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Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD

@watsonzink.bsky.social
2.6K followers 1.1K following 39 posts

HHMI Hanna Gray Fellow studying sea-to-land transitions in crabs. Functional genomics/transcriptomics/comparative physiology/dev bio. 🇯🇵 self-learner, )’(, T1D. 🦀🏝

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Reposted by Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD
Leah @leah.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
#ScienceSky #CrabSky 🦀 🦀 🦀 The Wizard of Red Devil Vampire Crabs would be a good name for a YA book series.
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Reposted by Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD
Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 16/10/2026
Summary of lots of amazing land crab science 😍🦀🧪
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Tessa Montague @tessamontague.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
I'm very honored that our research was covered by the New York Times! @alexaroblesgil.bsky.social wrote a beautiful piece that captures the science & mystery of cephalopod camouflage: www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/s... I want to emphasize that this project is the result of an incredible team effort...
nytimes.com
How Do Cuttlefish Hide?
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HHMI @hhmi-science.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
How do you rebuild your entire body to survive somewhere new? Land crabs’ ancestors lived entirely in the ocean — #HannaGray Fellow Victoria Watson-Zink wants to understand what genetic toolkit they reached for to evolve new diets, new lungs, & new defenses: bit.ly/3TYux6g.
HHMI Hanna Gray Fellow Victoria Watson-Zink smiles as she looks through a stereo microscope at a lab bench. She wears black nitrile gloves and holds a fine tool beneath the lens, lit by two flexible gooseneck lights. She wears a sage-green blouse and gold hoop earrings. Behind her, shelves hold boxes of lab supplies, and colorful paper cutouts hang along the edge of an upper shelf.
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Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD @watsonzink.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Curious about what I do? Check out this awesome research feature from @hhmi-science.bsky.social touching on several of my projects: the microbial basis of convergent land crab herbivory, land crab transcriptomic responses to desiccation, and my new evo-devo stuff in red devil vampire crabs! 🦀😍
hhmi.org
What Land Crabs Reveal About Evolution’s Repeats | HHMI
HHMI Hanna Gray Fellow Victoria Watson-Zink studies land crabs to understand a bigger question: when animals face the same evolutionary challenge, how many different ways can they solve it?
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
This tiny crab captured by Pedro Valencia of Blackwater Cozumel has me learning about crab life-cycles. Prepare for some vocabulary (& errors)! This is a swimming stage called a 'megalopa'. The furious tail structures moving a mile a minute are 'pleopods' or swimmerets. (📷: pedrovalenciam on IG)
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Graham Coop @gcbias.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT
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Jonathan Eisen @phylogenomics.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
New paper from my lab (first author is Sonia Ghose): www.frontiersin.org/journals/mic... Skin microbiomes of frogs vary among body regions, revealing differences that reflect known patterns of chytrid infection
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Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond. I hope you’ll read and share the piece. stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w...
stanforddaily.com
What DEI threatens isn’t merit. It’s monopoly.
Political science professor Hakeem Jefferson argues for DEI's importance to de-monopolizing universities.
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Graham Coop @gcbias.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
UC Davis is recruiting a Professor & Director for the wonderful Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute (CMSI) @ucdmarinescience.bsky.social . A really great community spanning campus and Bodega marine lab. recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07044
recruit.ucdavis.edu
Professor and Director, Coastal Marine and Sciences Institute
University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!
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Kristian G. Andersen @kgandersen.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
In addition to going through the website, I strongly encourage people to read the letter from Harvard's President, Dr. Garber. We need more scientific institutions to show this level of courage, no matter the risk. In fact, we need *all* institutions to stand up*. www.harvard.edu/president/ne...
harvard.edu
The Promise of American Higher Education
No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue
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Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD @watsonzink.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
This will literally be me in a couple months 😂 Better late than never, I say!
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Emily Jane Foster @emilyjaneart.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Happy Valentine's Day! 🦀🩷 🐡 #invertebrate #crab #ValentinesDay
A photograph of an illustration on Kraft card with a Posca paint pen on top of a green and gold embellished spiral bound planner. The illustration shows a blushing crab with claws outstretched and a little heart. The text reads 'I love you more than this!* *Even when I'm crabby'. Art by Emily Jane Foster.
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franz @franzanth.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Happy Crablentine's Day everyone. Calappa calappa x Phalaenopsis amabilis Coenobita rugosus x Macodes petola Paromola cuvieri x Paphiopedilum sanderianum Allogalathea elegans x Vanda suavis #Art #SciArt
Calappa, a dome-shaped crab in dark color, seen from the front. Behind its body and in front, hiding its claws and most of its face, are phalaenopsis, moth orchids with roughly circular shape, in lighter colors. Black and white drawing.Coenobita, a bright-colored hermit crab barely out of a white round shell, looking adorable. Under and around it are leaves of Macodes jewel orchids, dark leaves with white streaks. Behind it are stalks of flower buds of the plant. Black and white drawing.Paromola, a crab with long legs and spikes all over. The last pair of its legs are small and pointing up like carrying a tray. It's carrying a whole plant of Paphiopedilum slipper orchid in bloom. The four flowers have pitcher-like structures and long ribbony bits that trail very far downwards. Black and white drawing.Four Allogalathea crabs sitting on the petals of a flower. The crabs are shaped like lobsters with folded tail and black and white stripy bodies. The Vanda orchid flower is mostly white with black spots all over. Black and white drawing.
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Katie Langin @klangin.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Dear federal scientists: If you have been affected by the probationary firings and would be willing to speak with Science, please reach out to me by email (klangin@aaas.org) or on Signal. We can guarantee annonymity.
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Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
I usually reserve this account for my personal views; but today I want to represent my position as President of @asn-amnat.bsky.social to post a message that will shortly go out to the membership of the American Society of Naturalists from the ASN Executive Council
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Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
G is for Geosesarma. Popular pets, some species were/are exploited by the aquarium trade before being described. Each has a small range in SE Asia, traversing freshwater and land. They hatch as minicrabs instead of larvae, and the mom keeps them safe for a few weeks! #CrabAZ 🦀🧪🦑
G. dennerle, photo Chris Lukhaup

A purple crab, darker body and legs and bright claws, with bright yellow eyes with pseudopupils. On the "cheeks" are lattice like setae that help keep them wet when they go on land. It's viewed from the front on gravel in an aquarium. G. notophorum, photo Oliver Mengedoht

Close up on the carapace and face of an orange crab. Notably, she has over a dozen translucent BABY CRABS riding on top of the carapace. The baby crabs have eyes. Scale bar 5mm, the mom is maybe 15 mm and the babies about 1 mmG. malayanum, photo Francesco Tomasinelli 

An adorable nepenthiphile crab which is mostly dark purple with claws tipped in red. It is peeking out from the rounded mouth of a carnivorous pitcher plant, which also has spiky leavesG. bau, photo Lars Fehlandt

Bright red crab with dark eyes, on a bright green fernlike leaf. Photo in the wild in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo
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Thomas Wernberg @twernberg.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
📣POSTDOC wanted: We are looking for a marine ecologist to join our #kelp forest team at IMR in Norway 🌊🌿. The position is focused on impacts of harvesting on kelp and kelp forest #biodiversity. Enthusiasm, strong cv and interest in #fieldwork is required. www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...
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Dr. Kat Napaaqtuk❄️ @napaaqtuk.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
🧪🦠 this thread has the letter I wrote to ASM about their removal of IDEAA websites, highlights of Black and other underrepresented scientists, and lack of information about the 2025 ABRCMS meeting in what looks like anticipatory obedience to the new administration. Subquoted thread has related info.
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Chelsey Spriggs @drsprggs.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
ASM did a spotlight article on me last February and it has also been taken down as “under review”. Other spotlight articles are still up so not sure how else to interpret this besides the obvious. It feels pretty crappy to have been singled out and I won’t be engaging with them in the future.
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DEI Virologist @kyt-thatsme.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Ok this is not ok. ASM actively sought out BMA and its members for Juneteenth and Black History month content for the last 4 years. Actively asked for black labor and then takes it down?! @asm.org this is unacceptable. You should be standing up for marginalized microbiologists not erasing them.
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Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD @watsonzink.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
This is absolutely unacceptable.
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Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
This month, fight the horrors with #CrabAZ. B is for Birgus, the largest land invertebrate alive! It is a specialized hermit crab (they live in the ocean with shells when young). This one is about 15 years old, and will be released after 1 year in captivity - they can reach 60 years! 🦀🦑🧪
Coconut crab seen from above. Posterior part of the carapace is so roundCoconut crab seen from the front, looking curious. I am patting its carapace and my hand is smaller than itCoconut crab relaxing and trying to burrow under my crossed legs. I am happy. We're behind the scenes at the aquarium so the backdrop is bins and pipes
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jenn m. jackson @jennmjacksonphd.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
Black people have never needed a government to recognize our traditions and beliefs. #BlackHistoryMonth will proceed as planned.
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 30/01/2025
Apparently all the PhD researchers holding prestigious NSF-funded research fellowships are having their salaries withheld until some unspecified time when the leadership figures out how to eliminate any grant funding that doesn’t align with the president’s political ideology.
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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
To update people on the NSF PRFB situation: despite the court challenge and rescinding the original memo, the NSF has continued to comply with the executive order. They have not communicated with us at all and our paychecks are still canceled indefinitely. I know people who cannot pay their rent.
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Ben Stone @benstemon.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
The ACM$ is still down, and postdocs continue to receive cancelation notices for requests for funding. NSF has seemingly pushed through with their freeze on fund disbursement, even in spite of the court’s challenge and subsequent “unfreeze” announced yesterday.
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Reposted by Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD
Kevin Bird @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
To expand on this, right now ~200 postdoc fellows directly funded by NSF are locked out of their salary &research funds right before the first of the month. No doubt other NSF funded grads &postdocs are affected as well. All requests for funds put in before the freeze are slowly being cancelled
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Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 29/01/2025
Deleted, reposting to clarify: the NSF statement does not define "DEIA", I haven't used that term in the proposal for my current NSF project. I could guess what it means, but that's not my job. I would need to know what specific activities I'm not allowed to do before I change any plans.
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 28/01/2025
I think some people hear “grants” and think that without them, scientists and government workers just have less stuff to play with at work. But grants fund salaries for students, academics, researchers, and people who work in all areas of public service. “Pausing” grants means people don’t eat.
washingtonpost.com
White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion
The Trump administration has put a hold on all federal financial grants and loans, affecting tens of billions of dollars in payments.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @ocasio-cortez.house.gov · 22/01/2025
SHARE WIDELY. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. With mass deportations starting today across the country, it is vitally important - for both citizens and non-citizens - to know your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Assert it. You have the right to a lawyer. Ask for one. (1/3)
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Sheryl Weikal says Prosecute ICE @leftistlawyer.com · 20/01/2025
If you're discriminated against or arrested for being trans in Illinois, I can represent you pro bono. Email me at sheryl@weikallaw.com.
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Glendon Mellow @flyingtrilobite.com · 18/01/2025
Help the SciArt Feed 🐡 reach 20,000 subscribers! The intersection of art & science. No generative AI, no NFTs; a curated Feed of great art by skilled people. 🧡 Please share, pin & like today:
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Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD @watsonzink.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
My husband lost his job today and it is so wild to me how impossible it is for a family to live in N. California on a postdoc’s salary alone. Feeling scared for our future (esp. with baby #2 OTW), and so upset that after all my years of training, I can’t even support my family with what I earn. 💔😔
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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
“women in the largest discipline (BIO) are 23.26% more likely to leave science after 10 years and 39.74% more likely to leave science at the end of the study period…Our data show that with the passage of time, women disappear from science in ever-larger proportions compared to men” 🧪 #AcademicSky 👩🏽‍🔬
biorxiv.org
Leaving Science: Attrition of Biologists in 38 OECD Countries
This study examines biologists leaving science in 38 OECD countries in the past two decades. We use publication metadata from a global bibliometric database (raw Scopus data at the micro-level of indi...
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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
“‘It’s very easy to assume that science is going to change organically towards equality — and what this study shows is that that’s not happening…It is an ‘important reminder for us that we need to stay vigilant in working towards equality in science’” @crsugimoto.bsky.social 🧪 #AcademicSky 👩🏽‍🔬
nature.com
Who’s quitting academia? Data reveal gender gaps in surprising fields
Even in scientific areas in which women are well represented, they are up to 40% more likely than men to leave research within 20 years.
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Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD @watsonzink.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Oof, this. 1000%. I don’t regret our timing for growing our family, but my goodness does it feel like I’m doing this academia thing on super hard mode right now! 🫣🫠 And I thought it was hard before!
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Chris Mah @echinoblog.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
How often do you get to see SCAPHOPOD shells? This one was Dentalium elephantinum, presumably alluding to their tusk like appearance! #molluscmonday! #molluskmonday
tusk like shells with distinct lines along surface, greenish colortusk like shells with distinct lines along surface, greenish color
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Billie Goolsby @bcgoolsby.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
A BIG congrats to Victoria Watson-Zink from our lab and to my friend and collaborator @loranzierogers.bsky.social and all of the other incredible humans on this list!! @hhmi.bsky.social is lucky to have all of you rock star people!
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HHMI @hhmi-science.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
Meet the newly named hashtag#HannaGrayFellows! 👋 “HHMI is committed to investing in scientists who dare to tackle some of the biggest challenges of our lifetime,” said HHMI Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer @leslievosshall.bsky.social
youtu.be
Meet the 2024 HannaGrayFellows!
YouTube video by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
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Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD @watsonzink.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I was selected as one of the 2024 #HannaGrayFellows! 🎉🍾🎊🥳🦀 The support from this fellowship will be transformative for my career, and I am so excited to meet and learn from all the other fellows in my cohort and from previous years!!
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Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD @watsonzink.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I was selected as one of the 2024 #HannaGrayFellows! 🎉🍾🎊🥳🦀 The support from this fellowship will be transformative for my career, and I am so excited to meet and learn from all the other fellows in my cohort and from previous years!!
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Monique S. Mendes, PhD @monique-ja44.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Congratulations to the 2024 #HannaGrayFellows! Excited to see @watsonzink.bsky.social, @sashalfulton.bsky.social & @stevenssostre.bsky.social on the list! 🎉🎉🎉
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Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD @watsonzink.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
If you see this, quote-repost something blue 💙💙💙 Coconut crabs are Earth’s largest terrestrial arthropods! They have an incredible sense of smell, can live for ~60 years, and can crack bone with their claws! I’m finishing a paper on the genetic basis of their fantastic colors, so stay tuned!! 🦀🦑🌊
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Victoria Watson-Zink, PhD @watsonzink.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
So extremely grateful to the selection committee (and thrilled that they enjoyed learning about crabs from me!!), everyone in my academic network that gave me feedback on drafts/practice talks, and my wonderful and supportive husband and daughter!! It takes a village, but we hit it big!!! 🙌🏽🦀🎉
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HHMI @hhmi-science.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
This cohort includes scientists working in research areas ranging from treatment-resistant cancers to sleep dysregulation to how animals evolved to live on land. Read more about HHMI’s Hanna Gray Fellows Program: www.hhmi.org/news/hhmi-na...
hhmi.org
HHMI Names the 2024 Hanna Gray Fellows | HHMI
The cohort includes early career scientists working in research areas ranging from treatment-resistant cancers to how animals evolved to live on land. The HHMI Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program provides e...
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HHMI @hhmi-science.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Today we're thrilled to announce our 2024 #HannaGrayFellows! Please join us in welcoming and celebrating these outstanding early career scientists!
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Aide Macias-Muñoz @aidemm.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Please share! I am hiring a postdoc in Evolutionary Development to join our lab 🧪 🥼 🧬 recruit.ucsc.edu/JPF01855 initial reviews begin Jan 31st (to be adjusted in the ad)
recruit.ucsc.edu
Postdoctoral Scholar in Evolutionary Development
University of California, Santa Cruz is hiring. Apply now!
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Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Since it's both #Crustmas and #FossilFriday, let's talk about the earliest crabs 220-190 million years ago. Unfortunately only 3 fossil species known. Probably their ancestors were not fully crabby, making carcinization more remarkable 🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... @franzanth.bsky.social
Diagnosing the affinities of early stem group crab fossils. Artistic reconstructions by Franz Anthony. 
(A) Potential positions of early fossils following the favored phylogenomic hypothesis. Abbreviations p2, p3 refer to the second and third pereopods. Silhouettes from PhyloPic (phylopic.org), with fossils based on recent publications. 
(B) Artistic reconstruction of partly carcinized Eoprosopon klugi as a facultative scavenger. 
(C) Artistic reconstruction of uncarcinized Platykotta akaina as a dweller of Triassic bivalve reefs.
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