Monique Smith

It is Faculty interview season, so I created a doc with compiled Chalk Talk advice! Please share widely- this shouldn't be hidden curriculum... there is a recipe for success! I will also share videos of my practice and actual UCSD chalk talk with anyone who wants it! DM me!

Trainees, a tip from the PI side of things: Emails that echo my lab website word for word, or praise a perspective piece as if it reported experiments, read as AI immediately. I get a lot of them and they are interchangeable. I discount these almost immediately. A real email, even if clumsy wins.

Amazing talk today by @valeriagazzola.bsky.social on cross species empathy-like behaviors via neural, cardiac, respiratory and pupillary recordings! Part of a collab with the smith lab! Sort of surreal to be collaborating with this epic duo. @socialbrainlab.bsky.social @s4sn.bsky.social

⏰ Search for datasets ⏰ As part of a planned study on pain-related empathy, we are searching for suitable stimulus material, ideally short video sequences (1–3 seconds) depicting pain-distorted facial expressions 🫤😵‍💫😬

Huge faculty recruitment effort at the University of Chicago -- a division-wide, open-rank search looking to hire about 20 faculty across 5 research areas in biology. Come be our colleague! Full announcement: uchicago.app.box.com/s/ckih9zv3rj...

This whole thread is very motivating and gives me hope- if we can all have this mindset we can make it. Thanks @talialerner.bsky.social

"Too often, first-generation and low-income students are told that hard work is enough. But that message is incomplete. ...The missing piece is someone willing to teach you that second curriculum, if you weren’t among the lucky few to inherit it." www.the74million.org/article/the-...

Look it’s me in @amynahpradhan.bsky.social ‘s endowment talk! What a beautiful and impressive display of work from the charming and funny and brilliant Amynah- I’m am so lucky to call you a friend and to have been trained by you 🩷 congratulations!! This is so deserved

We should fully fund science.

This is so so sad- Howard trained my PhD mentor and I even contacted him to do a postdoc- he was a titan in the field and will be missed!

I’m very sad to share that Howard Fields has died. He made seminal discoveries in pain modulation, placebo, and addiction. He was also a wonderful mentor and friend who taught me how to think about the brain and the joy of scientific discovery. www.iasp-pain.org/publications...

Free and open-source images, icons, and tools for creating scientific illustrations doi.org/10.59350/5zt... 🧪

Welcome to the last half of the US federal fiscal year. Here is where we're at with National Science Foundation--the agency that funds basically everything other than biomedical research at American universities--grant numbers. grant-witness.us/funding_curv...

“0.15% of research worldwide has looked at hormonal contraceptives and how they affect brain health.” — @liisagalea.bsky.social (@camhnews.bsky.social). Even after nearly 70 years and 300M users, we know so little. On the next (MIS)Treated with @namshine.bsky.social and @marsdd.bsky.social.

I believe Jeremy Berg's plots using public NIH Reporter data. jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g...

Nominate your work for this brilliant award for ✨✨preclinical null findings✨✨ www.ecnp.eu/awards/list-...

Excited to share our new study on how the brain generates placebo pain relief! We developed a mouse model that recapitulates key features of human placebo analgesia, then used it to identify causal circuitry. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... today.ucsd.edu/story/neurob... 1/n

So depressing to look at NIMH and NCCIH- NINDS looks a bit better. NIDA also almost at 0.

NIH and NSF Updates (using graphs from grant-witness.us) NIH all awards (New and Non-Competitive Renewal, Type 1 and Type 5, consistent with what is shown on NIH Reporter) The flattening MAY be due to the lack of an OMB apportionment, which has now been remedied. 1/5

A study in Nature Communications suggests that SARS-CoV-2 circulation and vaccination have generated widespread immunity against related sarbecoviruses, creating an immunological barrier to novel sarbecovirus emergence in humans. go.nature.com/4sDW5Kk #medsky 🧪

Another “finalist but not winner” grant today 😑

We spend under $50 billion a year on NIH…

We often think of survival as an individual act. But when facing hardship together, social groups may function more like a unified system than a collection of separate individuals. We are excited to share our latest work @natneuro.nature.com studying collective social dynamics. See: rdcu.be/e8LrV

Beautiful amazing work out today from @tararaam.bsky.social @honglab.bsky.social

Thanks to the Nature team for digging into this. Apportionment is one of those inside-baseball issues that I hoped never to need to learn about... But here was are.

Another case of prioritizing a man’s potential over the safety of women: doctor doesn’t lose license bc he supposedly only raped one woman and he had glowing reviews from colleagues

La lumière, nouvelle méthode antidouleur chez les animaux. It was great to collaborate with Guillaume Sandoz @univcotedazur.bsky.social @cnrsbiologie.bsky.social and other colleagues on this exciting project www.nature.com/articles/s41...

National media should really be covering the fact thay every major school, museum, and arts institution in the Twin Cities, and hundreds of local businesses are closed tomorrow to protest federal occupation. Nothing like this at this scale has happened anywhere in America anytime in living memory.

The NIH also hints at future restrictions on research involving human embryonic stem cells go.nature.com/3YUZfwe

Thirteen of the US NIH’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members go.nature.com/4r6TiIp

Personalized vaccines against cancer, made with mRNA technology, are showing promising results even five years after treatment. Go deep with our recent feature on what might come next for the technique

US federal agencies were gutted in 2025, losing ~20% of their staff relative to 2024.

On a call with NIH PO this morning - I knew NOSIs were no longer a thing, but wasn't aware they now have these "Highlighted Topics". Not clear how it exactly interfaces with funding and/or how you highlight alignment, but good to keep an eye on! grants.nih.gov/funding/find...

Important story from Max Kozlov. Loss without replacement of council members is a serious concerns which could be a huge problem in the future, but this is uncertain.

Is anyone else having incredible angst about whether or not their labs will continue to be able to do science? I submit-revise-resubmit grants and hope upon hope something with get funded so I can continue to have a lab, but I get waves of panic and sadness over the current state of things. 😢🧬🔬

Our latest profile is here! Dr. Zoe Donaldson (@neurozoe.bsky.social) studies the neural circuits that govern social bonding & social loss, and how variations in these circuits shape emotional outcomes. Follow the link to listen! #StoriesOfWiN #WomenInNeuroscience storiesofwin.org/profiles/202...

Two weeks left to apply! MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences is seeking a tenure-track Assistant Professor, working with nonhuman animals in some way. Application deadline is Dec. 1. Full posting: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30586

It’s that time of year for me to dust this thing off and encourage you to apply to be a Leading Edge fellow, this year named in honor of Zara Weinberg

Thrilled to share my PhD work showing dopamine and serotonin form a gas-brake system for reward has won Stanford's Sammy Kuo Paper of the Year Award! I'm at #sfn25 presenting new work that uncovers a key circuit mechanism underlying this opponency. Stop by poster AA3 Monday morning to learn more!

At the pre #SfN @storiesofwin.bsky.social Symposium. Inspiring, entertaining, motivating, and encouraging to hear all these honest stories from these women scientists who truly are making an impact on their environment and science in general.

Congrats to the @thetransmitter.bsky.social Rising Stars of Neuroscience, including our own @drnancypadilla.bsky.social and @megkirch.bsky.social! 🌟 www.thetransmitter.org/early-career...

What an absolute inspiration this morning was!!!! Thankful for all these amazing women in neuroscience

8 high level positions at NIH posted including 6 institute director positions (NIMH, NIGMS, NICHD, NIDCR, NHGRI, NLM). Only open for 2 weeks (applications due November 21). Application materials include a) CV b) vision statement c) a photocopy of doctoral degree. hr.nih.gov/careers/open...

The Leading Edge Fellows gathered this week to celebrate Zara Weinberg, a beloved member of our community. Our 7th cohort of Leading Edge Fellows (2026) will be named in her honor. The Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Cohort application is now open! Due Feb 2. www.leadingedgesymposium.org/apply/

Scientists point to a long list of findings that emerged out of fundamental research, the type of studies the US government is cutting, and went on to change the world. Nature lists a few of their examples. 🧪

The Leading Edge community has been a life-line as I navigate *points to everything*. Zara was such a shining light of wisdom and warmth. She will be sorely missed, but her legacy will continue in everyone who had the utmost privilege to interact with her. Apply, apply, apply!!!!

Truly one of the best. We worked on various initiatives/wrote a paper together, and had the best conference meet ups. She was a bold and tireless advocate for change. Last time we met, we had a great time trying new cuisine and imagining a future that’s so different for trainees than we experienced.