Stephanie M. Lee

Hi! I'm at The Chronicle of Higher Education, where I write about debates and interesting people in the world of academic research. I used to be an investigative science reporter at BuzzFeed News. My latest story: www.chronicle.com/article/jona... I'm always looking for ideas — DM/email me!

“We are trying to deliver you the raw stuff of democracy. If a company allows their own greedy interests to shape that, then that’s a problem for democracy.” @danvergano.bsky.social and others at Scientific American on their fight against corporate interference. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Now @sciencewriting.bsky.social, we remember our mighty colleague Helen Branswell. With remembrances from @stephaniemlee.bsky.social @martinenserink.bsky.social @usha.bsky.social @kakape.bsky.social @edyong209.bsky.social casw.org/news/cohn-pr...

this is devastating -- @helenbranswell.bsky.social was an absolute legend.

NEW: I talked to Joseph Henrich about why he wanted to tackle the issue of politicization in anthropology for the Vanderbilt humanities commission, what he found out, and what he thought of my Q&A with the head of the American Anthropological Association. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

EXCLUSIVE: A book out next week from the Smithsonian claims to settle the debate about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. But at the eleventh hour, a Hemings relative who gave DNA to the study has dropped out. Her worry: the science in the book hasn't been vetted. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

The Smithsonian Used Her DNA. And Lost Her Trust. www.chronicle.com/article/the-... Why Sally Hemings’s oldest descendant is sounding the alarm about a new book on Thomas Jefferson.

Colada[139] Artificial Deadlines Part 2 Evidence of fraud in the 25 year old gradesheet behind the key finding in an influential paper on deadlines and procrastination. datacolada.org/139

Feeling very honored and grateful today. Some of the journalists whose work I admire most have received this prize in the past and at a time when journalism is under threat in so many ways it’s just really heartening to be recognized by people who care deeply about journalism.

An influential paper by Ariely & Wertenbroch (2002) reported two studies with tampered data. Post 1 of 2. datacolada.org/138

The debate over Ghent University’s handling of Nathan Cofnas has expanded beyond the merits of his accusations about Arday. It's become a proxy battle about whose viewpoint deserves protection. www.chronicle.com/article/shou...

Finally, this has gone a bit under the radar, so I want to highlight it: The social, behavioral and economic sciences directorate (SBE) has simply ceased to deliver grants to many of its subareas. Any topic not specifically OK'd by the Trump administration is receiving zero new awards.

SCOOP: 404 Media placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it. What did we find? It ended up at an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books. Yes. This is literally the logo outside the Amazon warehouse door. Read now:

Breaking news: FDA investigators traveled to Taylor Farms’ operation in Mexico for the first time this week to start inspecting the facilities linked to the largest cyclospora outbreak in the U.S., according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Sociologist Jason Arday has resigned from Cambridge University after being accused of rampant fraud. Now his very inspiring memoir is about to come out from Simon & Schuster, and it's already an Editor's Pick on Amazon. Something very weird is going on: www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

This is the best piece I have seen about Howard dropping 500 students from its incoming class due to not making sufficient payments. It's a complicated situation for students and the university alike, and Parent PLUS loan limits are a contributing factor.

I wrote about the 'Compact 2.0' that the government offered yesterday: www.chronicle.com/article/for-.... I got: • A Dept. of Ed official to talk about goals ("radical reform") • AAU's president to respond to reports that AAU collaborated with the Trump administration on this Hope you'll read!

"What we did not anticipate was that the organization would apparently interpret 'policing their literature' as involving actual police to prevent people from reading opinion pieces." "We once praised the American Diabetes Association’s courage. How things have changed." In @statnews.com

New paper (led by Xiangji Ying) showing LLMs can achieve high accuracy in detecting changes in outcomes across registrations versions. Thrilled to have been a small part of this great work. Check it out below!

Scoop: DeSantisworld went all-out to install UF’s new president—including privately threatening to Chris Rufo and tapping Nick Saban to rein in White House critics. Here’s how the GOP governor clashed with the conservative reform movement he helped build: www.chronicle.com/article/flor...

A couple paid more than $800,000 for a gene-editing therapy for their daughter. She died, and it wasn’t made public. An exclusive from us and @science.org.

Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California admitted that they used keywords related to diversity to screen for projects. It’s an admission that lawyers for the researchers say is proof the agencies illegally cancelled nearly $2b in grants.

EXCLUSIVE: Internal CDC emails + meeting notes reveal how Dr. Jay Bhattacharya ordered 1AM Friday detention of over a dozen U.S. citizens returning from DRC + considered low Ebola risk, sparking chaos and concern at CDC. My latest for Rolling Stone: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

One of my favorite stories I wrote as a science reporter at BuzzFeed News was about CrossFit's crusade against scientific misconduct. It is now in a BOOK, out today! Thank you @theopennotebook.bsky.social for including me among so many outstanding journalists! www.theopennotebook.com/the-best-sci...

“Do you have a conscious mind?” a mother once asked her Amazon Echo. “I think, therefore I—probably am something,” it replied. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/SldlHS

New from me: The University of Houston is proposing cutting 100 courses from its core curriculum to comply with SB 37, but faculty critics say the university's interpreting the law "in ways that go well beyond" what its text says. #HigherEd #AcademicSky

I wrote about Texas A&M's fall course-review process @chronicle.com. Some top-line results: Rhetoric and Film? OK, as long as discussion of critical race theory is removed. Contemporary Sociological Theory? Don't advocate while teaching. LGBTQ Literatures? Not allowed. #HigherEd

The Trump administration has proposed giving itself broad discretion to terminate grants if political appointees find that the work does not align with the administration’s priorities. "Every scientist can understand the threat that this poses." www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

"CrossFit's 'Holy War': The Rise and Fall of Its Science Crusader" by @stephaniemlee.bsky.social, first in @buzzfeed.com News, is featured in our new book alongside annotations by @elaberwarren.bsky.social. Pre-order: www.theopennotebook.com/the-best-sci...

New Q&A: Is anthropology hopelessly politicized, more than any other humanistic field? That's the charge that's been flying around this summer, so I wanted to hear from Carolyn Rouse, the president of the American Anthropological Association. She had a lot to say. www.chronicle.com/article/is-a...

howard bunsis has accused dozens of universities of falsely claiming financial precarity to justify cutting budgets. administrators accuse him of just telling professors what they want to hear. @mzahneis.bsky.social and i dug into the disagreement www.theassemblync.com/news/educati...

“We expect doctors to disclose, we expect politicians to disclose, and of course scientists and researchers too. Why not philosophers?” www.science.org/content/arti...

NEW: Should scholars be activists? My latest @chronicle.com story is on the debate fracturing the American Sociological Association, as told through one professor's effort to chart a path forward. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

My colleague @ngluckman.bsky.social and I wrote a profile of Jennifer Mnookin, the incoming president of Columbia University. Fairly or not, Columbia has become a chaotic poster child for everything wrong with higher ed. Can Mnookin repair the community, and how? www.chronicle.com/article/can-...

NEW: This is the story of how one of the most influential climate papers in history came to exist thanks to one of the companies most responsible for causing the climate crisis — and one with a financial stake in the technologies described in the paper. w/ @drilledmedia.bsky.social

The university began a review after Santiago Slabodsky, director of Hofstra's Jewish-studies program, filed a complaint arguing that a political-science professor violated Title VII by allegedly describing his explanations of academic proposals as “word salad.” www.chronicle.com/article/a-fa...

Inside the Report That’s Divided the Academy: K. Anthony Appiah, Paul Boghossian, Katherine Fleming, and Sean Wilentz on what’s gone wrong in the humanities. www.chronicle.com/article/insi...

Has the left ruined the humanities? In a provocative report commissioned by two university chancellors, a group of scholars study that question and find “a deterioration in scholarly standards” in some fields. First on @chronicle.com from me & @andyandy.bsky.social www.chronicle.com/article/has-...

Tough times at The New School, which just handed layoff notices to about 15% of its employees to address a $48 million deficit — on top of a 7% workforce reduction via buyouts. It's also restructuring four colleges into two in a major reorg. #HigherEd #AcademicSky www.chronicle.com/article/its-...

American Heart Association decries OMB proposal of federal financial grant oversight regs “The Heart Association opposes efforts that undermine science or weaken independent, expert review" newsroom.heart.org/news/strong-... see www.scientificamerican.com/article/whit...

New Businessweek feature: A landmark case was unearthing new revelations about Amazon's intimate, intensive regulation of drivers it claims aren't its employees. Then Trump put Amazon's former lawyer in charge www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... Based on 1000s of pages of records and 50+ interviews

“We fell off the cliff,” said Mina Aganagic, a professor of math and physics at Berkeley. In order to avoid losing a large portion of her Calculus 1 classes, she says, “I had to teach basic algebra and fractions, which we never had to do before.” www.chronicle.com/article/test...

The stories behind the numbers: highly reviewed grants are being left unfunded, reducing America's medical research portfolio in the near-term and risking the loss of creative and capable researchers at all stages of careers. Fiscal cliffs are coming if not already here. 👇

NEW: They Got the Best NIH Scores of Their Careers. A Year Later, They Still Don’t Have Funding. As the NIH bankrolls new research at a significantly slower-than-usual pace, I talked to scientists left in the lurch about the toll on their research and careers: www.chronicle.com/article/they...

NEW: They Got the Best NIH Scores of Their Careers. A Year Later, They Still Don’t Have Funding. As the NIH bankrolls new research at a significantly slower-than-usual pace, I talked to scientists left in the lurch about the toll on their research and careers: www.chronicle.com/article/they...

@jackstripling.bsky.social interviews Dan Ariely about his years-long correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein www.chronicle.com/podcast/coll...

Interesting write-up by @stephaniemlee.bsky.social in the Chronicle of Higher Ed @chronicle.com on the emerging research infrastructure in academia around the study of antisemitism, and some of the controversies and divisions around it