Matt Wilkins
banner
mattwilkins.galacticpolymath.com
Matt Wilkins
@mattwilkins.galacticpolymath.com
Biologist, Founder of @galacticpolymath.com (GP). We help scientists do outreach in K-12 #SciComm #EduSky
When not doing that I like doing silly voices & juggling

🧪Hire Us bit.ly/3NiUzdn
🍎Get free lessons https://bit.ly/GPlessons
anybody know what kind of wasp this is?
September 23, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Friends—1 week left! If you use science in your job (undergrad, in academia, in industry...anything!) & you want to help students understand what it's really like & why it's important—here's your chance! 🧪 from @galacticpolymath.com & @ncse.bsky.social
👉 www.galacticpolymath.com/blog/my-scij...
September 23, 2025 at 12:55 AM
very nice! We have some American painted lady caterpillars we hope are gonna make it to butterfly stage
July 17, 2025 at 1:04 AM
When folks talk about whether we should dedicate time to #scicomm or "the fight against fascism, it's a false dichotomy. The infrastructure of scicomm is what's failing us—we're not connecting w/ target audiences. We need to construct the missing pieces to nurture civics, empathy, & science literacy
June 18, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Agreed! The #scicomm convo needs to shift from what's the message? to How do we disseminate it? The right mobilizes nonsense & lies in hours. It takes us 20 yrs to get new research into classrooms. We've completely neglected K-12 as the KEY place to inoculate the public against manipulation 🧪
June 18, 2025 at 2:50 PM
I offered it a piece of chocolate cake, a pickle, an ice cream cone, a cupcake and a watermelon, but all it wanted was this nice green milkweed leaf
June 9, 2025 at 2:03 PM
5 out of 5 pumpkin headed doctors think this is the best gboard emoji
May 21, 2025 at 4:16 PM
I've put in ~60 hrs over the last 8 months trying to develop a free web tool for sound analysis & visualization. I get $0 from this. Every $80 we raise funds a skilled web dev for 1 hour to check off these tasks.

Despite all that's happening, we can still create nice things for the public good 🧪🔊🐦‍⬛
April 24, 2025 at 1:40 AM
Dear Colleagues: Now is the time to scale up public engagement with science

I address this letter to scientists, but it is an invitation for fans & defenders of science everywhere to unite & take action!
Let's focus a lot more on K-12 ed 🧪 #SciComm #EduSky
👉 civicsciencemedia.org/dear-colleag...
April 9, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Humans are visual creatures. We're missing out on so much because it's currently expensive & technical to visualize sounds.

Please help @galacticpolymath.com finish a web app to change this!
👇 $10 gets you access to the beta app. (Public release will be free, if we can reach our goal!) 🧪🔊 #edusky
April 6, 2025 at 5:24 PM
that special swell of satisfaction when you cut open the perfect avocado
March 9, 2025 at 6:20 PM
I was honored to speak at the MN #StandUpForScience2025 rally yesterday abt the need to shift science outreach focus from informal settings to formal K-12.
Invigorating to gather w so many concerned abt anti-science efforts in the US!
Thanks for your leadership
@standupforscience.bsky.social👏👏👏
March 8, 2025 at 3:14 PM
ok any bird people want to weigh in? This is nonsense right? I haven't spent a lot of time in the tropics, but toucans seem to fly just fine #birds
March 1, 2025 at 11:46 PM
I'm grateful for the NSF graduate research fellowship (GRFP) that allowed me to study barn swallow song divergence around the world! 🧪 Just found this news clipping from a Turkish newspaper in 2009 featuring my collaborator Hakan Karaardic & me.

Also, man I look young 😅
March 1, 2025 at 8:51 PM
it's bleak. Not sure if you're an AtLA fan, but it feels like this part of the finale
February 14, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Wow, NSF award public search is completely down. I...have no words to express my full discontent, fear, and anger with these efforts to sabotage science in the US. I hope there will be repercussions, but I fear we are all going to feel them 🧪
www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/
February 14, 2025 at 3:23 AM
Looking for some positive news on a Friday? An actually useful & remarkably successful application of AI to combat #misinformation. Chatting with a friendly omniscient bot seems to have a lasting positive impact on bringing folks back to reality!

www.nytimes.com/2024/09/12/h... @nytimes.com
January 31, 2025 at 3:42 PM
👋 Fans of #bioacoustics, birdsong & #openaccess education!

We need help funding a FREE web app to bring sound analysis to any classroom! Developed by @galacticpolymath.com for grades 6-university 🔈🧪🦉🐋

Test BETA app👉 soundlab-gold.vercel.app
Email if you have funds 🙌 soundlab@galacticpolymath.com
January 24, 2025 at 2:17 AM
today's an inside day
January 19, 2025 at 2:26 PM
new year's goals:
1. be more patient, starting with myself
2. achieve better work/life balance
3. get better at this👇
January 13, 2025 at 6:49 PM
you really sent me down a rabbit hole today 😅 This non-distinction between capital i (I) & lower case L (l) drives me nuts. I find that Noto Sans offers the best solution & will soon make this our official brand font for my education studio @galacticpolymath.com! #accessibility #scicomm
January 5, 2025 at 8:46 PM
OMG this drives me crazy! I just discovered that "museo sans" puts a little curl on the l. Imagine if all sans serif fonts distinguished all characters. What a concept 🤔🌈
January 5, 2025 at 4:35 PM
let the wool times begin
December 12, 2024 at 12:01 AM
Finally went to the OG Meow Wolf in Santa Fe yesterday. AMAZING! 🤯 Imagine my surprise when we went into a room & saw these figures on the wall 🤩. Who among @meowwolfworkers.bsky.social is into #bioacoustics?! Google Lens identified the fig. comes from this paper www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪🔉🦉🪶
November 28, 2024 at 5:03 PM
Just made these beautiful, terrifying graphs in #Rstats for an upcoming #dataliteracy unit for @galacticpolymath.com.
If you've worked with grades 6-uni, what would your students say about these graphs? #SciEd #STEMed 🧪
November 25, 2024 at 10:23 PM