Dr. Zed Sehyr
LightNews LightNews
banner
zedsehyr.bsky.social
Dr. Zed Sehyr
@zedsehyr.bsky.social
640 followers 390 following 130 posts
Assistant Professor in Communication Sciences & Disorders @ChapmanUniversity. Director of of Cognition, Language & Plasticity Lab: http://www.claplab.org/ Co-founder of ASL-LEX database: https://asl-lex.org/ Pronouns: She/her.
Posts Replies Media Videos
zedsehyr.bsky.social
In good news today, ASL live interpreting is to be reinstated for White House press briefings!

slator.com/us-judge-rul...
US Judge Rules Against White House on ASL; Administration Appeals
A US judge rules against the Trump administration on live ASL at press briefings; The White House appeals.
slator.com
November 10, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Dr. Zed Sehyr
kemmorey.bsky.social
New case study of a Deaf autistic signer finds autism affects both linguistic and affective facial expressions, supporting accounts grounded in motor and maybe prosodic difficulties. Also supports effective languaging strategies beyond the neurotypical norm. www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/15...
www.mdpi.com
October 25, 2025 at 3:48 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
The CLaP Lab had an amazing time connecting with the Deaf community at DeaFestival Riverside! 🧠✨ Thanks to everyone who stopped by to learn about language, the brain, and our research! www.claplab.org #deafawarenessmonth
Four women stand together and smile under a canopy at an outdoor outreach event, with a display table behind them labeled "Cognition, Language & Plasticity Lab" featuring educational materials and a model brain held by one of the group members. A young woman wearing a “Learn Language, It’s Very Handy” shirt communicates in sign language with an older man holding a walking stick at an outdoor booth for the Cognition, Language & Plasticity Lab, which is set up with flyers, brain models, candy, and outreach materials under a canopy. Two smiling women wearing Chapman University shirts sit side by side at a Cognition, Language & Plasticity Lab booth, which is covered with flyers, branded pens, candy, and brain-themed materials for outreach at an outdoor event.
September 22, 2025 at 10:49 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
Using standardized ERPCore tasks, our new study shows subtle but consistent neural adaptations in visual recognition, attention, motor preparation or memory updating in deaf ASL signers, possibly due to lifelong experience with visual communication. Poster A48 🙂 with @erinecampbell.bsky.social
September 12, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by Dr. Zed Sehyr
lornaquandt.bsky.social
Coming at you from Gallaudet University to share that on-the-ground prep for the Society for Neurobiology of Language #SNL2025 is well underway! We cannot wait to welcome more than 500 of you, neuroscientists and linguists, to our campus tomorrow! Say hi if you see me running around!
September 11, 2025 at 4:09 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
🧠 #sign #language #linguists this conference in #Poland looks interesting!
August 27, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Reposted by Dr. Zed Sehyr
manylanguagesc.bsky.social
The ManyTones project is looking for several lead positions. See poster for details. 📢📣✨ Get involved! 🎉🤝🌟
August 19, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Dr. Zed Sehyr
dclm.bsky.social
Want to know more about the Family ASL project? Check out our new paper “Language and Cognitive Development in Bimodal Bilingual Deaf Children in Hearing Families: Three Case Studies.” It’s part of a special issue on Lang & Cog Dev in Deaf Children www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/15...
www.mdpi.com
August 19, 2025 at 12:54 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
Wow what a fantastic new opportunity for students in #CSD to learn #ASL and #deaf culture at Penn State! great news!! 🙌🏻@pennstateuniv.bsky.social

hhd.psu.edu/csd/minor/asl
Minor in American Sign Language | Penn State College of Health and Human Development
The American Sign Language (ASL) minor is for students who want to acquire proficiency in ASL and gain a deeper understanding of Deaf culture, communication, and history. This program provides both li...
hhd.psu.edu
August 18, 2025 at 7:43 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
😢
August 17, 2025 at 11:37 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
Congratulations to Dr. Brennan @neurivulets.bsky.social for successfully delivering a PhD baby yesterday! What a delightful presentation and impactful research on neural networks for ASL. In words of @kemmorey.bsky.social “Brennan sets the bar for quality of research high!”
August 8, 2025 at 6:09 AM
Reposted by Dr. Zed Sehyr
cogscisociety.bsky.social
On stage now: Josh Tenenbaum asks how AI can mirror human cognition and what cognitive science can offer AI in return. #CogSci2025 #AI

Watch live: underline.io/events/489/m...
August 1, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Reposted by Dr. Zed Sehyr
irisvanrooij.bsky.social
If you are also worried about ScienceDirect’s AI slop feature, you can directly contact them here: service.elsevier.com/app/answers/...
I believe I’ve identified a harmful error in an Elsevier product. How can I let Elsevier know? - ScienceDirect Support Center
I believe I’ve identified a harmful error in an Elsevier product. How can I let Elsevier know?
service.elsevier.com
August 6, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Reposted by Dr. Zed Sehyr
irisvanrooij.bsky.social
I have sent ScienceDirect the following questions and asked them to take down their harmful AI feature. Let’s see what they answer.
While reading a paper on ScienceDirect I noticed hyperlinks that lead to AI summaries. I have several questions: 1) Have authors consented to these hyperlinks in their scientific articles? 2) If I were to publish my work with Elsevier, do I risk that hyperlinks to AI summaries will be added to my papers without my consent? 3) Is ScienceDirect aware that these AI 'summaries' are confabulations, spreading misinformation, and polluting scientific knowledge? 4) Can you please remove the AI feauture from your website, and allow researchers and students unbiased access to the original scientific sources? I look forward to your answers. Thank you in advance. Kind regards, Prof. Iris van Rooij Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence Radboud University, The Netherlands
August 6, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Reposted by Dr. Zed Sehyr
lindaholmes.bsky.social
Here’s our CEO’s statement. Factually, I just want people to understand that you can still help a lot if this is something you care about. And because at this very hard moment I am not in a position to answer for the network, I’m going to keep this closed. (3/3) www.npr.org/2025/08/01/g...
Statement from Katherine Maher, NPR President & CEO, on Closure of Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Today, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced that it will begin a "wind-down of its operations" and ultimate full operational closure following the passage of a federal rescissions p...
www.npr.org
August 2, 2025 at 5:06 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
Listening-related fatigue disproportionately impacts deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) individuals, especially those who rely on lipreading or have had limited early access to ASL.

🔍 In a survey of 152 DHH adults, we found:
July 30, 2025 at 9:12 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
In this BSL video summary, Kearsy Cormier revisits our highly cited 2015 paper on constructed action in British Sign Language (BSL), co-authored with Sandra Smith & @zedsehyr.bsky.social What is constructed action, you ask?
dcal-ucl.bsky.social Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL) @dcal-ucl.bsky.social · May 30
Watch Kearsy Cormier revisit her highly cited 2015 paper on constructed action in BSL, co-authored with Sandra Smith & Zed Sevcikova. She explains what it is, why it matters & how it ranges from role-shifts to facial expressions.
youtu.be/2MbdKpP4RHY?...
Rethinking Constructed Action in BSL: Kearsy Cormier with Sandra Smith & Zed Sevcikova
YouTube video by DCAL UCL
youtu.be
July 2, 2025 at 2:33 AM
Reposted by Dr. Zed Sehyr
aclu.org
BREAKING: A federal judge reversed National Institutes of Health's terminations of hundreds of critical research grants that were canceled because of their alleged connection to disfavored topics, including diversity, equity, inclusion, and gender identity.

This is a major win for public health.
June 16, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Dr. Zed Sehyr
jatucker.bsky.social
Cutting NIH or NSF funding sounds abstract. Seeing what research is actually being cut makes it real. Kudos to @nytimes.com for this piece:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Here Are the Nearly 2,500 Medical Research Grants Canceled or Delayed by Trump
Some cuts have been starkly visible, but the country’s medical grant-making machinery has also radically transformed outside the public eye.
www.nytimes.com
June 4, 2025 at 3:55 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
Linguists & linguistically minded friends! If you are interested in how signs are organized in the mind, consider joining new seminar series "The Signing Mind" hosted by researchers at @bcbl.bsky.social + IDGS Hamburg University. The first seminar is 5/19 5pm CEST
sites.google.com/view/signing...
The Signing Mind
sites.google.com
May 12, 2025 at 10:15 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
Absolutely devastating news: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones
US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.
Update: The US National Science Foundation (NSF) terminated roughly 380 grants on Friday, 2 May, an NSF staff member told Nature. That raises the total number of terminated grants to approximately 1,425. Staff members at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) were told on 30 April to "stop awarding all funding actions until further notice," according to an email seen by Nature. The policy prevents the NSF, one of the world's biggest supporters of basic research, from awarding new research grants and from supplying additional increments of money or subawards to existing grants. But researchers should be able to draw down money from grant funds that they have already received, NSF staff members say. The ancauy receivel, not slam membelosay. the email does not provide a reason for the freeze and says that it will last "until further notice. RELATED Earlier this week, NSF leadership also introduced a new policy directing staff members to Will US science survive screen grant Trump 2.0? proposals for "topics or activities that may not be in alignment with agency priorities". Proposals judged not "in alignment" must be returned to the applicants by NSF employees. The policy has not been made public but was described in documents seen by Nature. An NSF staff member says that although good science can still be funded, the policy has the potential to be "Orwellian nuarranch" Anstharcenfmamhar couc has the potential to be "Orwellian overreach". Another staff member says, "They are butchering the gold standard merit review process that was established at NSF over decades". One program officer says they are resigning because of the policy. Nature spoke with five NSF staffers for this story, all on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media. An NSF spokesperson declined Nature's request for comment. Continuing turmoil The changes are hitting an agency already in crisis. In the past two weeks, the NSF has terminated roughly 1,040 grants that would have awarded US$739 million to researchers and their institutions. The agency's director, Sethuraman Panchanathan, resigned last month. RELATED Uncertainty is also being felt by scientists outside the agency. Colin Carlson, an expert NSF slashes prestigious PhD fellowship awards by half in disease emergence at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, leads an initiative to predict viruses that pose pandemic threats. The project, which involves roughly 50 researchers across multiple universities, is funded by a $US12.5 million NSF grant. The project's latest round of funding was approved, but Carlson worries about subsequent rounds, and the fate of other researchers. Unless it is lifted, the freeze "is going to destroy people's labs," Carlson says. Funding for the NSF, as for all other federal agencies, is set by the US Congress. To date, the agency has received only about one-quarter of the funding that Congress appropriated to it for the current fiscal year,
May 5, 2025 at 8:19 PM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
Research briefs from VL2 open access! Perfect Friday reading! Quality science 🤓😍
lornaquandt.bsky.social Lorna Quandt @lornaquandt.bsky.social · May 1
Did you know? All of our VL2 Research Briefs about signed language, deaf children, and learning are available for free as PDFs here!

Spread the word! These are great for teachers, parents, and researchers in this area.

osf.io/97dkf/files/...
OSF
osf.io
May 2, 2025 at 6:18 AM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
😱
standupforscience.bsky.social Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · May 2
🔔BREAKING🔔

The NSF has frozen all research grant awards—cutting off life-saving science midstream and demanding ideological screenings for future funding.

This is censorship disguised as oversight.

Here’s how you can help us spread the word ➡️🧵(1/3):
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones
US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.
www.nature.com
May 2, 2025 at 6:16 AM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
American Psychological Association speaks up after NSF terminates 1,000+ grants!

“By halting research of this type we risk denying individuals high-quality care based solely on their heritage or background..our ability to understand & deliver effective services to ALL Americans..will be diminished”
a welcome development for the American Psychological Association (APA) starting to speak up, now after 1,000+ terminated NSF grants
April 28, 2025 at 1:45 AM
zedsehyr.bsky.social
How can we work together to promote the importance of science and its benefits? Here is an idea:
April 23, 2025 at 7:00 PM