time capsules, sleep, and the future

[Bill Maurer]

    Dear social sciences faculty, grad students, lecturers and staff,

    Happy May Day! I had lots of "thinking toward the future" today: the
    Social Science Research Council asked me to do a short interview on
    an image or object to place into a virtual time capsule to help future
    researchers understand our present predicament. So I chose this:
    


    and, well, you'll just have to read about it next week when they post it!
    
    A group of colleagues from Social Sciences and Social Ecology engaged
    in a really interesting discussion about landscaping future research
    agendas for the social and behavioral sciences. We talked about taking
    advantage of the natural experiments going on right now between different
    communities to pose hypotheses and begin to speculate on what will need
    to be investigated as we move into the next phase of the pandemic. We
    will also carry forward the conversation to think about future research
    for whatever our 'post-Covid' world will look like.
    
    And at noon, Sara Mednick in Cog Sci did a fantastic presentation on sleep
    during the pandemic, how some of our sleep cycles are shifting, and the
    effect of sleep on immune function. Folks are having more nightmares,
    too! Over 170 people attended. Screen shot below. One take home message:
    get your Z's! Among other things, we hold onto negative information when
    we're sleep deprived. The video will be posted here. One attendee wrote,
    "The presentation itself was therapeutic." Thank you, Sara!
    
    And thank you all again for your many contributions, both in front of the
    students and behind the scenes. As you can imagine there's an awful lot
    going on, including planning around research re-starting, Fall teaching,
    enrollment scenarios, funding scenarios, and on and on. I'll continue
    to keep everyone informed as best I am able.
    
    Take good care, and rest up!
    
    Bill