Change, Technically

Dr. Ashley Juavinett and Dr. Cat Hicks
  • 5.0 (14)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

Ashley Juavinett, PhD and Cat Hicks, PhD explore technical skills, the science of innovation, STEM pathways, and our beliefs about who gets to be technical—so you can be a better leader and we can all build a better future. Ashley, a neuroscientist, and Cat, a psychologist for software teams, tell stories of change from classrooms to workplaces. Also, they're married.

  1. MAY 7

    You have bad mental models of learning

    You can find the talk Cat gave about learning and its citations here: https://github.com/DrCatHicks/tailscale_talk  On beliefs about humans being more genetically dissimilar than they are, work primarily done by Brian Donovan: Donovan et al. (2024). "Humane genomics education can reduce racism." Science, 383(6685), 818–822. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi7895  Learn more about Ashley: https://ashleyjuavinett.com/https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashleyashleyjuavinett.bsky.social Learn more about Cat: https://www.drcathicks.com/https://mastodon.social/@grimalkinagrimalkina.bsky.social

    1 hr

  2. MAR 30

    You can write a book

    📚 PREVIEW CAT'S BOOK, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOFTWARE TEAMS! Pre-orders will be available in June.  https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-of-Software-Teams/Hicks/p/book/9781032963389    📝 EPISODE NOTES Jeff Shreve's Substack that Ashley mentions in the beginning https://jeffshreve.substack.com/Ashley is not linking anything about the reiki on rats paper here because she doesn't want that paper to get more hits than warranted but she *does* you to see the figure from it and has put it here for your viewing: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WQGGjh2VT87XbbmaqdK2g7tyyknzwr6s/view?usp=sharing Cat read a couple of papers about creativity for this episode, including: Inspired by Distraction: Mind Wandering Facilitates Creative Incubation and Innovation Relies on the Obscure: A Key to Overcoming the Classic Problem of Functional FixednessLearn more about Ashley: https://ashleyjuavinett.com/https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashleyashleyjuavinett.bsky.social Learn more about Cat: https://www.drcathicks.com/https://mastodon.social/@grimalkinagrimalkina.bsky.social

    51 min

  3. FEB 16

    You can learn with AI

    Can people learn in the AI era? Ashley and Cat think so. We talk about Ashley's experiences teaching programming and co-designing WITH students (not against them) to create shared classroom norms around AI, and about the metacognitive skills that Cat is sharing with the software teams and developers she works with to bring a "dynamic textbook" approach to using AI to build understanding, not degrade it.  Cat's Learning Opportunities Claude Skill, with a scientific reference list to the effects we also talk about in this episode, can be found here: https://github.com/DrCatHicks/learning-opportunities Cat also wrote a recent piece about the complexity of measuring the impact of AI in Software Organizations: https://www.fightforthehuman.com/how-not-to-measure-the-roi-from-ai-in-your-software-organization/ Learn more about Ashley: https://ashleyjuavinett.com/https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashleyashleyjuavinett.bsky.social Learn more about Cat: https://www.drcathicks.com/https://mastodon.social/@grimalkinagrimalkina.bsky.social

    37 min

  4. FEB 9

    Know your neighbors

    This isn't the episode we planned, but it's what is on our minds right now. We talk about the power of knowing your neighbors and a few ways in which we've found solace and meaning in building our local community. Here's a glimpse into our playbook -- tell us about yours in the comments. Learn more about Ashley: https://ashleyjuavinett.com/https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashleyashleyjuavinett.bsky.social Learn more about Cat: https://www.drcathicks.com/https://mastodon.social/@grimalkinagrimalkina.bsky.social

    15 min

  5. 12/22/2025

    Math is for girls

    The story from Janet Hyde about her motivations to get a grant and "fight with data" can be found here:  https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/janet-shibley-hyde-sinks-stereotypes-with-data  Cat summarizes a ton of research for this episode. Key citations, most of which contain large literature reviews themselves:  Adamecz-Völgyi, A., Jerrim, J., Pingault, J. B., & Shure, N. (2023). Overconfident boys: The gender gap in mathematics self-assessment. Brescoll, V. L., Dawson, E., & Uhlmann, E. L. (2010). Hard won and easily lost: The fragile status of leaders in gender-stereotype-incongruent occupations. Psychological Science, 21(11), 1640-1642. Carr, M., Jessup, D. L., & Fuller, D. (1999). Gender differences in first-grade mathematics strategy use: Parent and teacher contributions. Journal for research in mathematics education, 30(1), 20-46. Del Toro, J., Legette, K., Christophe, N. K., Pasco, M., Miller-Cotto, D., & Wang, M. T. (2024). When ethnic–racial discrimination from math teachers spills over and predicts the math adjustment of nondiscriminated adolescents: The mediating role of math classroom climate perceptions. Developmental psychology. Else-Quest, N. M., Hyde, J. S., & Linn, M. C. (2010). Cross-national patterns of gender differences in mathematics: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 136(1), 103. Gesuelli, K. A., Miller-Cotto, D., & Barbieri, C. A. (2025). Variability in math achievement growth among students with early math learning difficulties and the role of school supports. Journal of Educational Psychology. Hyde, J. S., & Linn, M. C. (2006). Gender similarities in mathematics and science. Science, 314(5799), 599-600. Hyde, J. S., Lindberg, S. M., Linn, M. C., Ellis, A. B., & Williams, C. C. (2008). Gender similarities characterize math performance. Science, 321(5888), 494-495. Hyde, J. S., & Mertz, J. E. (2009). Gender, culture, and mathematics performance. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 106(22), 8801-8807.   Hyde, J. S., & Mertz, J. E. (2009). Reply to Crespi: Gender similarities, culture, and mathematics performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), E103-E103. Hyde, J. S., Bigler, R. S., Joel, D., Tate, C. C., & van Anders, S. M. (2019). The future of sex and gender in psychology: Five challenges to the gender binary. American Psychologist, 74(2), 171. Kane, J. M., & Mertz, J. E. (2012). Debunking myths about gender and mathematics performance. Notices of the AMS, 59(1), 10-21. Lindberg, S. M., Hyde, J. S., Petersen, J. L., & Linn, M. C. (2010). New trends in gender and mathematics performance: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin Learn more about Ashley: https://ashleyjuavinett.com/https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashleyashleyjuavinett.bsky.social Learn more about Cat: https://www.drcathicks.com/https://mastodon.social/@grimalkinagrimalkina.bsky.social

    51 min

  6. 12/09/2025

    Science deserves stories

    First of all, in this episode you'll learn why Ashley has shipped ONE THOUSAND COCKROACHES through the mail. Second of all, Ashley shares about getting scientists to tell stories, taking risks to share knowledge, and doing science communication in places that don't look like a university campus.  We talk about work with the following amazing organizations: Guerilla ScienceSASSY San DiegoCaveat NYCIf you want more science storytelling in your life, please check out The Story Collider.  The recording kits we sent to students were made by Backyard Brains. If you're curious about Ashley's neurobiology lab class, you can learn more about it here. Ashley also wants to give a shout out to the amazing UC San Diego staff who made shipping cockroaches during a global pandemic possible, and who still maintain the ongoing roach colony, occasionally even feeding them donuts. Learn more about Ashley: https://ashleyjuavinett.com/https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashleyashleyjuavinett.bsky.social Learn more about Cat: https://www.drcathicks.com/https://mastodon.social/@grimalkinagrimalkina.bsky.social

    37 min

  7. 09/16/2025

    The Change, Technically anniversary special

    Ashley, Cat, and Danilo reflect on the major themes after one year of Change, Technically. For more information on consulting with Cat, please visit https://www.catharsisinsight.com/  --- SHOW NOTES: On women’s loss of status in gender incongruent professions: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797610384744  On links between self-compassion and prosocial behavior: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4026714/  On psychological essentialism: https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/abstract/S1364-6613(04)00183-4  On Shigeru Miyamoto's development of Donkey Kong (Note the line in this article, "Yamauchi [Nintendo's President] assured him [Miyamoto] his lack of technical skills would not be a problem."): https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/the-secret-history-of-i-donkey-kong-i- Learn more about Ashley: https://ashleyjuavinett.com/https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashleyashleyjuavinett.bsky.social Learn more about Cat: https://www.drcathicks.com/https://mastodon.social/@grimalkinagrimalkina.bsky.social

    33 min

  8. 07/22/2025

    Andor and the psychology of resistance

    SHOW NOTES Dominic Packer’s Normative Conflict Model of Dissent is described in this paper as well as his other work: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868307309606  Cat also mentions Mina Cikara’s work on coalitional cognition. This is a good representation of that: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0065260121000137  Cat also mentions The Power of Us, which is by Dominic Packer and Jay Van Bavel, and a book she enjoyed! https://www.powerofus.online/  From the same authors, this piece talks about intergroup bias: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315735160-23/dynamic-nature-identity-brain-behavior-dominic-packer-jay-van-bavel  Cat mentions a study about socially shared retrieval induced forgetting, that’s here: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-18938-001  James Baldwin: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5853-you-think-your-pain-and-your-heartbreak-are-unprecedented-in  https://www.pbs.org/video/james-baldwin-suffering-bridge-of7cq3/  Asch’s research on conformity has been reexamined in work such as this: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1976-24067-001 and this: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327957pspr1001_1  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2420200104  Babies attending to prosocial actions: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-61517-3 The research that we discuss about the targeted-universal message can be found here: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/1/pgae588/7942411  Further work on this is here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-0009.12651  Podcast we mention with Tressie McMillan Cottom is this one: https://moneywithkatie.com/status-power-economy  Learn more about Ashley: https://ashleyjuavinett.com/https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashleyashleyjuavinett.bsky.social Learn more about Cat: https://www.drcathicks.com/https://mastodon.social/@grimalkinagrimalkina.bsky.social

    49 min
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5
out of 5
14 Ratings

About

Ashley Juavinett, PhD and Cat Hicks, PhD explore technical skills, the science of innovation, STEM pathways, and our beliefs about who gets to be technical—so you can be a better leader and we can all build a better future. Ashley, a neuroscientist, and Cat, a psychologist for software teams, tell stories of change from classrooms to workplaces. Also, they're married.

Information

  • Creator
    Dr. Ashley Juavinett and Dr. Cat Hicks
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    19
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Change, Technically
  • Show Website
    Change, Technically

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