Week 3: Maybe the Research Was the Friends We Made Along the Way
Adhip J -
Welcome back for Week 3 everyone!!
This week was a bit slow compared to the previous two; of course, I managed to hit up some of the best cafes and shops in town, but I’m writing this week’s edition from Whole Foods because…why not?
My mentor was away at a conference at the beginning of this week, so she suggested I reach out to other lab members to get a feel for the ongoing projects conducted at the lab and potentially find something that I am interested in so that I can participate in the project’s efforts once I get situated in the lab.
What followed was the daunting task of sending a mass email to about 15 members, none of whom had previously heard of me. Thankfully, a couple undergraduate members replied and were so excited to tell me about their work!! It was a refreshing experience to realize that there are others in this world who share a passion for language, speech, and neuroscience with me because, for a long time, I often felt isolated in this area.
By exchanging emails with a few members, I learned about some ongoing projects related to the FXTAS research and the tasks necessary to complete these experiments and projects. Mainly, the members told me about the importance of speech transcription in understanding speech habits and the methods that are used to accomplish this. In future weeks, I will be gaining hands-on experience once I get access to the lab (it has taken a painfully long time).
In addition to FXTAS research, the members are heavily involved in the disability initiative that was heavily mentioned in Week 1, and one of the members told me about the lab’s efforts to reach out to local police in the Blue Envelope Project and a Coffee with a Cop event. These projects are a part of the lab’s efforts to improve social understanding of the neurodivergent community and how we can enhance the necessary education and communication between law enforcement and autistic/neurodivergent individuals.
Beyond this introduction to my fellow lab members, I have continued my independent, remote research into FXTAS reading more papers and watching new videos, specifically lectures and presentations by professors specializing in Fragile-X-associated disorders.
I have a meeting first thing next week with my mentor, and I aim to create some more concrete goals for the next few weeks in this project, potentially getting into the lab, providing my efforts to ongoing projects, and most importantly, thinking about what to do for my final product.
I hope you’ve been enjoying keeping up with my project, and I’ll see you next week for more!
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