@xeniaschmalz
I study reading and dyslexia, especially across languages. Psycholinguist, cognitive scientist, Open Science advocate, academic mum. I love books, languages, travelling. Currently working as an Acting Professor at TU Dresden.
Today!
We have funding for a PhD position on word learning of a third language! The position is part of a research group on the psychology of language control (bilingualism), so that there will be a cohort of PhD students with related topics. Please distribute with anyone who might be interested. :)
[Admin] Liebe alle, @realscientists.de macht eine kleine Pause. In der Zwischenzeit suchen wir immer neue Wissenschaftler*innen, die eine Woche lang unseren Account übernehmen möchten. Wenn ihr Interesse habt, meldet euch unter: dasistsciencetwitter@gmail.com.
#IchBinHanna makes the news in Süddeutsche Zeitung today again, through an interview with @amreibahr.bsky.social : www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/ichbi...
I'm hiring again!!
Two Postdocs in Philosophy of Mind (one ot two years), Centre for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp
- to work with me!
Deadline: March 20, 2026
More info on PhilJobs
🚨🚨 My lab is hiring a Postdoc! 🚨🚨
Postdoc opening in my lab at Harvard Psych (start: Summer/Fall 2026).
We study identity, group dynamics, language, & politics.
Rolling review begins 3/14
Apply: academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/15806
Please repost + tag folks who might be a good fit! 👇
Great question from one of our Nowhere Lab members, any ideas?
"Does anyone know of a guide/resource on how to write the cleanest, most elegant, most well-structured reproducible code?...I want to make it exemplary, something that future researchers will see in 5 years and still admire"
**Postdoc position in human category learning**
@thecharleywu.bsky.social, Frank Jäkel and I are seeking a postdoctoral fellow to lead a joint project on human category learning at the Centre for Cognitive Science @tuda.bsky.social.
www.career.tu-darmstadt.de/tu-darmstadt...
"Between two rivers" by @moudhy.bsky.social, which was a comprehensive introduction to the ancient history of Mesopotamia. And this article [in German], which makes it painfully clear that some of the horrific things described by Shafak are not pure fiction: www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/is-pr...
Finished reading "There are rivers in the sky" by Elif Shafak. Not an easy read, psychologically, but very interesting, especially if you're interested in the history and geopolitics of Mesopotamia!
By coincidence, I'd read some related stuff just before reading "There are rivers in the sky":
As someone who works with data, I cannot respond to this in any other way than: What kind of idiots are they hiring that design a system that merges unrelated cases without even throwing an error message? I'd expect my bachelor students to do better, and I teach psychology, not data science!
Jedoch zu zeichengleichen Frankfurter Kennzeichen. Die Erfassungsmöglichkeiten im Schengener Informationssystem bieten leider nicht die Möglichkeit, Verwechselungen aufgrund der unterschiedlichen Zulassungsbezirke aber identischen Zeichenfolge zu vermeiden."
... But this is a systematic problem in the Schengen Information System (SIS), as confirmed by the BKA: They wrote "Zu Ihren Kfz-Kennzeichen liegt keine Ausschreibung im SIS vor. [...]
... although this problem is solved, the question remains how to proceed, because with our current number plates, we'll basically get suspected of car theft every time we get into a routine traffic check while traveling abroad. It seems we can get our number plates exchanged (hopefully for free)...
My husband is now on the way to pick up our car. The Frankfurt police called the BKA, the BKA sent an official notice to the Czech police, which went through several administrative offices, and we can now get our number plates back. (Trip there: 2 hours by train, 1 hour by flixbus.)...
Postdoctoral researcher (80%) in Cognitive Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
The successful applicant will work with the head of the Cognitive Psychology Unit, Klaus Oberauer, and the Cognitive Psychology team.
Application deadline: 20 March 2026
It's surprising that this still happens in 2026. You'd think that in a high-stake situation such as a database of stolen cars they hire a programmer whose code doesn't merge unrelated cases.
... where the stolen number plates were originally registered, they also didn't know, but started calling places that might.
So, if you're reading this, please keep your fingers crossed that we'll get a number plate and our car back!
... though it still leaves us in the annoying position that our car is stuck without number plates in a small Czech town.
It seems like a predictably unavoidable but uncommon error, so our local police station in Germany didn't know what to do about it. Calling the police station in Frankfurt ...
... starts with F-SK, otherwise it's identical. And - tada - in the international database of stolen cars, hypens and spaces are stripped. So F-SK and FS-K is not distinguishable. The police in Germany confirmed this today, so it's not anybody's fault or oversight...
... German number plates start with 1-3 letters that indicate the region where the car is registered. B for Berlin, BN for Bonn, etc. Then, there is a hyphen, more letters, and a number. We are registered in Freising, the letter code is FS. Our number plate starts with FS-K. The stolen number...
... After some interrogation, my husband and son were free to go. But the number plates had to be confiscated. And one can't drive a car without number plates. Instead of a 2.5 drive, they had a trip of 1 hour by taxi plus 3 hours by train. Only today did we find out what had happened...
... were on their own. We'd bought our car last year, the number plate was supposedly reported stolen back in 2022. After some googling, I find out that stolen number plates are blocked for 10 years. Our car was formally registered, and we even once got a speeding ticket based on its number plate...
...Are we really sure? Because our number plates have been reported as stolen. We should follow them to the police station to sort it out. We explained that I had to catch a bus, and they allowed me to leave (after checking my ID), leading the way for us to follow by car. Then, my husband and son...
... We waited, glad that we'd left with plenty of time to spare before my bus' departure. The policewoman sat in her car, we waited and watched as she called someone, spoke for a very long time, called someone else, spoke for a very long time. Did we report ever our number plates as stolen? No...
... my husband and son would drive back home and I'd take a bus and go to Dresden. So we set out, with the idea that they'd drop me off at the bus terminal in a nearby town.
We were stopped by a standard police check. Nothing unusual at first, but then the policewoman said it may take a while...
A thread on a completely different topic (maybe with a bit of a link to data, which I also sometime post about), involving the story of how I was driven to the bus station with a police escort.
It started with a weekend in the Czech Republic, where we went by car. Yesterday, the plan was, that ...
Postdoctoral Researcher - BILINGUAL LENS - Infant Language and Cognition Research Group, BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain & Language
Application deadline: 20 March 2026
2026 big update to the psycholinguistic database page! If you know of corpora, lexical databases, or other resources that I've missed, please LMK. Trying to keep this thing relatively current and could use the help www.reilly-coglab.com/data
We’re trialling a new social activity: #ManyLanguagesChallengeOfTheMonth
Running large-scale projects means encountering puzzles, hiccups, and the occasional “why is this happening” moment.