Ava Hoffman
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avahoffman.com
Ava Hoffman
@avahoffman.com

Senior Scientist at Fred Hutch Cancer Center.
Genomics, ecology, data science education.
💻🧬🌱🏳️‍🌈 she/her
📍Baltimore, USA

Environmental science 47%
Biology 19%
Pinned
How the heck does scientific funding even work?!? I had a lot of fun on this episode of EIPH 🤓
New ep!!!

How science funding works.

Really liked this one. Science saved your life, now it's time to save science.

www.buzzsprout.com/1801367/epis...
www.buzzsprout.com

“Trustworthy data visualization is a cooperative accomplishment” - Kieran Healy #PositConf2025
"How many of you have opened RStudio, one of the most advanced data science IDEs ever created, to add two numbers?" - Jonathan McPherson at #positconf2025

😆🙋‍♀️

Shoutout to the true mvp of every scientific manuscript: `cowplot::plot_grid()` #rstats

Reposted by Smith, Ava M. Hoffman

“Ebola is never just a virus; it is a mirror."

My latest in @statnews.com on #Ebola in #DRC. I’ve seen its horror firsthand — when every hour counts & fear spreads fast.

Global health defenses are weakening — what starts remote can quickly become a global threat.
www.statnews.com/2025/09/11/e...
Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a warning
“Ebola is never just a virus; it is a mirror,” writes infectious disease physician Krutika Kuppalli.
www.statnews.com

never change, Baltimore

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

That’s a wrap! Thanks for joining us for ACC2025! 🧬💻

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

Uhhhhhhh

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

Really appreciated how @sethf.bsky.social described using AI in the evolution class that we co- teach: “ it’s like paying for a gym membership and then using a forklift to raise and lower your weights.”

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

If you want to try out AnVIL, join the AnVIL Virtual Workshop on Tuesday September 2 from 3-5 pm ET! You'll learn about the platform, how to bring & find data, and use the analysis tools on the platform!

To sign up, create a free AnVIL account and register here! bit.ly/anvil-virtua....
Hey are you looking for a postdoc focusing on microbial
ecology/bioinformatics? Hit me up - it’s not my lab but trying to help someone else staff their lab. If you have a student about to defend, this could be a great chance to get a ton of papers.

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

New ep!!!

How science funding works.

Really liked this one. Science saved your life, now it's time to save science.

www.buzzsprout.com/1801367/epis...
www.buzzsprout.com

💫FREE💫 AnVIL training alert! Look out for the AnVIL 101 workshop if you're brand new.
Register today for ACC2025 -- the meeting is open to students, analysts, PIs, and anything in between!

🔹 Regular ($75): bit.ly/acc2025-register
🔹 Student ($25): bit.ly/acc2025-register-student
🔹 Virtual (Free): bit.ly/acc2025-register-virtually

📍 Learn more: bit.ly/anvil2025

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

Annual pilgrimage to paradise
"Academics tend to be averse to discussing mental health openly, and higher education’s mental health safety net is patchy—a forgotten footnote that all too often fails its students." #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth scim.ag/4m61iaU

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

Register today for ACC2025 -- the meeting is open to students, analysts, PIs, and anything in between!

🔹 Regular ($75): bit.ly/acc2025-register
🔹 Student ($25): bit.ly/acc2025-register-student
🔹 Virtual (Free): bit.ly/acc2025-register-virtually

📍 Learn more: bit.ly/anvil2025

> “To me, it is actually a very leftist issue to de-medicalize the way we treat anxiety and depression,” he says, noting that such illnesses are often caused “by social circumstances, by poverty, by loneliness.”

How about we start with societal stigma around life-saving mental health treatments

Snapchat for depersonalization

Hinge for bedtrash

Come Data Wrangle with me this July! This is one of my favorite classes to teach 🧠 #rstats #datascience
Register by June 10 to take advantage of early bird rates for our 2025 Summer Institutes! Browse course offerings at: si.biostat.washington.edu/courses

heartbreaking.
Our #NSF grant, supporting a fruitful collaboration with the @cissyballen.bsky.social Lab, was terminated, along with over 1,600 others. We describe the impact of this loss in a press release here. datanuggets.org/2025/06/nsf-...

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

It's a politically fraught time to launch a telehealth startup focused on coaching people to *stop* taking antidepressants—but Outro is doing it anyways: www.wired.com/story/taperi...
‘Uber for Getting Off Antidepressants’ Launches in the US
Outro, which is now available in seven states, wants to help people taper off antidepressants without experiencing debilitating side effects.
www.wired.com

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

Our #NSF grant, supporting a fruitful collaboration with the @cissyballen.bsky.social Lab, was terminated, along with over 1,600 others. We describe the impact of this loss in a press release here. datanuggets.org/2025/06/nsf-...

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

Register by June 10 to take advantage of early bird rates for our 2025 Summer Institutes! Browse course offerings at: si.biostat.washington.edu/courses

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

Join us this fall for ACC2025! The AnVIL Community Conference brings together researchers, developers & the cloud genomics community.

🗓️Sept 3–5, 2025
📍Nashville, TN

Highlights:
👥Networking
🎤Talks, Posters, CoFests
💬Community Forum

📩Stay updated: lists.anvilproject.org/lists/acc202...
Info | acc2025@lists.anvilproject.org - lists.anvilproject.org
lists.anvilproject.org

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

👏🏻👏🏻 awesome!!
"Women are PIs on 58% of the canceled grants, although they are PIs on only 34% of all active NSF grants.

Similarly, Blacks are PIs on 17% of the terminated grants, although they make only 4% of the total pool. Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities were twice as likely to lose a grant."
Another scoop from Jeff Mervis (@policyhound.bsky.social): NSF's ~1400 grant terminations have disproportionately affected PIs from groups underrepresented in science: women, racial & ethnic minorities, & those with disabilities. 1/3
www.science.org/content/arti...
Trump officials take steps toward a radically different NSF
Efforts to shrink staff, budget, and focus have alarmed members of Congress
www.science.org

I served on an NIH panel earlier this year. All told, I spent almost an entire work week (38.25 hours) outside my normal work training, writing critiques, and participating in the panel. W/ the stipend, I made $5.23/hr. There's a lot of unpaid labor in science, but this one feels especially icky.

Reposted by Ava M. Hoffman

Exciting News! 🚀 We want to hear from YOU! 📢 Take a moment to share your experience in biomedical data analysis and help shape the future of AnVIL. Complete the State of the AnVIL Community Poll here and enter to win a gift card: bit.ly/sota2025
The State of the AnVIL 2025: Community Poll
Thank you for participating in the State of the AnVIL 2025 Community Poll! The AnVIL is the NHGRI Genomic Data Science Analysis, Visualization, and Informatics Lab-space which provides a unified envir...
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