20190709 Lab turnover!
We’ve got two departed lab members who this coming month will don white coats and become MD students! Congratulations to Sandra Okoro (Technician 2016-2019) and Muhammad Feroze (undergraduate (2016-2017)!
We’ve got two new members arriving this August. Brigdet Njeri (CMU ’19) will come to be a new Research Technician and Shelby Ruiz (Mississippi College ’19) will come to rotate as a PhD student. This means I get to teach my favorite technique (stereotaxic surgery).
20190305 Leadership Philosophy
It is helpful at the beginning to set out what we, as a team, hope to accomplish. There are three main missions I want my lab to accomplish.
Research:
Novel scientific findings about how the brain works are the foundation of any neuroscience research laboratory. In my group, I seek to address questions of how motor systems in the brain control the body. Because this is a complicated system, our work will generally have two avenues:
- Neurobiology: Understand how motor circuity controls learned skilled behavior. Here, my team and I will use a range of anatomical and functional techniques to understand how specific cell types in the brain are connected.
- Techniques: We are constantly in need of new approaches to dissect brain circuits. When a new approach comes along, such as use of light for stimulating genetically defined cells or use of nifty genetic approaches to label specific cell types using novel transgenic animals or viruses, it enables us to ask new questions. Here, I intend for my team to identify and implement novel tools and ask interesting questions with them!
People:
People are the most invaluable resource of any organization. We are lucky to have young, motivated people coming into neuroscience, fascinated with the questions we are capable of exploring. Since academic science usually blesses us with young investigators early in their careers for only a few years at a time, we owe them the effort to develop them personally and professionally to prepare them for a life in the full range of interests they may choose to pursue. Specifically, I want to support the people in my group now and after they leave. Further, since I have found no other convenient place to put it, I want to be able to recruit the best minds from anywhere – this means I want my lab to welcome people of every race, sex, gender, religion, culture – because, not only is it the right thing to do, but also having a wide range of viewpoints on hard, as-yet-unsolved questions is likely a very good way to do science.
- Technical skills: In the short-term, my team and I will help new members learn a range of approaches with broad applications in neurobiology, such as stereotaxic surgery, viral transfection, imaging, whole-cell recording, and photostimulation for circuit mapping, as well as novel methods we’re sure to import. Given that we work with a full palette of neurotoxins, viruses, and lasers, I aim to keep the lab a safe place.
- Career development: I want my trainees to have mental preparation for a lifetime in academic science, industry, medicine, and alternative careers in and outside of science. I do not want anyone in my lab afraid that I will not support them if they decide to pursue something outside of motor systems research in academia! I had a fulfilling career in submarining before I came into science. There are lots of wonderful pursuits in the world, and at worst all I will do is pressure my team members to take on challenges risky enough that they’ll fail often enough to know the work they have chosen is hard, and worth doing.
Communication:
Our research findings are of no use to anyone if we can’t communicate them to others. I want the people I work with to be conscientious in their communications with others both inside and outside the lab. Gathering data is of course a substantial effort. But talking and writing and graphically presenting it in a format that invites the full range of readers from experts in the field, to your labmates, to other neuroscientists without an expertise in cortical circuits to fall in love with the question you’ve addressed is crucial. For me, this means trying (and I need to try quite hard, I trained as a scientist and an engineer, not an author) to tailor your message to the audience you are trying to reach.
- Communicate outside the lab (for impact): publications, poster presentations, academic talks. All of these we must put a reasonable advance effort in and seek out harsh criticism from our friends and allies. Because, when done properly, this feedback will make what we say better.
- Inside the lab (for unity of effort): lab meetings, practice talks, and informal discussion. I think this is a great forum for improving communication skills.