Ashleigh Barrett-Young
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ashleighby.bsky.social
Ashleigh Barrett-Young
@ashleighby.bsky.social
190 followers 220 following 23 posts
Psychosocial/structural determinants of health, biomarkers, ageing | Research Fellow on the Dunedin Study, University of Otago | Aotearoa 🇳🇿
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Reposted by Ashleigh Barrett-Young
lcsnz.bsky.social
I'm sure it's totally coincidental that the AoNZ government's changes to the Marsden Fund have been followed by successful applications led by female investigators dropping from 55% to 33%, and successful applications led by Māori investigators dropping from 13% to 5%. 🫠 🧪
Information on the 2025 Marsden Fund round
Information about the number of funded proposals in the 2025 Marsden Fund round broken down by research area and institution, also including gender and ethnicity data
www.royalsociety.org.nz
November 5, 2025 at 9:16 PM
ashleighby.bsky.social
Rewatching Homeland and just realised that the only piece of evidence that they have on the guy (a su1cide video*) wouldn't be enough today because of AI fakeries 🙃

*it's not a spoiler, this series is from years ago, don't @ me
November 2, 2025 at 11:02 PM
ashleighby.bsky.social
💯%, I couldn't agree more!
mehr.nz samuel mehr @mehr.nz · Oct 28
I appear to have spoken to a reporter who took seriously the gravity of NZ's science crisis

does anybody have a newsroom pro subscription so that I can learn what other choice phrases I used on the record?

newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/29/w...
Winner of top science prize blames ‘batshit’ Budget for brain drain
Dr Samuel Mehr says the Government values science, but their ‘idiotic’ approach to funding it will cost them their best and brightest.
newsroom.co.nz
October 28, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by Ashleigh Barrett-Young
mehr.nz
I'm not 100% sure but I think Newsroom may have omitted a 'f*cking' from my phrase "Do these people read the news?"
The Marsden Grant, New Zealand’s flagship discovery science fund, was recently restructured to focus on research with economic potential, and its total was set to decrease by $15m over three years. The Strategic Science Investment Fund decreased by $24m in Budget 2025, the Health Research Fund by $17m and the Catalyst Fund, for international collaboration, by $12m. Money was reallocated towards the new Invest New Zealand agency, aimed at attracting overseas innovation and investment. Since then, the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to a team of researchers who investigated the link between increased technology funding and sustained societal growth, which Mehr said underscored his point. “Do these people read the news? Like, a Nobel Prize was just awarded to people who proved that investing in science is a better mechanism for economic growth – which Luxon ostensibly cares about – than these other kinds of short-term investments,” Mehr said. “We’ve got $55 million, roughly, per year to spend on basic science. And if you open up the news, what you hear about is Chris Luxon spending 320 times that on a single road. It’s just kind of pathetic. “You could change the colour of the signs on that road, and you would spend more than this entire country spends on basic science. That is batshit. It’s just completely insane.” (The road in question was the Northland Corridor, the low end estimate of which was recently revised to $18.2b.)
October 28, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Reposted by Ashleigh Barrett-Young
violetblue.bsky.social
Incredible, important work from the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies:

thespinoff.co.nz/books/25-09-...
‘Poverty in Aotearoa is not accidental’: How our systems deliberately keep people poor
All of this is avoidable – so how do we fix what's broken?
thespinoff.co.nz
September 25, 2025 at 1:08 AM
ashleighby.bsky.social
we👏need👏the👏humanities👏more👏than👏ever
renhistorian.bsky.social Nicholas Scott Baker @renhistorian.bsky.social · Aug 13
“Our system of higher education cannot do these crucial things with leaders who undervalue the humanities, who fail to broaden our approach to the liberal arts beyond the scientistic vision of higher education pioneered in the 19th century.”
www.chronicle.com/article/they...
They’re Killing the Humanities On Purpose
The crisis is not one of resources but of values.
www.chronicle.com
August 13, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Reposted by Ashleigh Barrett-Young
stephenbottomly.bsky.social
July 14, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Reposted by Ashleigh Barrett-Young
universityofotago.bsky.social
Using data from the Dunedin Study's age 45 assessment, researchers in an Otago study, co-led by Dr Ashleigh Barrett-Young, found that blood vessels at the back of the eye can indicate early signs of dementia. 👁️
Read more here: www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroo...
Eye health linked to dementia risk
A new University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka study has found a link between our eye health and dementia.
www.otago.ac.nz
April 10, 2025 at 11:48 PM
ashleighby.bsky.social
I love a weird fish, so it's the Blobfish that's got my vote in the #FishOfTheYear 🐟 they sit on the seafloor and wait for food to climb into their mouths and that's the kind of vibe I aspire to 🐠

Vote here! www.mountainstosea.org.nz/fishoftheyear/
Photo of a blobfish, https://www.mountainstosea.org.nz/fishoftheyear/meet-the-fish, swimming near the seafloor
March 14, 2025 at 2:01 AM
ashleighby.bsky.social
New paper out!🚨

We found that retinal microvasculature (the blood vessels in your eye) was associated with risk of Alzheimer's disease or another dementia. This is another step towards being able to tell your risk of dementia from an eye scan!

1/4 🧪 #HealthPsychology

doi.org/10.1177/1387...
Measures of retinal health successfully capture risk for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias at midlife - Ashleigh Barrett-Young, Aaron Reuben, Avshalom Caspi, Kirsten Cheyne, David Ireland, Jes...
Background Identification of at-risk individuals who would benefit from early intervention for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) is critical as n...
doi.org
March 4, 2025 at 9:45 PM
ashleighby.bsky.social
New PIs! What are your tips, tricks, and tools for setting up a lab?

#academia #WomenInSTEM #science 🧪
March 3, 2025 at 9:12 PM
ashleighby.bsky.social
Is this where academic Twitter has gone? I miss the supportive and helpful vibes of yore!
October 28, 2023 at 12:00 AM