Fernanda Ferreira
@fernandaedi.bsky.social
Psycholinguist @UCDavis. Made in Portugal, raised in Canada, living in California. Author of "Psycholinguistics: A Very Short Introduction" from Oxford University Press, coming out January 23, 2025.
Pinned
With lots of new people and followers, thought I’d give my bio:
I’m 2-times an immigrant (🇵🇹—>🇨🇦, 🇨🇦—>🇺🇸), grew up in Winnipeg, 1st-gen. I’m a prof at UCDavis where I study language processing and teach amazing students. Love progressive politics, science, commuter cycling, running, and Jane Austen.
I’m 2-times an immigrant (🇵🇹—>🇨🇦, 🇨🇦—>🇺🇸), grew up in Winnipeg, 1st-gen. I’m a prof at UCDavis where I study language processing and teach amazing students. Love progressive politics, science, commuter cycling, running, and Jane Austen.
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
Over on threads someone just use ai;dr and we all need to adopt that right quick
February 11, 2026 at 7:56 PM
Over on threads someone just use ai;dr and we all need to adopt that right quick
From the paper: "Overall, broad claims of generalized learning gains resulting from AI/LLMs appear premature; the current evidence is insufficient to support robust policy or practice recommendations."
Universities (including mine), take note.
Universities (including mine), take note.
New: "Effect of Artificial Intelligence on Learning: A Meta-Meta-Analysis" by Wagenmakers and colleagues revealing evidence for "severe publication bias and extreme between-study heterogeneity" in existing meta-analyses of the effects of AI on learning: osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
February 10, 2026 at 9:25 PM
From the paper: "Overall, broad claims of generalized learning gains resulting from AI/LLMs appear premature; the current evidence is insufficient to support robust policy or practice recommendations."
Universities (including mine), take note.
Universities (including mine), take note.
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
had a fun chat w/ @samcorbin.bsky.social about language change! she cut out i think fully 45 minutes where we just talked about Mean Girls (2004) but blessedly kept in the fun pronoun stuff
Why Kids Are Starting to Sound Like Their Grandparents
www.nytimes.com
February 9, 2026 at 5:41 PM
had a fun chat w/ @samcorbin.bsky.social about language change! she cut out i think fully 45 minutes where we just talked about Mean Girls (2004) but blessedly kept in the fun pronoun stuff
A "don't panic" message is a sure sign it's time to panic
February 9, 2026 at 9:36 PM
A "don't panic" message is a sure sign it's time to panic
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
Fun news! @gcbias.bsky.social and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!
Davis Summer Population Genomics Program
Want to learn population genetics? Please fill out this form to indicate your potential interest in a 2-week intensive online summer population genetics course taught by Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and Graham...
docs.google.com
February 9, 2026 at 6:24 PM
Fun news! @gcbias.bsky.social and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
U.K. might lose a prime minister because a guy who worked for him knew another guy who hung out with Epstein. Meanwhile the U.S. opposition party is telling our President, who was Epstein's best friend, that his secret police should get better training so their public street murders look less messy.
February 9, 2026 at 4:07 PM
U.K. might lose a prime minister because a guy who worked for him knew another guy who hung out with Epstein. Meanwhile the U.S. opposition party is telling our President, who was Epstein's best friend, that his secret police should get better training so their public street murders look less messy.
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue
#Pinks #ProudBlue
February 5, 2026 at 11:50 AM
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue
#Pinks #ProudBlue
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
I think it's best for everyone to understand that the unified class project of billionaires right now is to do to white collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue collar workers.
February 4, 2026 at 7:41 PM
I think it's best for everyone to understand that the unified class project of billionaires right now is to do to white collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue collar workers.
“Democracy dies in darkness” turns out to have been a goal, not a warning.
February 4, 2026 at 3:55 PM
“Democracy dies in darkness” turns out to have been a goal, not a warning.
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
one thing the trump era has made clear, i think, is that the american people themselves are far more committed to the values of our founding documents than our elites
February 4, 2026 at 4:07 AM
one thing the trump era has made clear, i think, is that the american people themselves are far more committed to the values of our founding documents than our elites
Yes, and institutional norms nourish this mindset: promotion cases based on grant $ brought in, tussles over space because square footage —> prestige, assumption that more lab trainees (esp if supported on grants) means more and better science getting done. It’s a toxic culture.
The thing that a lot of these guys have in common is that for them science is about personal brand-building and advancement of the self. Their norms serve their status competition, not a greater good.
Academics vying for a spot in Epstein‘s world. There are so many. I feel the need to make a thread, so I don’t keep confusing them. 1/
February 3, 2026 at 4:21 PM
Yes, and institutional norms nourish this mindset: promotion cases based on grant $ brought in, tussles over space because square footage —> prestige, assumption that more lab trainees (esp if supported on grants) means more and better science getting done. It’s a toxic culture.
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
Hats off to the great Anne "I don't do fancy" Treisman!
I was curious about the fact that there were seemingly no women scientists mentioned, even of equivalent caliber, and came across what is, seemingly, beef between Epstein and Brockman debating whether "the women are all weak" or not
February 1, 2026 at 9:55 PM
Hats off to the great Anne "I don't do fancy" Treisman!
Print this on a banner and place it at the entrance of every college, university, and research institute.
You don't have to dirty your soul to be a successful academic or a scientist. Have some fucking pride. Have some fucking principles.
If you think you DO need to do that, all I can say is that I beg you not to go into academia or science.
If you think you DO need to do that, all I can say is that I beg you not to go into academia or science.
February 1, 2026 at 3:58 PM
Print this on a banner and place it at the entrance of every college, university, and research institute.
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
As more academic names keep coming up in the Epstein files, I keep thinking about this NYT interview with the Bard president from a few years ago, and wondering how many people were rationalizing in similar ways.
www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/u...
www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/u...
February 1, 2026 at 12:17 AM
As more academic names keep coming up in the Epstein files, I keep thinking about this NYT interview with the Bard president from a few years ago, and wondering how many people were rationalizing in similar ways.
www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/u...
www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/u...
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
You don't have to dirty your soul to be a successful academic or a scientist. Have some fucking pride. Have some fucking principles.
If you think you DO need to do that, all I can say is that I beg you not to go into academia or science.
If you think you DO need to do that, all I can say is that I beg you not to go into academia or science.
February 1, 2026 at 2:29 AM
You don't have to dirty your soul to be a successful academic or a scientist. Have some fucking pride. Have some fucking principles.
If you think you DO need to do that, all I can say is that I beg you not to go into academia or science.
If you think you DO need to do that, all I can say is that I beg you not to go into academia or science.
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
As a side note, it’s funny to see so many of these emails with thirsty academics repeatedly enact Marx’s bit in the 1844 Manuscripts about the power of money. “Oh Mr Epstein, your house in New York is enormous and, unrelatedly, your questions at dinner were so intelligent, so insightful, so deep.”
![That which is for me through the medium of money - that for which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy) - that am I myself, the possessor of the money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money's properties are my - the possessor's - properties and essential powers. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women.
Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness - its deterrent power - is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet.
Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless? Besides, he can buy clever people for himself, and is he who has [In the manuscript: is. - Ed.] power over the clever not more clever than the clever? Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:myqic77tkmdhmaufgkvj43hr/bafkreidpuxbx764xh7vobavcnvs3v2lo5fnfi6dukfrmk3ygxmseznkyxi@jpeg)
January 31, 2026 at 4:05 PM
As a side note, it’s funny to see so many of these emails with thirsty academics repeatedly enact Marx’s bit in the 1844 Manuscripts about the power of money. “Oh Mr Epstein, your house in New York is enormous and, unrelatedly, your questions at dinner were so intelligent, so insightful, so deep.”
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
New w/ @drbarner.bsky.social! We argue that children's struggle to represent the past and future in common tests of knowledge may stem from difficulties in hypothetical reasoning about imaginary timelines, rather than a lack of knowledge about time. 1/n
academic.oup.com/chidev/advan...
academic.oup.com/chidev/advan...
Back to reality: Children's early temporal reasoning applies to real but not hypothetical events
Abstract. Time words like “yesterday” and “tomorrow” are hard for children to learn, and for researchers to study, because their referents change from day
academic.oup.com
January 29, 2026 at 8:22 PM
New w/ @drbarner.bsky.social! We argue that children's struggle to represent the past and future in common tests of knowledge may stem from difficulties in hypothetical reasoning about imaginary timelines, rather than a lack of knowledge about time. 1/n
academic.oup.com/chidev/advan...
academic.oup.com/chidev/advan...
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
Meanwhile, in Canada: One of the Heated Rivalry boys gave one of the show’s fabricated Team Canada Olympics fleeces to the prime minister and this happened
January 30, 2026 at 1:33 AM
Meanwhile, in Canada: One of the Heated Rivalry boys gave one of the show’s fabricated Team Canada Olympics fleeces to the prime minister and this happened
Canadian Mennonites have joined the resistance
January 29, 2026 at 9:57 PM
Canadian Mennonites have joined the resistance
One of my favorite things in Davis, California.
January 29, 2026 at 7:46 AM
One of my favorite things in Davis, California.
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
@gregoryhickok.bsky.social will be giving a C-STAR lecture on Friday, February 6 at 1:00 pm Eastern Time regarding his new book 'Wired for Words'. I'm sure it will be provocative in the best possible way. Please attend and prepare your most challenging questions!
cstar.sc.edu/lecture-seri...
cstar.sc.edu/lecture-seri...
Lecture Series | C-STAR
cstar.sc.edu
January 27, 2026 at 4:07 PM
@gregoryhickok.bsky.social will be giving a C-STAR lecture on Friday, February 6 at 1:00 pm Eastern Time regarding his new book 'Wired for Words'. I'm sure it will be provocative in the best possible way. Please attend and prepare your most challenging questions!
cstar.sc.edu/lecture-seri...
cstar.sc.edu/lecture-seri...
Great thread on the risks of open data. No one‘s advocating a return to unavailable data sets, but it’s clear current subject protections are inadequate.
1. I’m not surprised this happened. This is the side of open data sources we don’t talk about: there’s an assumption that everyone will access the data in good faith. (More on this in a min)
2. This is a sneak peak into the kind of BS thay NIH, HHS, and other fed R&D is about fund.
1/?
2. This is a sneak peak into the kind of BS thay NIH, HHS, and other fed R&D is about fund.
1/?
🚨🚨🚨 "At least 63 times since 2007, data from some of the 28 human genomic repositories that the N.I.H. controls was improperly released to researchers, used for unapproved purposes or made vulnerable to theft..." (Gift Link) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/u...
January 24, 2026 at 3:45 PM
Great thread on the risks of open data. No one‘s advocating a return to unavailable data sets, but it’s clear current subject protections are inadequate.
Reposted by Fernanda Ferreira
It's been a remarkably miserable week politically, but in just the last 24 hours, two examples of amazing academic generosity: this from David Adger, and a Computational Cog Neuroscience textbook from @gershbrain.bsky.social. Both open for all to read and use.
My new book is available open access from MITPress. It's a pretty new take on syntax, with some cool consequences for long-distance syntactic dependencies, and I think it should also appeal to non-minimalist syntacticians (since there isn't really any movement!) direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...
Mereological Syntax: Phrase Structure, Cyclicity, and Islands
An argument for replacing Chomsky’s set-theoretic Merge view of syntax with a theory of syntax based on mereological objects.Mereology is the study of part
direct.mit.edu
January 9, 2026 at 4:54 PM
It's been a remarkably miserable week politically, but in just the last 24 hours, two examples of amazing academic generosity: this from David Adger, and a Computational Cog Neuroscience textbook from @gershbrain.bsky.social. Both open for all to read and use.