leaving

silviana amethyst
5/30/24

Above all else: Excitement about science ¶

I love science. I am a trained scientist with a broad background and experience in applied mathematics, mathematical modeling, computer programming, parallel programming, visualization, and illustration.

I’m ready to dive back into doing science full time. I’m especially excited about the opportunity to apply algebraic techniques to analysis of large scale data sets, and super excited to have biology and genetics applications in front of mind. I also am really excited to flex my computer programming muscles!

I am leaving my tenured professorship ¶

transparency note: I have taken a 1-year leave of absence as an insurance policy in case MPI or Germany don’t work out. But this is a slim chance.

note after Jan 20, 2025: I resigned. This position ist vorbei.

Challenges in teaching

Self-censored

Challenges in my university and UW System

Self-censored

I am leaving the US ¶

My departure from UWEC and higher education is inseparable from my departure from the United States, yet they are also rather independent.

I am leaving the United States at this time for these reasons:

• Our complete failure to take seriously the growing climate catastrophe. I have a hard time finding optimism.
• Our utter disaster of a transit system. I have come to believe that our ever-deepening dependence on cars is at the root of our dysfunction.
• Political madness. A narcissistic pathological liar leads one of the two political parties, and it’s not clear how this will end.
• Increasing oppression of trans people, especially trans youth and trans women. Leave us alone, it’s my fucking body.
• Uncontrolled gun culture. The recent ruling on bumpstocks is insane. I don’t want to live in a country where people can buy and carry machine guns without any training.

Know this, too: I do not think that leaving the US for Germany will solve all of these problems for me. But, I do think I will find some reprieve away from trumpism specifically.

What would make me change my mind ¶

I often find myself asking “what would it take?”. A general question, good to ask, to query thresholds. For example,

• What would it take to convince me to believe in an Abrahamic god? (Literally any measurable scientific evidence)

The current one about which I am writing is:

• What would it take for me to stay in my current position at UWEC and remain in the US?

I require:

• Admission from the Republican Party that anthropogenic climate change is real and presents an existential threat to the entire globe.
• A retreat from authoritarianism and trumpism.
• True local leadership of my university.
• Leave trans people alone.