslands are shorter and have smaller leaves with less nitrogen than plants in secondary grasslands, which are resource-acquisitive and more competitive. In PNAS: ow.ly/zOl950ZFVFu
A remnant of an old-growth prairie in Ohio. Stock photo.
CREDIT: Jim Palus
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Postdocs are some of the most overexploited people in the academic process, barely making ends meet on 1-yr contracts, expected to produce research at record pace without any job security. But yeah, how DARE we want healthcare and workers rights??? www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...
insidehighered.com
Why Postdoc Unionization Is a Bad Idea (opinion)
Unionization disrupts the bespoke mentor-mentee relationships that are central to the advancement of science.
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Anonymous Potato @anonymouspotato.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
EcoEvoJobs 2026-27 just opened for business and we've already got 79 faculty / permanent jobs listed. Please repost! ecoevojobs.net
ecoevojobs.net
ecoevojobs.net 2026-27
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Good morning bluesky! Helping a friend with their syllabus, does anyone have an example Ai policy that they'd be willing to share?
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Neat opportunity, awesome community! 10/10 would recommend applying!
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Me: checking the manuscript portal every day *aghast* that reviewers have not immediately dropped everything to read my incredible manuscript. Also me: Continuing to ignore the paper I need to peer-review before next week because other things keep capturing my attention. 💀
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Thrilled that the first paper of my postdoc is out now! tl;dr: Do students with disabilities have universal experiences in STEM? Nope. Want more? a🧵on what we found. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
journals.asm.org
Beyond disability: how being twice-marginalized shapes the experiences of STEM undergraduates with disabilities | Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
Although research into the experiences of students with disabilities has expanded in the last decade (1, 2), most studies focus solely on disability status (3) and do not consider how students’ educat...
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
First birthday in five years I didn't spend doing (or planning) field work felt SO weird, but i still managed to find some restored midwest prairies to admire!
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toxicojendron radicans @toxicoradica.northsky.social · 19/06/2026
🌻 gray-headed coneflower 🌿 Ratibida pinnata #nativeplants #ecoregion71
close-up look at a blooming composite flowerhead at the top of a green stem. the disk or cone is egg-shaped, with unopened disk florets looking scaly gray and green along the top of the "egg." around half a dozen rows of florets running up from the bottom of the disk are open; they have brownish maroon tubular corollas with five rolled back lobes. in the center, a column of fused stamens stands tall above the corolla, either deep maroon or black. traces of yellow pollen can be seen at the tips of some of these columns where the floret's style is starting to push its way out through the middle, carrying pollen out with it. along the very bottom of the egg-shaped cone there is a row of over half a dozen bright yellow ray florets which droop angled first out then downwards. below the rays there is a row of lance-shaped green sepals that initially reflex back along the stem, but curve to point outwards at the tip. further back view of gray-headed coneflowers, three out of focus and/or in the background with a shiny gray patch on top of their egg-shaped cones, and one close and in focus on which all of the disk florets are open. as in the previous photo, all of the disks have a very dark column of fused stamens in the center. however, the tubular corollas here are a yellowish green color. all of the flowerheads have dangling bright yellow ray florets. a clump of gray-headed coneflowers growing among scarce grass, brown-green glade moss, bare rocks and gravel, and dry dead wood near a treeline by the edge of a limestone cedar glade. low on their green stems, some of which come up waist high, there are green leaves, deeply lobed like fingers on a hand. at the top of each stem there is a flowerhead with long, hanging, bright yellow rays at the bottom of an egg-shaped cone, some of which are appear rough and brown due to the open disk florets, and others looking scaly and brownish gray as their disks are still buds.
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FrontRangeWildflowers @frwildflowers.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
One year ago today 🌿 Gaillardia pulchella, our Indian Blanket, blooming at Picture Canyon #nativeplants
Red-centered sunflower
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Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 08/06/2026
Local grassland restoration affects insect communities doi.org/10.1111/een.... Local scale grassland in coastal Santa Barbara, CA affects insects communities resulting in less hyper dominance of herbivorous pests like thrips, and higher abundance and possible refuge for native bumblebees
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Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 04/06/2026
HAPPY PRIDE from California Native Plants and the Luong Lab!!! 🤍🩷🩵🤎🖤❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 This 2026 Flag from our lab features 152 california native plants! Did you know California is a Biodiversity hotspot with over 6000 native plants? How many plants can you name or spot? 🧐 #CaliforniaNativePlants
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Jonathan Tonkin @jdtonkin.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
A heartfelt thank you to federal scientists of the USA. The authors of this piece reflect on the massive losses that occurred in 2025 — 10,109 PhDs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and health — either voluntarily or involuntarily. 17% of the workforce gone in a single year!
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Federal scientists, a great American invention: a letter to our federal colleagues
Click on the article title to read more.
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
🚨New paper alert 🚨 In a 13-year experiment in longleaf pine savannas, we tested when passive recovery works, and how active interventions can help it along. 🧵 Read it here: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Active interventions accelerate native plant recolonization following agricultural abandonment
Our results show that combined canopy thinning and prescribed burning can accelerate natural recolonization in savanna systems. However, additional measures (e.g. seed addition) may be needed for wea...
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Lars Brudvig @lars-brudvig.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Congratulations to recent lab alum Aidan Edwards, whose undergraduate research was just published: Prescribed fire and canopy thinning reverse effects of mesophication in fire-suppressed oak savannas www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A four-panel figure. Panel A shows a map of the 15 experimental oak savanna units within the MSU MacCready Reserve. Panel B shows a treatment unit managed with tree thinning and repeated prescribed fire, with savanna structure. Panel C shows a treatment unit managed with repeated prescribed fire, with woodland structure. Panel D shows an unmanaged treatment unit, with brushy forest structure.
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Is the peer review process broken? Yes. Do I also LOVE reviewing papers because it exposes me to the newest findings, up-and-coming junior scientists who I need to follow, and gets me to ACTUALLY read a paper top-to-bottom? Also yes.
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Research for Inclusive STEM Education Center @asurisecenter.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Excited to share our new article in Times Higher Education, written collaboratively with our RISE GenZ researchers, for their instructors. Read it here: www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/dear-...
timeshighereducation.com
Dear educators, Gen Z here. Could you please teach us like it’s 2026?
Learning has changed drastically in the past five years, but teaching practices haven’t caught up. From your students’ perspective, here’s how to adapt
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MSU Plant Resilience Institute @msupri.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
A new paper led by PRI grad student Asia Hightower introduces a powerful computational tool to examine the shape of any leaf across biological, ecological, evolutionary, and developmental scales. #PlantScience #Morphometrics #ComputationalBiology Read the full publication: doi.org/10.1002/aps3...
The image is an announcement for a new publication from the MSU Plant Resilience Institute. At the top, a green banner displays the title "NEW PRI PUBLICATION" in bold white text. Below is the paper title in white over a textured green background: "Procrustean pseudo-landmark methods in Python to measure massive quantities of leaf shape data." There are four circular headshot photos on the left of the PRI authors. To the right is an illustration of the diversity of leaf shapes across all datasets, including the mean leaf for each dataset. Text at the bottom, states: "Hightower et al., Applications in Plant Sciences (2026)" with the logos for Michigan State University and the Plant Resilience Institute underneath.
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Monday Win: reviews are back on my third PhD chapter and they were overall positive! 🥳
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
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Emily Josephs @emjo.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
New work from the lab: Miles @milesroberts.bsky.social tried out machine learning to estimate sweep times to fixation and (spoilers) it didn't really help www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... As always, we'd appreciate any feedback!
biorxiv.org
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Journal of Ecology @journalofecology.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
🍃In a 5-year grassland experiment with >2,000 leaf trait measurements, authors show that fast-growing species destabilize productivity and that trait differences drive species asynchrony in ways that change with species richness 👉️ buff.ly/TTcrmjw
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
OK y'all asking for advice: When i was a little grad student I always had 1 project in development, 1 project being written up, and 1 project in review. Now as a postdoc and finishing up my PhD stuff I have about 3x that many projects in all those stages. How do you stay on top of it all?
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Starting off this week strong with a paper acceptance 👍 Stay tuned for some neat findings about natural recolonization of understory savanna species!
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
This is the reality that trans academics live in. You think the job market is bad for YOU? Imagine what it's like for someone who can't safely work in over half of the country. If you live in one of these red states, your department is missing out on amazing scientists. Science is political.
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Hot tip: When reviewing a paper, please try to be specific about what changes are needed to clarify something, or rectify a problem. Signed, someone who is about to hire a psychic to try and read the mind of reviewer #3 whose signature catchphrase is simply "Needs more detail". 😩
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
I'm doing interviews with students with ADHD and after the interview I told them that I had ADHD and the student was like "I've never seen an ADHD adult be so successful...I guess I really can become a doctor" 🥹🥹🥹 Tell your students about your struggles, I promise it has an impact.
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Jaclyn A. Siegel, PhD @jacasiegel.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Universities you work for love to be like: 💖 ✨ YOU ARE INVITED ✨ 💖 🪩 🕺 to give us money 💃🏼 🪩
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
A student with ADHD forgets to book a testing center appt. and loses their accommodation. A student's anxiety keeps them from sharing accommodations with profs. If using accommodations requires skills make inherently harder by their disability, is the system working? tinyurl.com/yymn8cne
tinyurl.com
Do students need accommodations for their accommodations?
Students with disabilities need accommodations so they can focus on learning. But when accessing those accommodations requires skills they don’t have, is the system really working?
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Research for Inclusive STEM Education Center @asurisecenter.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
🎓 Science instructors — we’d love your help with a research study. If you identify as having depression and teach a large undergraduate science course (50+ students), we’re looking for participants. Interested? Learn more and sign up here lnkd.in/gSa4TeZx Please share with your networks!
Infographic for opportunity to participate in research for faculty that identify as having depression and are (or will be) teaching a class of 50+ science students.
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
They are clearly trying to whip up a moral panic about disability accommodations but this article doesn't include any data on accommodations.
nytimes.com
Colleges See Spike in Students With Disabilities, Including Elite Schools
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
OK y'all--has everyone just given up on providing critical peer reviews? The last two papers I've reviewed I've listed several points of feedback and the other reviewer has just said "no notes looks good 👍" Like, if we're not going to be good reviewers why bother doing it?
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
My advisor is pretty freakin neat y'all! If you teach, or are wondering what the data say about creating inclusive spaces in higher education, the research coming out of the Brownell lab is a great place to go!
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Madeleine Becker @mabscientist.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
it's the AI PRFB now 🙃
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
These are the curves for new and competitive renewal grants. The number of new awards is increasing slightly, but only slightly. 17 out of 25 institutes and centers with funding authority have now made awards. 3/4
A line graph showing the number of new and competitive renewal awards for fiscal years 2021-2026. The curve for fiscal year 2026 is essentially zero on this scale with 121 awards compared to close to 3000 awards to the same date in earlier years.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
These are the curves for non-competitive renewal grants. The curve for fiscal year 2026 is still lagging behind, in part because of the government shutdown and in part because of what appears to be a somewhat lower rate of grant issuance. 2/4
A line graph showing funding curves for all NIH non-competitive renewal awards for fiscal years 2021-2026. The curve for fiscal year 2026 is lagging behind those for previous fiscal years with the rate slightly lower than for previous years.
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Dr Pierre Mariotte @pierremariotte.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
⚠️ New paper out in Nature Ecology & Evolution 🌱 #Grasslands #SoilCarbon @natecoevo.nature.com
doi.org
The global extent of the grassland biome and implications for the terrestrial carbon sink - Nature Ecology & Evolution
By combining satellite observations with ground-based data and expert validation, this analysis demonstrates considerable misestimation of grassland extent and thereby carbon stock estimates in previo...
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Olivia M. Smith @oliviamsmith.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Excited to see continued coverage of our recent article on how American kestrels can improve food safety and reduce crop damage on cherry farms: insideclimatenews.org/news/2201202...
insideclimatenews.org
On Michigan Cherry Farms, Small Falcons Are Improving Food Safety - Inside Climate News
Kestrels are already abundant on local cherry farms, but a new study suggests their presence might lower the risk of food-borne illnesses caused by pathogens from other birds.
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Chhaya Werner, PhD @restoration.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
So excited about this incredible fellowship program designed to empower students interested in tackling issues like climate change, wildfires, and more. Open to all majors, because all perspectives and skillsets are important to engage with these challenges!
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Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · 21/01/2026
Opinion | Gaming the System? Extended Time on Tests Is Often a Waste of Time Extra time on a well-designed college exam rarely benefits anyone. bit.ly/49RKoHP #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky
A photo of an hourglass with mustard yellow-colored sand, signifying time running out, against a dark green background.
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Extra time on exams has become the default accommodation in higher ed—but evidence suggests it often doesn’t help anyone: not students “gaming the system,” and more concerningly, often not students with disabilities either. Read our opinion piece here: url-shortener.me/8R70
insidehighered.com
Extra Time on Tests Is Often Waste of Time (opinion)
Extra time on a well-designed college exam rarely benefits anyone.
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Submitted my very first DBER research paper today!!! So excited for y'all to see the final product (these may be my prettiest figures yet!)
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Dr. K. Lotterhos @drk-lo.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
I'm excited to share memes that my students made this year in my undergraduate #Evolution class #popgen #consgen #evolbiol . "When a batesian mimicry species comes to the party: hello fellow harmful species" "I found on all-encompassing way to define species"
"When a batesian mimicry species comes to the party: hello fellow harmful species" "I found on all-encompassing way to define species" (with desperation "phylogenic" "phenetic" "ecological" "biological" "genetic"
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
#TeamBog
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
Take-home lesson we ALL need to learn: Resistance works and capitulation doesn't!
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Science Magazine @science.org · 03/12/2025
"No one should be made to feel inferior or that they do not belong in science because of their origins." #ScienceWorkingLife scim.ag/48JF6Pg
An illustration of a man standing in water that comes up to his neck surrounded by fish, with text: I dropped out of high school. Now, I’m living my dream as a fish scientist
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Hana Ayoob @hanaayoob.co.uk · 03/12/2025
It’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities and I am currently on a hellish and agonising journey across London to get home. So much of the world is exclusionary & harmful for so many of us. If *you* can create communities, spaces, interactions which can reduce that harm, please do ❤️
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MSU Plant Resilience Institute @msupri.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
PRI is seeking a postdoctoral researcher with strong computational and data science skills to join a project focused on identifying causal environmental drivers of crop resilience and yield. 🧬 Learn more and apply: careers.msu.edu/jobs/researc... #PlantSciJobs #PlantScience
A graphic with a blue background image of computer code and DNA with the Plant Resilience Institute logo in the top left corner. In a green gradient arrow, there is text that says, “Now Hiring: EWAS Postdoctoral Researcher.” In the bottom right corner, there is the MSU PRI logo and the text, “Apply online at careers.msu.edu.”
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Dr. Riley Pizza @rileypizza.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
What is actually more concerning as someone who does research in this field is that NOBODY is talking about the effectiveness of extra testing time for students with disabilities (not here to argue over whether students are *actually* disabled because TBH doesn't really matter to me)
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