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mbreen.bsky.social
Mara Breen
@mbreen.bsky.social
770 followers 800 following 19 posts
Professor of psychology at Mount Holyoke College; Cognitive scientist studying speech and music
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Mara Breen
timoroettger.bsky.social
"P-Hacking with one prompt" by Shigeto Kawahara.

TL/DR: Ask LLMs to find a significant effect, and they will oblige.

www.researchgate.net/publication/...
(PDF) P-hacking with one prompt
PDF | This brief note reports a mini-experiment, which tested whether major AI systems (Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT) readily perform p-hacking when... | Find, read and cite all the research you need o...
www.researchgate.net
January 28, 2026 at 10:58 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
benediktzoefel.bsky.social
If you're looking for a PhD and you're interested in the cerebellum, predictions, language, and MEG, please apply by 1st March! We have two open positions.

More details here:
benediktzoefel.wixsite.com/home/phd
January 28, 2026 at 7:49 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
lhlew.bsky.social
Available today on Google Books! "Sociophonetics: Implications for Phonological and Phonetic Theory" edited by me and @jennycz.bsky.social

books.google.co.uk/books?id=T6m...
Sociophonetics
This book provides a critical overview of sociophonetic research and considers how the findings of this field illuminate and problematize a range of central issues in phonetics and phonology. The core...
books.google.co.uk
January 25, 2026 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
cogscisociety.bsky.social
Huge congratulations to Matthew Goldrick @mattgoldrick.bsky.social, recipient of the 2026 Jeffrey L. Elman Prize for Scientific Achievement and Community Building!

This honor will be celebrated at #CogSci2026 with a dedicated symposium.

Visit cognitivesciencesociety.org/elman-prize/ to learn more
Portrait of a smiling man wearing a blue shirt on a dark teal background. To the right, text reads: “Congratulations to Matthew Goldrick, Northwestern University. Winner of the 2026 Jeffrey L. Elman Prize for Scientific Achievement and Community Building.”
January 23, 2026 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
mcxfrank.bsky.social
New postdoc position with the LEVANTE project! We're looking for someone with language development / reading knowledge to help work on our international adaptations of language assessments. Please forward to interested candidates
Job ad 1 job ad 2 job ad 3
January 22, 2026 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
hpsvanessa.bsky.social
are YOU a university professor, professor emeriti or associate professor of history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology, and religion?
Did you know you can nominate people for the Nobel Peace Prize?
caitlindeangelis.bsky.social Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 7d
Some thoughts:

1. The deadline for nominating a person or group for the Nobel Peace Prize is Feb. 1.

2. History professors are qualified nominators.

3. The people of Minnesota have been awe-inspiringly peaceful in the face of state violence.

4. He would be so mad.
Nomination and selection of Nobel Peace Prize laureates - NobelPrize.org
A nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize may be submitted by any person who meets the nomination criteria. A letter of invitation to submit is not required. The names of the nominees and other informati...
www.nobelprize.org
January 23, 2026 at 7:58 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
perfors.net
I just created a series of seven deep-dive videos about AI, which I've posted to youtube and now here. 😊

Targeted to laypeople, they explore how LLMs work, what they can do, and what impacts they have on learning, well-being, disinformation, the workplace, the economy, and the environment.
Part 1: How do LLMs work?
YouTube video by Andrew Perfors
www.youtube.com
January 22, 2026 at 12:45 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
maxplanck.de
Female scientists have to wait longer for their articles to be reviewed than their male colleagues. An analysis of 36.5 million papers in the life sciences shows that for females it took 115 days to reach a decision, compared to 101 days for men journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... @plosbiology.org
Median time under review (time intervened from submission to acceptance) of articles indexed in PubMed with a female first author (n = 2,562,262), a male first author (n = 3,405,821), a female corresponding author (n = 975,010), a male corresponding author (n = 1,946,469), a female first author and a female corresponding author (n = 757,878), a male first author and a male corresponding author (n = 1,357,835), all-female authors (n = 650,280), and all-male authors (n = 2,146,799)
January 22, 2026 at 8:43 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
abeba.bsky.social
I’m looking for my right-hand person to come help me run the @aial.ie

- Job Title: Lab Coordinator, AI Accountability Lab (0.8 FTE)
- Pay Scale: (€58,999 - €69,325 per annum pro-rata)
- Closing Date: 11-Feb-2026 12:00

Apply here: my.corehr.com/pls/trrecrui...

Main Responsibilities👇🏾
Main Responsibilities Operational and Financial Administration: • Coordinate the day-to-day operational and administrative activities of the AI Accountability Lab. • Oversee lab budgets and financial planning for research grants and cost centres; monitor expenditure and prepare financial reports for the PI and Faculty Finance Office. • Ensure adherence to Trinity and funder financial policies and procurement procedures. • Maintain internal administrative systems, documentation, and records to support efficient project delivery. • Liaise with central Finance, the Research Development Office, and external funding bodies on budgetary and governance matters. • Coordinate HR administrative processes for the lab, including recruitment, onboarding, contract administration, and research staff extensions in liaison with central HR and the Research Office. • Create and maintain shared resources, calendars, and internal documentation. • Coordinate relationships and collaboration with other research centres, government bodies, policy makers, civil society partners, and media as required by the research team. • Plan and schedule internal lab meetings, reading groups, invited speakers, collaborative work sessions, and other events as required. Research Coordination and Governance: • Track project timelines, deliverables, reporting schedules, and ethical compliance across multiple funded projects. • Ensure research activities meet Trinity and funder governance requirements (e.g., ethics, data management, GDPR, and reporting). • Coordinate workshops, seminars, and collaborative events with research centres and external partners as required. • Maintain shared documentation and project records to support effective collaboration. • Ensure that research outputs comply with ethical and scientific standards and satisfy the terms and conditions of relevant funding bodies. Communications and External Engagement • Coordinate internal and external communications for the lab, including its website, newsletters, and social media presence. • Liaise with policy makers, media, and stakeholder organisations on behalf of the lab, in consultation with the PI. • Support the dissemination of research outputs, such as academic publications, policy briefs, and public events in collaboration with ADAPT’s and TCD’s communications staff. • Work with Trinity Communications to prepare press releases and highlight lab achievements. • Representing the lab externally with media if required. Planning and Cross-Centre Coordination • Support the PI in delivering AIAL’s annual operational plan and reporting on progress against objectives. • Coordinate activities across multiple projects and partnerships to ensure consistency and alignment with institutional priorities. • Contribute to process improvements that strengthen the lab’s administrative and operational framework. • Act as a key contact for internal governance reviews, audits, and funder compliance checks. Any other duties or responsibilities as assigned by the PI or their delegate in support of the effective operation of the AI Accountability Lab and its objectives.
January 21, 2026 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
colinphillips.bsky.social
Postdoc opportunity with any of my Oxford colleagues funded by the British Academy. Expressions of interest due next week! www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/british-acad...
January 21, 2026 at 10:29 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
jeremymberg.bsky.social
The conference (agreement between House and Senate) appropriations bill that includes HHS and NIH was released this morning.

www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majorit...

1/5
Committee Releases Conferenced Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Bi...
United States Senate Committee on Appropriations
www.appropriations.senate.gov
January 20, 2026 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
ebwood.bsky.social
Faith Ringgold, As Free and Independent States, 2009, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
Print with a decorative border of blue leafy vines. On the left side of the print, Thomas Jefferson sits at a round table with papers, quill pens, spectacles, and books laid out in front of him. He is in an interior room with green walls, large paned windows, and a grandfather clock. On the right side of the print, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sits at a small, worn table on a stool, wearing a blue jumpsuit and holding his hands together in front of him as he looks down at papers with writing on the table in front of him. The grid of dark grey bars criss-crossing the grey background indicate that he is sitting inside a prison cell. Beneath the image, handwritten in pencil: "8/25" in the lower left, "As Free and Independent States" in the lower center, and "Faith Ringgold 5/4/09" in the lower right.
January 19, 2026 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
timoroettger.bsky.social
Dear exp linguist, for my advanced stats class, I am looking for articles that
- are experimental linguistics-ish
- report on linear mixed models that did not converge with the intended random effect structure (using lme4)
- published open data and scripts

Please @ me, I would appreciate it!
January 18, 2026 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
abeba.bsky.social
are you displeased with today’s AI safety evaluation landscape and curious about what greater conceptual clarity, methodological soundness, and rigour in AI evaluation could look like? if so, consider coming to Dublin to pursue a PhD with me

apply here: aial.ie/hiring/phd-a...

pls repost
About the PhD: Audits and evaluation of AI systems — and the broader context that AI systems operate in — have become central to conceptualising, quantifying, measuring and understanding the operations, failures, limitations, underlying assumptions, and downstream societal implications of AI systems. Existing AI audit and evaluation efforts are fractured, done in a siloed and ad-hoc manner, and with little deliberation and reflection around conceptual rigour and methodological validity. This PhD is for a candidate that is passionate about exploring what a conceptually cogent, methodologically sound, and well-founded AI evaluation and safety research might look like. This requires grappling with questions such as: What does it mean to represent “ground truth” in proxies, synthetic data, or computational simulation? How do we reliably measure abstract and complex phenomena? What are the epistemological or methodological implications of quantification and measurement approaches we choose to employ? Particularly, what underlying presuppositions, values, or perspectives do they entail? How do we ensure the lived experiences of impacted communities play a critical role in the development and justification of measurement metrics and proxies? Through exploration of these questions, the candidate is expected to engage with core concepts in the philosophy of science, history of science, Black feminist epistemologies, and similar schools of thought to develop an in-depth understanding of existing practices with the aim of applying it to advance shared standards and best practice in AI evaluation. The candidate is expected to integrate empirical (for example, through analysis or evaluation of existing benchmarks) or practical (for example, by executing evaluation of AI systems) components into the overall work.
January 15, 2026 at 11:55 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
nschawor.bsky.social
main goal for this year: find a new job! 🙂

looking for a role with fun & complex technical challenges & within a great community. my main expertise is in signal processing/EEG/MEG, but topic-wise I am quite flexible.

science/industry both great! starting mid-year. nschawor.github.io/cv
January 16, 2026 at 10:14 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
hansonmark.bsky.social
We've got ISSUES. Literally.

We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do?

arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563

A 🧵 1/n
January 13, 2026 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
stellawernicke.bsky.social
I am happy to share that our preprint “𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗖𝗶𝗿𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮: 𝗔 𝗧𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵” is now out.

Huge thanks to @bayslab.org, Julie de Falco, Zahara, @cjungerius.bsky.social, @ivntmc.bsky.social, Adam, and Xiaolu for the lovely collaboration.

doi.org/10.31234/osf...
OSF
doi.org
January 12, 2026 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
oecs-bot.bsky.social
Sentence Processing by Matthew Wagers: https://doi.org/10.21428/e2759450.624d819a
January 12, 2026 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
cocoscilab.bsky.social
Excited to announce a new book telling the story of mathematical approaches to studying the mind, from the origins of cognitive science to modern AI! The Laws of Thought will be published in February and is available for pre-order now.
December 18, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
andpru.bsky.social
Come join us. Western University invites applications from outstanding early career investigators for a full-time probationary faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor in the area of neural circuits in NHPs. www.nature.com/naturecareer...
Probationary (TenureTrack) Faculty Position-Systems Neuroscience in Higher Order Cognitive Circuits - London, Ontario (CA) job with Western University - Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry | 128...
Full-time probationary faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor in the area of neural circuits in non-human primates.
www.nature.com
January 10, 2026 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
psychonomicsociety.bsky.social
The Psychonomic Society is now accepting nominations for the Clifford T. Morgan Distinguished Leadership Award, Mid-Career Award, and Early-Career Award. The nomination deadline is March 31. Learn more: buff.ly/wBFdEFt
January 8, 2026 at 3:04 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
musicalgesture.bsky.social
Research position suitable for a PhD student (or beyond), keen to work with multimodal vocal performance data in beatboxing: jobportal.uni-koeln.de/ausschreibun...

Deadline: 12 January!

Apply here: jobportal.uni-koeln.de/bewerben/2429

Feel free to contact me with questions about the position
jobportal.uni-koeln.de
January 5, 2026 at 11:42 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
shirleybwang.bsky.social
Yale Psychology is accepting applications for the Susan Nolen-Hoeksema postdoctoral fellowship! Open to a broad range of areas in psychology, and applicants should identify 1 or more potential faculty mentors.

Apply by Feb 1, 2026: apply.interfolio.com/178435
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
December 4, 2025 at 1:26 AM
Reposted by Mara Breen
lilweb.bsky.social
🚀 Excited to announce that I'm looking for people (PhD/Postdoc) to join my Cognitive Modelling group @uniosnabrueck.bsky.social.

If you want to join a genuinely curious, welcoming and inclusive community of Coxis, apply here:
tinyurl.com/coxijobs

Please RT - deadline is Jan 4‼️
December 18, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Mara Breen
colincarlson.bsky.social
This was probably meant to be a late-night post: I spent eight months working on a stunt blog about a $200 sandwich. Or, no, I did an end-of-year post about my mental health and the federal funding crisis. I'm not sure which. Maybe you can figure it out. www.carlsonlab.bio/thoughts/epi...
Epic chicken sandwich — The Carlson Lab
Invocation to Sandwich: April 22, 2025 The madness creeps in for the first time as a Master’s student in my lab is telling me about her job hunt. Did you know that Epic – yes, that Epic, the electron...
www.carlsonlab.bio
December 31, 2025 at 4:49 AM