Sciencing + Recovering from the 2024 Elections
Tough times provide hard-won lessons
Hello, Fancy Comma newsletter readers. Sheeva here!
Last month I posted about putting my whole life on hold to help elect Democrats in Arizona. Amidst a tough election cycle, I helped send the first Latino senator from Arizona, Ruben Gallego, to the senate, and the first Persian-American Democratic member of the House of Representatives, Yassamin Ansari. I was also excited to see that a House member who I watched play basketball in the Congressional Basketball Game narrowly won reelection in Arizona: Juan Ciscomani. Check out his basketball moves in my DC vlog.
I am no stranger to difficult election cycles or even losing campaigns. It’s kind of just how politics works — there is always a winner and a loser, and whichever side you end up on, it is a tough slog.
In 2004, I worked on a US Senate campaign here in Oklahoma. The 2004 elections were similarly devastating for Democrats (remember Kerry/Edwards? Yikes!). Since then, though, I have also helped elect three senators (Fetterman and Kelly in 2022 and Gallego in 2024).
From my political losses, I have learned to be more strategic and to pick my battles. It’s all hard, unglamorous work, regardless of who wins, and there are lessons to be learned from political campaigns, even if you lose.
One bright spot in all of this is that my science papers finally got published! My personal website now has a section dedicated to my independent neuroscience research. I am currently working on another research paper on PTSD which will take a bit longer to publish — it is 29 pages. This work is both a continuation of my graduate school research on stress, trauma, developmental neuroscience, and addiction, and a new direction informed by 10+ years of living life outside of science and being frustrated with the lack of sciencing happening with society.
Cservenka, A. & Azma, S. (2024). Neural correlates associated with a family history of alcohol use disorder: A narrative review of recent findings. Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research, 00, 1–19. [pdf]
Azma, S. (2024). Trauma Exposure across the News Cycle and the Case for Biotypes of PTSD in War Journalists. Seeds of Science. [pdf]
PDFs available at sheevaazma.com/portfolio.
I also talked to Santiago Gisler of Ivory Embassy about a lawsuit in academic publishing. Check it out here or below.
On the Fancy Comma blog, we’ve also written about becoming a science writer, talked about how I became an independent neuroscience researcher, published a guide to political campaign roles for US-based scientists, and talked about why you should read political speechwriter memoirs.
That’s all for this month’s newsletter. Thanks for reading! If you liked this newsletter, please share the wealth!