Robin Stephens, PhD

@CoryBooker Good. Keep trying to get congress to take back your power. The funding should be there to reinstate all of the science and health infrastructure that has been truely and fully destabilized by Musk and Trump.

This makes me ticked off. The Trump administration gutted USAID over a year ago, but the devastating human cost has continued. We cannot look away. We must restore our leadership and fight for aid programs to feed children, improve global health, and protect our national interests.

We all need to make sure and speak out and act out on this one, we are loosing over a century of progress if we let this destruction of Black and Brown representation and power occur.

The stories and photographs from today’s voting rights marches in Alabama deserve to be seen by people who weren’t able to stand there in person. If this piece moves you, please share it widely and help make sure these voices aren’t lost in the noise of a crowded news cycle. open.substack.com/pub/joycevance…

A year ago I warned what would happen if the U.S. tore down our disease detection system around the world With Hantavrirus and now a very concerning Ebola outbreak in DR Congo, we are seeing VERY clearly what we’ve lost. And why it matters. Read my @TheAtlantic piece from a year ago outlining what happened, and follow along as I continue to cover these issues in the coming days. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Yes, actually, we do accommodate them. We recruit rural physicians for rural communities all the time because people are more likely to trust and stay connected to healthcare systems when clinicians understand their culture, language, geography, and lived experience. That is why we have rural tracks in medical schools, Native health pathways, Black maternal health initiatives, Spanish-speaking clinics, VA systems, tribal health systems, and community-based recruitment programs. This is not “woke.” It is how public health works. The difference is that nobody calls it “identity politics” when medicine bends over backward to accommodate rural White populations because that has long been viewed as normal. The outrage only seems to appear when minority communities ask for the same recognition. Patients are human beings, not interchangeable widgets in a bureaucratic sorting machine.

Photographer Phil Thurston shot a wave. Slowed it down until those few seconds became 40. Turns out the ocean is doing something extraordinary every single moment. We're just moving too fast to notice.

Monstrous behavior by ICE and Alabama police, who blamed a Honduran mother for "abandoning" her child when they arrested & deported her without him. The son, Orlin, a US citizen, was then murdered by abusive relative and Trump admin wont let her return to bury him. Nightmarish.

@astrostarbright @MSMEDU @SpelmanCollege Inspirational Courage, Love it! Congratulations on your vision!!

Accepted to @MSMEDU Medical Science program. From First Look to full circle. People were shocked this was the only program I applied to. I wasn’t. Just like @SpelmanCollege, I knew. Intentional. On purpose. Not a dream. A trajectory. #SpelmanToMDToTheStars

@BlackCatrachoBK CONGRATULATIONS!! Glad you can see that your trajectory is helpful to others, you are a trailblazer.

This headstart kid, born and raised in Bushwick by immigrant parents/siblings, NYC Public school kid will be an Associate Professor of Africana Studies with tenure starting September 1, 2026. Missing my folks pretty horribly, grateful for their life sustaining imprint.

@aliciaandrz We have just moved from student evaluations of teaching to student evaluations of learning, where students can indicate what actually helped them learn in a class, rather than providing Yelp reviews of their teachers. Only the second semester of full roll-out but good so far.

@aliciaandrz We never see student evals until after grades are submitted anyway. But I started including a course reflection in final portfolios in which students evaluate what they had learned, texts and assignments they found most helpful or interesting, etc. Much more helpful.

@doc_thoughts go get 'em sir

This is special to me. My last talk of the semester. I spent 9 1/2 years at the University of Nebraska. This is virtual and the website includes a link to register. news.unl.edu/article/willia…

THIS IS NOT HABEUS CORPUS. 10 year old representing himself???

@angie_rasmussen Please take care of yourself. You are Angie Rasmussen and you should be healthy as best as possible. It is the most important ingredient to good science.

Apologies for the self-promotion, but I crushed my talk at #icar2026 despite being the least confident & resilient I’ve ever been since my first talk ages ago at the 2010 Positive Strand Meeting when I had to follow Charlie Rice’s keynote. Charlie didn’t win his Nobel prize for 10+ yrs, but being a postdoc following Charlie with an HCV talk is peak intimidating (though Charlie is a very nice guy). I still remember how desperately nervous I was & how convinced I was that I was going to fuck it up. When I didn’t, I stopped being nervous. Until this one, 15 years later. Not because I was intimidated by other big names at the conference. I wasn’t sure I could do it this time due to my health. I love conferences. It’s so great to catch up with friends & colleagues. It’s also a huge honor to be invited by scientists I respect—I can still hardly believe my work is interesting enough to merit a speaker invite. In these dark times, building & supporting our scientific community could not be more critical, both for the future of science & for the individual scientists who are affected. We need each other more than ever & it’s my top priority to do whatever I can to support & uplift virology & virologists. My health problems have really put a damper on this. I was at a conference at 3 am trying to finish 2 grants when I realized how serious my issues were. I had to get a medical extension for my grants. We’re still trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. I feel like it’s my fault, which I shouldn’t, because I can’t force my body into working right. Travel is hard for me. I got to my hotel after 24 hours of hell travel on the verge of collapse. I tried to rally for the poster session. Nope. This morning I gave myself a stern “You are Angie Rasmussen & Angie Rasmussen doesn’t waste time on self-doubt” talking-to but still couldn’t shake the nerves. I gave my talk & there was a lot of interest afterward. That means I did well. This post is in part to cheer myself for doing something very hard, which used to be easy. But it’s also to celebrate my field. I love virology & am proud to be a virologist. We need virology. I’ll keep fighting for it as long as I’m able.

@THECITYNY I just realized that one almost never sees the majestic pigeon posed in your logo in everyday apartment living and commuting, only from big windows high up.

Born 99 years ago today, Coretta Scott King was a civil rights and equality champion, and the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Many years ago, I wrote her wise words on a piece of paper and taped it inside a cabinet in my home. Remembering her today.

Good Night

1/2 "Race" is not a predictor or risk factor to hypothesize that an outcome will happen; "race" is the outcome that tells us that something has already happened. Something == racism as a system and racial as processes (e.g., racialization).

@FamilyHealthBen No. I took a break. Things were getting weird. I love what y'all are doing at @FamiliesUSA and I see you're a Huskers fan? If so, you should check this out: