Thanks. I know there are people in much more precarious positions than I am, and I'm fortunate to have found an alternative position. The current cuts to science funding are damaging on so many levels. 🥺

But for now, I'm working as a staff organizer with UAW Member Action. I'm glad I can do something I deeply care about, use the skills I developed as a UAW steward, and make a difference in the labor movement, especially during a time when workers are under attack.

I don't know when or how I will make it back to research with such an uncertain future for publicly funded science. I don't want to abandon the science I love so much and spent my whole life working towards.

I was fortunate to be able to visit 21 national parks, 5 national monuments, 1 memorial, 1 lakeshore, 1 historical park, 1 national preserve within the past year - crisscrossing the country and camping along the way. I experienced more of the country than I ever had before.

It came to resigning, or being fired. Or waiting until the grant money ran out; sooner rather than later. So I resigned, and spent the summer traveling, spending time with family and friends, feeling alive again.

I was just surviving day to day, dreading every interaction with a disrespectful and hostile supervisor. The chronic stress and anxiety was negatively impacting my mental and ultimately physical health. It wasn't worth my health to stay there just for the sake of staying in science

I found myself earlier this year in a situation I never thought I would be in. I thought I knew all the red flags and warnings to look out for, had people vouch for the role, thought it was a good career move, but the position I had accepted ended up being in an incredibly toxic and abusive place.

Every Waymo getting totaled by the Metro Detroit potholes they don't know to avoid lmao

In place of evidence-based info, new content promoted biological sex essentialism -- portraying women’s bodies as weak or in need of protection, and trans people as a “threat.”

This isn’t health communication. It’s ideology.

Rest in power Zara @weinberz.witchlab.org ❤️