Gina Baucom
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gbaucom.bsky.social
Gina Baucom
@gbaucom.bsky.social
3.6K followers 2.9K following 550 posts
UMich professor who studies resistance and persistence (in plants)
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gbaucom.bsky.social
Psyched to visit Utah State's Ecology Center this week! I haven't been to Logan before so this is a special treat.
November 18, 2025 at 6:39 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
This front page
Headlines at the NYTimes show just how bonkers things are. "Judge Blocks National Gueard from Portland, Ore, Permanently" "Immigation Agents Arrest Man in LA Raid and Drive Off With His Toddler" and the kicker "President Appeals to Supreme Court After Losing Bid to Curtail Food Stamp Aid"
November 8, 2025 at 1:56 AM
gbaucom.bsky.social
Strong #NoKings showing in Chelsea, MI
A bunch of normal everyday Americans protesting at a NoKings rally A bunch of normal everyday Americans protesting at a NoKings rally
October 18, 2025 at 5:28 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
Last lab presentation today! Grace Zhang will be talking about her chapter 2 work examining the context dependency of tolerance in common morning glory. Put it on your list, Grace always gives a great talk!
June 24, 2025 at 12:00 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
I neglected my advisorly promotional duties yesterday but Sasha Bishop gave a fantastic talk on her resurrection biology dissertation chapter from the lab and @emmafoster2.bsky.social presented a poster on useful experimental designs for studying global change
June 24, 2025 at 11:51 AM
gbaucom.bsky.social
& lab friend @joannarifkin.bsky.social is talking about their work in Mimulus at 11:15am in Olympia 2
program abstract
June 22, 2025 at 11:13 AM
gbaucom.bsky.social
Come see our Sunday lab #Evol2025 talks!

I'm talking about our work in Dame's Rocket today at 9:45am in Olympia 2

@susielusardi.bsky.social is giving a poster on disease clustering in Dame's Rocket at 6pm in Grand Hall 7
A population of Dame's Rocket that is polymorphic for flower color program abstract
June 22, 2025 at 11:13 AM
gbaucom.bsky.social
Hey #Evol2025 Interested in developing tools to assess novel trait variation in a wild organism?

Come check out @inam-j.bsky.social's work using fast neutron mutagenesis in the common morning glory, today at 12:15pm in Olympia 1
June 21, 2025 at 1:49 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
So unfair!
Two cats beg to go outside while a dog is allowed to bask in the sun on the front porch
May 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
#WithoutNSF we would not have the $$ to develop gene modification in close relatives of sweetpotato.

Imp facts about sweetpotato:
*7th most important food crop
*major source of vitamin A
*crucial to North Carolina’s economy, responsible for 100’s of millions dollars per year
#SupportNSF #SaveNSF
An image highlighting the variation in leaf shape in sweetpotato Sweetpotato in flower
May 7, 2025 at 5:01 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
#WithoutNSF we would not have the tools to generate long term study populations or manipulate genes in Ipomoea, the morning glories. This group includes beautiful garden plants, noxious weeds (I. purpurea, image attached), and the very important Ipomoea batatas – sweetpotato! #SupportNSF #SaveNSF
Ipomoea purpurea in flower A tangle of Ipomoea purpurea (common or tall morning glory) at the edge of a soy field.
May 7, 2025 at 5:01 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
#WithoutNSF we couldn't have studied how the use of dicamba, an herbicide that ‘drifts’ after application, alters plant-pollinator interactions & pollinator abundance. This is crucial given rapid pollinator decline. Do you like coffee? Chocolate? Apples? We need pollinators #SupportNSF #SaveNSF
Pollinator doing its thing on a bright pink flower A community of weeds in flower A pollinator visiting a black eyed susan
May 7, 2025 at 5:01 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
Below you will find a link to the media tool that we recommend using, and scripts to both specific issues that need coverage as well as general scripts in support of the NSF. The media tool includes general scripts for you to modify and message your representatives and senators via either phone calls or emails, text to help you message out on social media, talking points, and advice on writing up your story. Please help us make this Week of Action for the NSF successful. Thank you for taking the time to do this – if we work together in concert we can be heard! Best wishes, Carol Boggs, SSE President Gina Baucom, SSE President Elect
May 6, 2025 at 11:44 AM
gbaucom.bsky.social
We need time-sensitive, specific messaging about 1) grant terminations, 2) budget reductions, and 3) the change in indirect rates to 15%. We also need to communicate more generally about the importance of NSF funding. We are including an easy to use media tool to help with each of the above steps. From the advice we are receiving from congressional aides, it is clear that we need you to share your stories both widely and loudly – how the federal cuts and grant terminations are affecting you specifically, what NSF has meant for your career, and what the lack of funding will mean for your research/teaching. To that end, we have included guidance on how to craft a short write-up hitting on these themes. Please take the time to do this – it cannot be overstated how important it is to message your story.
May 6, 2025 at 11:44 AM
gbaucom.bsky.social
We ask that you take the following steps to help publicize the importance of NSF: If you are a US citizen, call or write to your congressperson. Publicly share your story about how NSF has supported your science, and/or the importance of NSF funding. Contact the local media and advocate for NSF by sharing your story. Tell others–friends, family members, etc–about the importance of NSF and ask that they contact their congressional Representatives and Senators.
May 6, 2025 at 11:44 AM
gbaucom.bsky.social
If you care about the NSF and science, now is the time to make your voice heard!

The evolution tri-societies are running a Week of Action for NSF! We MUST make some noise -join us!!

@sse-evolution.bsky.social members will see the below email in their inbox today, spread the word!

Pls RT!
The NSF as we know it is being dismantled. This is a tragedy for science and has the potential to gut the fields of evolution, systematics and ecology. It is time for each of us to loudly speak up in support of scientific funding and in support of the NSF in particular. The Society for the Study of Evolution, the American Society of Naturalists, and the Society of Systematic Biologists are running a Week of Action for NSF. Your engagement is crucial.
May 6, 2025 at 11:44 AM
gbaucom.bsky.social
Debbie Dingell speaking at my small town’s protest! Small but mighty energized!
Debbie Dingell speaks to a crowd Small town protest Great signs at small town protest
May 3, 2025 at 5:26 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
early suffragettes often donned a bathing suit and ate pizza in large groups to annoy men
April 22, 2025 at 12:38 AM
gbaucom.bsky.social
Fantastic letter of support for Dr. Tabbye Chavous from the Faculty Senate. UM is losing a remarkable leader.
Dear Faculty Colleagues, We write to share our deep appreciation for our colleague Dr. Tabbye Chavous, the University of Michigan’s Chief Diversity Officer. This week, Dr. Chavous announced that she will soon leave the university and take up the directorship of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). While AERA is gaining a phenomenal leader, we at the University of Michigan are acutely aware that we are losing a fearless and relentless advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Under Dr. Chavous’s leadership, the University’s diversity, equity, and inclusion program was framed widely, offering support for first-generation students, for people with disabilities, for veterans, for racial and ethnic minorities, and for others who are at the margins of our institution. Dr. Chavous understands that diversity, equity, and inclusion are not abstract values. They are conditions that (as research clearly shows) are necessary for enhancing the excellence of our collective work as teachers, students, and staff. Dr. Chavous is a pioneering and well-respected scholar of the psychology of education and race. She used this knowledge to advance her work as an administrator of the University’s DEI program. Under her leadership, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI) substantially expanded access and affordability for low income and first-gen students; improved graduation rates and shrank group disparities in graduation; and advanced greater demographic representation across students, faculty, and staff. Her office has built programs supporting people with disabilities and challenging religious/cultural and racialized bias, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. The closure of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is a tragedy for our University. The challenges posed by Michigan Proposition 2 to the enrollment of Black undergrads was staggering. After its passage in 2008, enrollment consistently fell, and the number of Black students on campus fell below 4% of the total student population, which did not reflect the demographics of Black youth in the state of Michigan (which today stands at ~16%). The strategic efforts that Dr. Chavous and her team made to develop community partnerships, building pipeline programs, and engaging with alumni helped stanch the losses and shift course. Currently, there are (numerically) more Black students at U-M than at any other time in the institution’s history. Since 2020, Black student enrollment at this University has grown by 87%, and in Fall 2023, Black enrollment numbers grew by 13% over the previous year. In Fall 2024, new enrollment of Black students was 8.8% (6% Black only and 2.8% Black-identified with more than one race/ethnicity). All of this was, in large part, thanks to Dr. Chavous’s leadership and her knowledge of the network of supports needed to reach and uphold disenfranchised populations. These strides were made possible through central leadership roles and offices like ODEI, along with the efforts of so many offices, units, groups, and individuals working individually and collectively toward our campus’ DEI strategic efforts. One of the ironies around the untimely closure of the office that Dr. Chavous led is this: DEI was never particularly expensive for this University. In a commendable effort, Dr. Chavous procured much of the funding for the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and for a significant number of their own staff through external funds. Wolverine Pathways staff and programming were fully funded by donor gifts, and the work of the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives, the National Center for Institutional Diversity, and the Center for Educational Outreach has been supported significantly through external grants. Over the past year, Dr. Chavous has courageously fought to correct misconceptions and propaganda about this critical part of our shared work. We in SACUA have had no information from the University’s leadership explaining the elimination of the ODEI. It appears that the University leadership has relied on information calculated through flawed methodologies, with an ear to biased ideologues who lack sound evidentiary grounding or expertise in DEI work. Dr. Chavous’s departure puts our institution at greater risk, for we have lost both a visionary leader and a pragmatic architect of social, racial, and economic justice. We want to thank Dr. Chavous for her courageous leadership and service to the University of Michigan community. We shall miss her greatly. Sincerely, Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs (SACUA)
April 17, 2025 at 12:19 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
Are you a member of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE)? I'm holding zoom chats during which I will get your feedback and thoughts about what the society can do for you and for the field! Everyone is welcome to join -- sign up for a time and pls RT this!!
Join the conversation with incoming SSE President! Have thoughts about the future of evolutionary biology? Want to provide feedback on how the Society for the Study of Evolution can best serve its members? Join one of our guided chats with SSE President-Elect Regina Baucom! Upcoming Sessions: 4/4, 4/11, 4/25, 5/2, 5/23, 5/30 Where: Zoom (link provided upon RSVP) Who: SSE members of all career stages Topics include: Vision for SSE's future How SSE can best advocate for evolutionary biologists Ways to get involved in SSE, build community, & network! RSPV Now! https://forms.gle/ef6adb9rtUTHVoPv8
March 31, 2025 at 1:58 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
Check here for daily updates!
Signal in the storm logo. As per AI "A lighthouse beacon, a symbol of hope and guidance, shines brightly through a stormy sea, cutting through the darkness to guide seafarers through treacherous waters"
March 19, 2025 at 2:09 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
jamieraskin.com/doge-privacy...
U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin is encouraging all U.S. citizens to join him this week in filing formal demands for access to their personal data obtained by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has issued an injunction commanding DOGE to comply with citizen requests under the Freedom of Information Act. This law encompasses the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, which entitles any citizen to access personal information held in any U.S. government records system. Please find a fillable Privacy Act request form in link
March 13, 2025 at 11:52 AM
gbaucom.bsky.social
The Society for the Study of Evolution leadership has been following recent developments at the US federal level, as they affect teaching, the conduct of scientific research in evolution, and the people who do both. We are deeply concerned about misrepresentation of science, deletion of public data and reports from governmental websites, and illegal attacks on science funding and DEI mandates. We stand committed to supporting our community and our mission: to promote evolutionary biology research, education, application, outreach, and community building in an equitable and globally inclusive manner.
February 10, 2025 at 7:44 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
Before you buy Girl Scout cookies you should know they suppor transgender kids and reject donations from anti-transgender organizations, and then buy a couple more boxes
February 9, 2025 at 1:37 PM
gbaucom.bsky.social
How are we going to resist this constitutional crisis effectively? By forming broad alliances. How do we form broad alliances? First of all by not engaging in petty bickering, infighting, and accusations about who did what in the election or gloating when ordinary people who we don't agree with are being harmed by this administration. Even many Trump voters are potential allies now that they see what that meant (studies show that the more misinformed people were on crime, immigration, and the economy, the more likely they were to vote for him; maybe hate the systems of dis- and misinformation rather than its targets?). I said this earlier today when someone posted a sneer at midwestern farmers for whom USAID was a major purchaser of their crops. We could use farmers on our side, and communicating how they're being harmed is good strategy; snarking at them and people who might identify with them not. One of the activities often mistaken for activism is punishing everyone who doesn't agree with you about everything or anything, the politics of purity and infighting. What a good organizer does is build a coalition, a movement, social change itself out of people who agree on the essential thing and are otherwise diverse (for example, Jews who joined the Black Civil Rights Movement didn't mind that Christian ministers were leading it). That needs to happen more than it ever has, and we have the possibility of powerful coalitions if we don't insult everyone who's not our ideological identical twin. Politics is an impure pursuit when it's an effective one, if purity means total conformity. Obviously you have to agree about the essentials--human rights, the Constitution, etc. in this case. But over on BlueSky people are having an absolutely gratuitous squabble about whether anti-Trump activists should wave American flags or not. Don't dump your fuel on useless fires (and yeah, think and feel anything you like, however incendiary, bitch with your friends, but what you s…
February 8, 2025 at 10:39 PM