Wei Yang Tham
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wytham88.bsky.social
Wei Yang Tham
@wytham88.bsky.social
Economics of science and innovation
University of Toronto
weiyangtham.com
experimenting with Typst recently. any recommendations for templates? cc @paulgp.com
August 29, 2025 at 7:33 PM
If you're at Summer Institute and see a lightweight, dark green sweater lying around pls lmk!
July 18, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
I appreciate the offers from other scientists to help Harvard (students, labs, etc) through this attack, but what would be most helpful is for you to use your position to contact your elected representatives and make it clear this fight isn't just Harvard, it will affect you, and their districts too
May 24, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
The #NIH will no longer allow researchers working on its grants have sub-awards in other countries, a common practice that allows US scientists to investigate questions that cannot be studied in this country. @mmolteni.bsky.social reports. www.statnews.com/2025/05/01/n...
NIH halts funding for new projects with foreign collaborators, citing national security concerns
NIH announced it will no longer allow subawards to foreign institutions, as part of a national security-minded overhaul to how it manages research funding
www.statnews.com
May 2, 2025 at 12:25 AM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
NEWS: After canceling thousands of foreign students' immigration records — threatening their ability to study and live in the US — the Trump administration has reversed course and restored them all.

It follows intense pushback from courts across the country.

Details TK
April 25, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
I just contacted all of my representatives in the US Congress. I demanded immediate and drastic action to defend our Constitutional order.

If you are American, please stop what you are doing and take 15 minutes to do the same.

www.senate.gov/senators/sen...
www.house.gov/representati...
On this day, April 14, 2025, the President of the United States openly defied the Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion of April 10, 2025, ordering him to “facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador
April 15, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
"What the U.S. is doing now is not reform. It is rejecting the very system it created." - Singapore's Prime Minister Lawrence Wong

(April 8, 2025)
April 8, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
If you are a university researcher NOT paid on soft money, and federal grant cancellations or disruptions are impacting your personal income (e.g., via summer salary losses or other direct-compensation disruptions), I would like to speak with you: ibogost@theatlantic.com or Signal ibogost.47.
April 5, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
Looks like the cat is out of the bag. Good post by @stuartbuck.bsky.social on indirect cost recovery citing new joint work with @sampat.bsky.social and @pierre-azoulay.bsky.social.

Find it here: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g8792...
March 29, 2025 at 11:38 PM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
The building was built to have that level of telework. People built their lives around not having an office. This is a much bigger deal than "commuting sucks" (thought it does) and "figuring out childcare is hard" (thought it is). It's am I going to move my family for an uncertain job?
March 25, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
JUST IN: The Census Bureau is ending its telework and remote-work agreements for unionized federal workers and requiring a full return to office for telework employees by April 21 and a return for remote employees within 60 days, according to emails shared with @npr.org
March 24, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
NEW: The Census Bureau hasn't been recruiting and retaining enough interviewers for three key surveys, including the source of the monthly job report, and lacks a plan for building up a field representative staff, the bureau's internal watchdog, Commerce OIG, finds
www.oig.doc.gov/wp-content/O...
March 15, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
if you've had an NIH grant terminated, I want to hear about it. Signal: katherinejwu.12
March 7, 2025 at 2:17 PM
I love data visualization
Lmao I was joking about this but Sheinbaum literally did it today and it worked
March 6, 2025 at 8:19 PM
Reposted by Wei Yang Tham
worth seeing
March 3, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Niche life advice: if you attend a dance class/social as part of a couple, don't stick together the whole time. Dancing with other ppl helps you learn faster, is more fun, and contributes to the public good of building a community
March 2, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Heartbreaking
I talked to NIH officials, current and former, about what's been happening inside the agency since the Trump administration shut down their grantmaking pipeline in January. Their stories showed just how willing our new leaders are to break the law: www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
Inside the Collapse at NIH
Administration officials pressured NIH to avoid clear advice from the agency’s own lawyers to restart grant funding now.
www.theatlantic.com
February 28, 2025 at 1:20 AM
chicken burger (sandwich! not combo!) from A&W costs $10 CAD
Surprised Pikachu GIF
ALT: Surprised Pikachu GIF
media.tenor.com
February 25, 2025 at 4:59 AM
whoa
The world's top network of labor economists—@iza.org—will close permanently at the end of this year.

What a loss to research. Especially now when the rising waters of disinformation choke truth.

It is up to us, now, to begin the work to rebuild.

www.deutsche-post-stiftung.org/media/202502...
www.deutsche-post-stiftung.org
February 24, 2025 at 4:52 PM
"The agency didn’t have to fire its experts but decided to in the interest of fairness, a top NSF official told staffers"

huh???
“NSF fired about 10 percent of its staff at the end of Tuesday, removing 168 people who included most of the agency’s probationary employees and all of its experts, a class of contract workers who are specialists in niche scientific fields.” — www.politico.com/news/2025/02...
‘Cowardliness at the top’: Science agency staff revolt over cuts
At an emotional meeting, foundation officials announced layoffs for about 10 percent of their workforce and warned of more firings to come.
www.politico.com
February 21, 2025 at 8:33 PM
"We didn’t know that studying Gila monster venom would lead to the invention of GLP-1...horseshoe crab blood would prove crucial to vaccine development, or...bacteria in geysers would lead to the development of PCR...on which much of modern molecular biology...rests."
Skepticism of government-funded scientific research is making the rounds again. In @asteriskmag.bsky.social, @lgilbert.co‬ and I write about why “weird” research pays off, and how the government is particularly well-positioned— better than the private sector—to fund it. 🧵
x.com/deenamousa/...
February 21, 2025 at 8:08 PM
I watched the Kim's Convenience play and enjoyed it very much, but it also made me mourn what the TV show could've been

opposabletham.substack.com/p/kims-conve...
Kim's Convenience (the play)
The play laid bare what the sitcom could have been
opposabletham.substack.com
February 21, 2025 at 3:03 PM
it is TOO. FORKING. COLD
February 20, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Besides being practically stupid, this seems politically unpopular?
Want to go visit the national parks this year?
Sorry.
The reservation system is shut down, EMT personnel are gone, so don't get hurt or lost. No one can clean the bathrooms or cabins, so they'll be closed. Rangers are fired.

www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...
Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return
Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return at a time when federal employees are being laid off
www.sfchronicle.com
February 18, 2025 at 4:30 PM