Tessera

Desen Sevi Özkan

@desenoz.bsky.social

Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, University of Connecticut | Sociotechnical engineering education, Sustainable energy systems 🚲🧿🏳️‍🌈

0 Posts55 Follower 135 Folgt

Jared Holt @jaredlholt.bsky.social · last yr.

A nice reminder of the immense power contained in saying “no.” When people refuse to comply, it raises the costs ($$$, political, social, etc) of enforcing authoritarianism. They very well might try anyway, but every person that says “no” is another point of friction. www.npr.org/2025/06/28/n...

Around 100,000 march in Budapest Pride event in defiance of Hungary's ban

Marchers gambled with potential police intervention and fines to participate in the annual Budapest Pride, which was outlawed by a law passed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's right-wing governing part...

npr.org

Celeste Ng @pronounced-ing.bsky.social · last yr.

"Witnessing large-scale systems slowly unravel in real time can be profoundly surreal and frightening. The hypernormalization framework offers a way to understand what we’re feeling and why."

Post nicht verfügbar.

Yale Climate Connections @climateconnections.bsky.social · last yr.

"We know the Earth is warming due to human activity as well as we know that gravity exists," says historian Naomi Oreskes. The debate isn’t scientific – it’s political. Full interview here:

Our elected officials have known about climate change since the ‘60s » Yale Climate Connections

The science has been settled for decades.

yaleclimateconnections.org

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · last yr.

I'm looking for a postdoc to work on justice-oriented audit frameworks. Closing date April 30, 2025. pls share widely

AI Accountability Lab @aial.ie · last yr.

We are seeking to appoint a Postdoctoral Researcher to work on developing a justice-oriented audit framework synthesising computational methods, theories of justice, and existing regulations to premeditatively focus audits towards meaningful accountability. www.adaptcentre.ie/careers/post...

Research project/Challenge
The AIAL (AI Accountability Lab) is seeking to appoint a Postdoctoral Researcher to work on developing a justice-oriented audit framework synthesising computational methods, theories of justice, and existing regulations to premeditatively focus audits towards meaningful accountability. The goal of the framework is to provide audit practitioners with practical tools such as guiding questions and rubrics that shape perspectives towards rigorous justice oriented audits.

The position corresponds to work in one or more of the following areas:
Accountability
Mapping accountability mechanisms and governance structures and their alignments with fundamental rights and freedoms and legal frameworks.
Challenging existing accountability mechanisms that do not consider or sufficiently address social inequalities, power and resource asymmetries.
Developing new methods for ensuring accountability beyond technical and organisational considerations that provide empirical evidence for holding stakeholders accountable for AI development, provision, and deployments.
Auditing
Developing audit methodologies for specific stages in the AI lifecycle focused on ensuring justice, accountability, and transparency beyond merely satisfying legal requirements.
Development of verifiable, replicable, and reproducible design methodologies and frameworks and using these in the execution of audits.
Developing audit tools and frameworks to evaluate AI development and deployments with a specific focus on risk and harm mitigations beyond technical and organisational issues.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · last yr.

And I am so fucking angry at all of you adults making life hell for little girls (and big girls) who are some of the bravest people on the planet because they are doing the hard work of being girls in a world that refuses to respect their girlhood Every single one of you ought to be deeply ashamed

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley @pressley.house.gov · last yr.

🚨UPDATE: Rümeysa Öztürk has now suffered three separate asthma attacks while in DHS custody. She has not received her required asthma medications—a violation of her fundamental right to medical care. This is cruelty, it is neglect, and it is a damning moral and legal failure.

Pressley, Warren, Markey Sound Alarm on Rümeysa Öztürk’s Medical Neglect, Renew Urgent Calls for Her Release (1/2):

“It is unconscionable that Rümeysa Öztürk—a young woman pursuing her education, exercising her First Amendment rights, and contributing to her community—remains detained by DHS. Her ongoing incarceration is not only a blatant violation of her constitutional rights to due process and free speech, but it is now an egregious denial of her fundamental right to medical care.

Pressley, Warren, Markey Sound Alarm on Rümeysa Öztürk’s Medical Neglect, Renew Urgent Calls for Her Release (2/2):

“According to her lawyer, Rümeysa has not received her required asthma medications and has now suffered three separate asthma attacks while in custody. This is cruelty, it is neglect, and it is a damning moral and legal failure.

“As her representatives in Congress, we demand DHS immediately provide Rümeysa with access to the health care she needs, and absent compelling evidence justifying her detention and the revocation of her status, we call for Ozturk’s release and the restoration of her visa. Every minute she remains in custody is another minute her health and rights are at risk, and DHS must move with urgency.”

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley@pressley.house.gov · last yr.

This week, my Somerville constituent Rümeysa Öztürk was abducted in broad daylight by DHS officials and sent to Louisiana to be locked in a detention center. She has not been charged with any crime.

A graphic that reads Free Rümeysa Öztürk with a photo of her.

Big Ol’ Mush @chadstanton.blacksky.app · last yr.

A lot of people like to dismiss racism as insubstantial to material realities but we’re watching a nation burn trillions of dollars in wealth to entrench a racial system of domination.

Andrew Simon @simongandrew.bsky.social · last yr.

One of many moments in Omar El Akkad’s new book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” that will stop you in your tracks.

There is an impulse in moments like this to appeal to self-interest. To say: These horrors you are allowing to happen, they will come to your doorstep one day; to repeat the famous phrase about who they came for first and who they'll come for next. But this appeal cannot, in matter of fact, work. If the people well served by a system that condones such butchery ever truly believed the same butchery could one day be inflicted on them, they'd tear the system down tomorrow. And anyway, by the time such a thing happens, the rest of us will already be dead.
No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience.
Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness. Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.

ProPublica @propublica.org · last yr.

NEW: The Trump administration’s research funding and DEI cuts present an existential threat to regional public universities like Southern Illinois University, the economic backbone of the conservative rural region it serves. With @capitolnewsil.bsky.social

A University, a Rural Town and Their Fight to Survive Trump’s War on Higher Education

The administration’s research funding and DEI cuts present an existential threat to regional public universities like Southern Illinois University, the economic backbone of the conservative rural…

propub.li

Sarah Betancourt @sweetadelinevt.bsky.social · last yr.

A video shared with me shows Ozturk walking on the sidewalk as 5 people in plain clothes & covered faces walk nearby. A man with a hoodie approaches her, then grabs her wrists. Ozturk screams, then asks “Can I call the police?” He says, “We’re the police" www.wgbh.org/news/local/2...

Tufts international graduate student taken into ICE custody

A Tufts University international graduate student was reportedly detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and remains in federal custody, according to an email sent by the university ...

wgbh.org

AAUP @aaup.org · last yr.

When we fight, we win. Judge Halts Implementation of Trump Anti-DEIA Executive Orders Nationwide The AAUP is proud to stand up & defend our campuses & communities against those attempting to squash civil rights & halt progress toward an equitable, multi-racial democracy. www.washingtonpost.com

The Washington Post - Breaking news and latest headlines, U.S. news, world news, and video - The Washington Post

Breaking news, live coverage, investigations, analysis, video, photos and opinions from The Washington Post. Subscribe for the latest on U.S. and international news, politics, business, technology, cl...

washingtonpost.com

Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · last yr.

This, from my colleague @pamherd.bsky.social , is a great piece about Trump’s attack on disabled people, and the real harm it is causing, including to one of UM’s outstanding students. open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

Who is included in Trump's America?

In multiple ways, Trump is pushing people with disabilities out of public life

open.substack.com

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · last yr.

I always shock my students a bit when I tell them that quantitative data is just qualitative data that has already been interpreted numerically.

Jess Calarco@jessicacalarco.com · last yr.

In case you need a teaching example of the social construction of quantitative data... www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/u...

Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · last yr.

The fear of job loss is real and I understand it. But by gutting the CDC, and going after the NSF and NIH, they’ve made it clear that no one is safe, so fighting back—and maybe helping someone else—isn’t that much riskier than silence.

Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · last yr.

One of the questions after my talk today was about scientists refusing to buck the administration because they fear losing their jobs. I said that a lot of self-styled apolitical scientists lost their jobs this week, so silence will not save them. Respond and keep your values and dignity.

Jesse D. Jenkins @jessedjenkins.com · 2y ago

Everyone seems to be framing Trump's freeze on federal grants as a Constitutional fight over powers of the purse & whether presidents can disregard Congressional appropriations. It is that. But also at stake is the fundamental validity of government contracts! I see much less discussion on this... 🧵

Jesse D. Jenkins @jessedjenkins.com · 2y ago

Update: 23 state AGs file suit to block Trump Admin's illegal spending freeze. 100% of them are Democrats. Sigh... ny1.com/nyc/all-boro...

23 attorneys general sue to stop federal funding freeze

They say the freeze is unconstitutional and are seeking a temporary restraining order before it is scheduled to take effect Tuesday

ny1.com

Jesse D. Jenkins@jessedjenkins.com · 2y ago

The reality of this hasn't sunk in for Americans yet. It needs to: "The White House budget office ordered a pause on all federal grants & loans Monday potentially impacting trillions in government spending and halting public programs that affect millions of Americans." www.cnn.com/2025/01/27/p... 🔌💡

Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they)@doctorvive.bsky.social · 2y ago

Super fascinating climate-communication study making the rounds today, thanks to @katharinehayhoe.com. Skeptics who changed their minds went through a three-step process, which began with a "distancing from their ideological community." 👇 🧵

In changing their opinion, most participants' experiences followed a general process of (1) distancing from their ideological community,
(2) a desire to seek out information, leading to
(3) a gradual or epiphanic realization that solidified their shift in opinion.

Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 2y ago

Researchers found 15 people in Kansas City who had changed their mind about climate change, and asked them why. Fascinating! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A quote from the paper stating that their results extend my advice about the importance of talking about climate change