Lydia Burleson

One of my highlights for 2023 was getting to meet and interview @tony_jack , a fellow first-gen scholar and the author of The Privileged Poor, How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. 🧵 1/5

Someone tell @KimKardashian what my partner and his lab have cooking. No poop, just RNA. #antiaging biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

This is such good reporting from the @harvardcrimeson: There are about 27,000 high schools in the U.S. Over the past 15 years, 1 in 11 students at Harvard have come from just 21 high schools. So 9.1% of Harvard students come from 0.07% of US schools. @nytdavidbrooks

"rising inequality is legitimated by the popular belief that the income gap is meritocratically deserved: the more unequal a society, the more likely its citizens are to explain success in meritocratic terms... the less important... a person’s family wealth and connections."

Save 30% on #NewBook "Poor Things," by Lennard J. Davis, which argues that those who write about the poor but have not themselves been poor are governed by harmful tropes and stereotypes. #LiteraryStudies #CulturalStudies ow.ly/SHhg50TZS3r

What kind of childhood makes a top scientist? Is it enough to have all the right traits (brilliance, grit, etc) or do you need the right family too? And why should we care? A 🧵 on our paper on the Nobel Laureates. A teaser: the income distribution of the laureates' fathers.1/N

Yale school of public health not fucking around on tiktok

In 2024, I’m taking the time I spent with Tony as a beacon to help guide my work and to give me an outcome to strive toward. Read his book here: hup.harvard.edu/books/97806749… and special thank you to @KnightHennessy for this opportunity #firstgen #highered 5/5

But it wasn’t just Tony’s words, it was also what he stands for, what he represents to every student from a disadvantaged background: When disadvantaged scholars are given the opportunity afforded by higher education, we don’t just skirt by. We can also excel. 4/5

Tony gave words then—doubly disadvantaged—and again in 2023, in his speech about the value of a diverse student body and in his responses to my questions, where he emboldened a room of @Stanford students and leaders to be part of the changing education landscape for good. 3/5

I opened the interview sharing how life-altering reading Tony's book had been when I was an undergrad at @Yale and had not yet found the words to describe balancing my experience with poverty and while also being at one of the most well-resourced institutions in the world. 2/5

One of my highlights for 2023 was getting to meet and interview @tony_jack , a fellow first-gen scholar and the author of The Privileged Poor, How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. 🧵 1/5

Today, in honor of Labor Day, I would like to tell you what I learned about class struggle--and U.S. literature--after reading 150 novels and story collections, as a member of the 2023 Pulitzer jury for fiction. 1/8

Calgary airport. I’m sure Virginia Woolf would have loved Skittles.

Are you considering pursuing the #humanities in graduate school? This Thursday at 9am PST / 12pm EST, Kay, Karishma, and I are hosting a panel tailored to prospective KHumanities Scholars! Register here: lnkd.in/ev2fzaWp @KnightHennessy @Stanford #phd

#Medieval lit: 📙Piers Plowman B-Version: 🏚️🗺️⛪️ 📕Canterbury Tales: 🧑‍🤝‍🧑🗺️🤼🗺️📚🗺️⛪️ 📗Beowulf 🤺🌊🧌👺⚔️🤺🌊5⃣0⃣🐉⚔️☠️ 📗Judith 💁‍♀️🛌⚔️🤯💁‍♀️ 📙Exodus🏚️🧑‍🤝‍🧑🗺️🧑‍🤝‍🧑🌊🤼🌊🧑‍🤝‍🧑🗺️⛪️ 📗 Apollonius of Tyre 👨‍👧⁉️🤺🛳️🧑‍🏫👨‍👩‍👧🛳️👨‍👧🛳️👧🛳️🧒🛳️👨‍👧🛳️👨‍👩‍👧 📗Life of St. Margaret 👨‍👩‍👧➡️👧➡️👨‍👩‍👧⛪️👩‍🌾⚔️🏚️👹🐉⚔️🤺💁‍♀️⛪️☠️⛪️

As I read the English canon this summer, here are my micro emoji reviews of each: a thread #literarystudies

We won. ❤️✊

Today’s decision is decidedly *not* a win for all poor kids. Highly selective colleges and universities will focus more on personal essays and letters of recommendations, which always always always privileges kids with more resources.

brb printing this to hang outside the room where I'm doing my quals reading #phdlife