iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 21/09/2026

Eldest son was in middle school honors math in Baltimore public school. Took algebra in 7th grade & geometry in 8th. We expected he'd take calc in HS. Same deal, didn't pass the state exam but the teacher waved concern away. After placement exam had to retake everything in HS, won't get to calc.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 18/09/2026

My play for days like that is black athletic leggings (ones that pass for non-athletic), sports bra, tank top, swingy knee length dress, cardigan. Change shoes and shuck off the dress and it’s game time. Patagonia Black Hole holds everything. Oh wait that’s what I’m wearing now. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 16/09/2026

This is why NIH invented Stadtman fellows. They wanted more Nobel prize winners, and realized their hiring strategy of “we need a person who does X” wasn’t working. An open call for young researchers doing WHATEVER was the answer. Stadtman job talks are always the most interesting!

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 14/09/2026

In biology a PhD is the price of admission now for any kind of job. Commonly PhDs in jobs that used to be for BS/MS folks. I don’t see how you unwind that.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 11/09/2026

I have a cousin who was seeing a guy "from Baltimore" (read in scary voice) and I laughed so hard when I found out he was from Owings Mills.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 30/08/2026

Honestly my first reaction was yellow? But of blue or red I’d choose blue. Mad respect for all those curves!

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 15/08/2026

I dated a guy who had that car (same color and model) with CA plate SHOE CAR

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 04/08/2026

Two of my kids went to a little league adjacent event at OPACY and he was the surprise guest. He was super sweet, did Q&A with the kids. Will always have a soft spot for him.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 20/07/2026

I mean they can’t keep that pothole filled so dodging is basically required if you value your suspension

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 20/07/2026

That’s right by my house and yeah that tracks.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 06/07/2026

I used to teach a course on the molecular bio of aging. The last class every semester I showed a video of Aubrey de Grey. It was interesting to watch him moderate from “ofc people will give up having children for immortality” to “aging is just getting sick, no one wants to get sick!” Still nuts tho

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 06/06/2026

That is my hometown. It is a tiny town. Some of my parents’ best friends lived on Virginia, right next to that intersection. What a tragedy.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 24/05/2026

One of the best gifts you can give your children is modeling an adulthood that is worth looking forward to. Have fun, be interesting. Martyring yourself to your kids is bad for you and them.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 19/05/2026

What no collagen peptides? (I regret getting the vanilla whey, chocolate is so much better)

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 15/05/2026

Fell in love at once, and almost completely.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 14/05/2026

I find the current state so unsatisfactory. I donate to NPR monthly. I get newspaper and magazine access through an Apple One subscription. I pay for one podcast and one newsletter and I consume others at the free level. I still feel like I’m only getting pieces of the puzzle.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 13/05/2026

Generally speaking by whom? The law in Maryland is that 8-yos may be allowed to be unsupervised (for limited time in daylight hours).

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 13/05/2026

Not talking about neglecting preschoolers here but admitting that requires that modicum of intellectual honesty.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 13/05/2026

Honestly if we are “under babied” this is part of the reason. I have four kids. Two parents cannot handle the logistics unless you let them have some autonomy.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 13/05/2026

I observe a class divide around this. I live in a black and brown neighborhood in Baltimore. Kids are out playing in the neighborhood here. I work in Bethesda. Coworkers’ kids are programmed to the minute. Kid supervision is a big business. (camps all summer!)

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 05/05/2026

I work at NIH. When they were having those afternoon pandemic White House press updates, I remember watching Fauci at the press update from my desk at work. Soon after I was walking to the metro stop to go home for the evening and ran into Fauci coming back onto campus. He is relentless.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 22/04/2026

Five months pre defense I was convinced I would not make it. A few things got me over the finish line. 1. Therapist said: "at the stage where you are, the sole requirement to finish is the will to do it" 2. Walking. Sunshine and exercise 3. Working in the library. Change of scene, NOT lab

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 24/03/2026

Yes. Half the restrooms in my building have been out of service since the beginning of the year. We have drums and buckets permanently stationed everywhere to manage ceiling leaks. Actually fixing them seems impossible.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 19/03/2026

For frying the Lodge Blacklock. Cast iron but you can lift it one-handed. Beautifully non-stick once seasoned, but they will try to tell you it comes seasoned and that’s a dirty lie.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 17/03/2026

In Elkton, VA fourth grade was Monticello and fifth grade was DC. Our DC trip was canceled because we had just bombed Libya and the school feared terrorist reprisals in DC. 🙄

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 08/03/2026

My hottest of takes: DST is good, actually.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 08/03/2026

I grew up in rural area, in a nominally Methodist church that always had an evangelical flavor. They recently disaffiliated over gay marriage.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 07/03/2026

The Incredibles. Completely different movie after I had kids. I get choked up just thinking about the mom when the plane is crashing. Also the moment where she is checking herself out in the mirror. I know that dismay!

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 19/02/2026

Do you work in my building?!?

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 16/02/2026

When I rode horses I had a coach who also coached modern pentathlon. He said early Olympics were basically teams of military officers showing off, thus the running/shooting/swimming/fencing/equestrian-show-jumping event

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 07/02/2026

I once had grapes that tasted like grape flavor. They were giant, like the size of a ping pong ball. A coworker bought them at a farm stand while traveling and brought them to work. Apparently one of those things you don’t see in grocery stores because they don’t survive shipping very well.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 06/02/2026

Yeah I got cocky yesterday, hit some slush and gave myself a scare. Not a fan.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 06/02/2026

5:20 am there's no traffic, I've just been going down St. Paul.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 06/02/2026

But for real is it usable now? Specifically Penn Station as far as 27th. I have been taking crazy routes home. In the immediate aftermath going up Charles was kind of ok but then traffic picked up. Also, clearing the path through the North Avenue school building parking lot would be awesome.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 31/01/2026

I used to teach a Molecular Biology of Aging course. The last class session I’d play a video of this creep and we’d discuss. He kind of moderated from total looney toons to sane sounding if you didn’t know anything about aging. By then my class knew something about aging though.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 26/01/2026

Yeah, I normally bike to the train station and I am pretty hardy about the weather but not THAT hardy.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 20/01/2026

Best of luck! I dream of a job in Baltimore also!

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 05/01/2026

We tried a Catholic megachurch for a while. It was weird. Mass is mass; you can't mess with it. So they moved the homily to after the end of the mass and it was given by a layperson. The priest was almost a figurehead. Didn't care for it. We ended up in a traditional parish.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 28/12/2025

I am in science so conventions may differ but I expect the centrality of the research question will remain paramount

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 28/12/2025

Structure is: -rationale: why study this thing? Why care? -what is known? -what is unknown? I.e. the question you intend to answer -what is the bridge from the known to the unknown: your research method -why are you uniquely positioned to build this bridge? -how will output move rationale forward

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 11/12/2025

I think about the English evolution of the verb “to check” in “checks and balances”. Modern speakers think of “to check” first in the sense of “verification”, instead of “to stop forcibly” or “to restrain”. People who used horses daily would certainly think of a check as a strong restraint.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 04/12/2025

Every time I see rails peeking through the asphalt I want to cry.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 02/12/2025

Had the smug feeling of reading the MARC alerts while comfortably riding my on-time train 407. (Don't worry they got me yesterday with a delay, I was due some luck.)

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 30/11/2025

I get that he’s disputing a specific definition of a scaffold but that is semantics? And it mostly seems like a personal beef tbh.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 30/11/2025

I don’t have enough experience with Hyman’s papers to know whether they are being represented fairly, but dude comes across as a crank, and as someone who works in ALT my understanding of PML as the scaffold of PML bodies in the way that coilin scaffolds Cajal bodies is kind of essential?

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 23/11/2025

Somebody there loves Christmas I think that tree stays up well into the new year.

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 20/11/2025

My rule of thumb is only one weasel word per sentence. (May OR Possible, not both!)

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Sarah Clatterbuck Soper @segv.com · 20/11/2025

Hey. From a random fellow Fed stranger on the internet, remember that depression lies. Things are legitimately scary, but it’s the FUCKING DARK that is telling you that nothing will ever be good again. Solstice is a month away. The light will return. Please keep posting, you have a fan in me.

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