In Academia, people aren’t always supported when they need it. I want to share what @WesternU did when my husband died right after the pandemic shutdown. It should be shared with other uni’s as a model for empathy and proactive care when someone is in crisis.
1/
#AcademicChatter

Wonder why your Ph.D./Master's application is being rejected?

Here are some insider reasons (from a committee member) that result in such "Love Letters" 👇

- A Short Thread

1) First, you should know that sometimes, an independent reviewer is required (especially in the US) to review applications even after PIs must have selected their candidates. So, even if any bias slips through the PI, the independent reviewer will pick it up.

2) Having said this, there are three major issues that application reviewers/committees often find with your application. These three components make your applications almost challenging to assess.

3) NUMBER ONE - Incomplete Applications

This occurs when you do not upload the requested documents needed to evaluate your file. Think of a candidate that did not send a GRE score when the institution clearly requires it for admission.

4) NUMBER TWO - Error laden Essays

This is particularly interesting because based on reports from this resource person, it is not particularly about how little your experience is but how you communicate it error-free or at least extensively minimized. This gives headache!

Extremely excited today to reveal the first of two great works (magnus opera?), just posted on bioarxiv, applying regulatory network analysis techniques to PDAC expression data to dissect the underlying biology of the disease. Tweetorial time! 1/

Eight years ago I launched an enduring collaboration with Andrea Califano @ColumbiaCancer to apply his regulatory network analysis techniques to #pancreaticcancer. So many amazing scientists have contributed to this work: @paslaise @hc_maurer @AlvaroCurielGa1 @ElyadaEla 2/

What is “regulatory network analysis”? At it's heart, it's a way of extracting more useful information from expression profiles. A fundamental flaw of differential gene expression (DGE) analysis is the assumption that each gene is independent. Biologist KNOW this is not true! 3/

DGE treats all ~25K detectable genes as SEPARATE variables, performs 25K T-tests, and then slaps on a multiple hypothesis correction to make the statisticians less dyspeptic. There is no consideration of the relationships between genes! 4/

Yet we KNOW genes are co-regulated in SETS by transcription factors and other REGULATORY FACTORS. Biologist: “p21 is a target of p53”. DGE: “Shhhh”. These relationships are completely ignored by expression analysis. THIS IS A TRAVESTY! 5/

Thread for folks looking for roles in biopharma VC. Nearly every week I speak to someone who wants to get into biopharma VC. One high-level theme: even for entry roles, you *generally* need to check the box “understands science” as well as the box “can do basic financial... 1/9

Colleagues, we need to talk about the damage that endless zooming can do. Every day I see new opportunities to join in this or that online discussion or conference, and each invitation is becoming a burden 1/... #AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter

For many of us, online conferencing is the main form of contact we have with others. But it's a stripped down form of contact which demands a particular focus and concentration. Colleagues tell me every day that it's more intense, and thus tiring, than IRL interaction 2/...

Communication is attenuated because many of the usual social and symbolic cues that tell us where we are, what our role is, how to interact and respond, are missing. This is especially awful if our interlocutors have their cameras switched off and we're talking into a void 3/...

But we also lose the rest and reset time between events. Instead of those precious minutes on a train to read, or a brisk walk between venues, even just a chat around the coffee pot, we are increasingly leaving one meeting to log on to another 4/...

We do so with no other backdrop than our own four walls, in one chair, glued to a screen, unable to reach out. Our symbolic and social worlds have shrunk. @PostEurope told me it's a form of torture, but that's literally true: a stress position we maintain for days 5/...

I recently submitted my PhD dissertation titled "Illiberalism Beyond Borders. Dissecting Russian and Turkish External Influence in Bosnia and Georgia" at @FU_Berlin. Interested in what I found? Read this thread ⬇️

To begin with, I hypothesise that illiberal external influence (IEX) is more likely to contribute to the contestation of #democracy in a given polity when it appears in the context of a favorable domestic environment and the absence of liberal external counterpressure.

I particularly scrutinise the role of domestic elites in facilitating/obstructing IEX, based on findings by J. Tolstrup, @otansey, R. Vanderhill et al. I also look at how liberal ext. counterpressure can help prevent a major contribution of IEX to the contestation of #democracy.

Between 2016-2018, I conducted 95 interviews in #Tbilisi, #Moscow, #Sarajevo & #BanjaLuka (thx to all interlocutors!). Given the increasingly unfree environment in Turkey, I didn't dare to make a trip to Ankara, but talked to local experts about Turkish IEX in BiH & Georgia.

In #Bosnia, #Ankara has engaged in illiberal sponsorship of the Party of Democratic Action for many years. However, in both Bosnia and #Georgia, Ankara mostly exerted illiberal external influence after the 2016 coup attempt, following which it exerted pressure on the rule of law.