In honour of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, which takes place each year in February, we would like to give a shout out to all the wonderful women of QBIN. This short piece brings a personal perspective on how we can support each other towards a more equitable academia.
Exceptionally this year, QBIN will be awarding two Professors the Rising Star in Bio-Imaging in Quebec award, Profs. Sylvia Villeneuve and Hassan Rivaz, who will present their work at the 2022 QBIN Scientific Day in Sherbrooke on June 2nd along with this year’s William Feindel lecturer, Louis Collins. In order to learn more about their research and interests, the QBIN blog team conducted interviews with each of them. Stay tuned for interviews with Hassan Rivaz and Louis Collins soon and enjoy this first interview with Sylvia Villeneuve!
Most academics have at some point in their lives been asked by a well-meaning friend or relative when they will get a “real job”. While the natural response is to defensively explain that completing a PhD or a postdoc is in fact a real job, the question itself is not completely out of line. While for many career paths, people enter the job market directly after an undergraduate degree or an apprenticeship, research training takes many more years – up to ten years from the start of a PhD program to landing a permanent position (with no guarantees!).
QBIN is proud to have sponsored the 2nd edition of the Gradients of Brain Organisation workshop, which took place on the 16th of June, 2021. In total, 395 individuals from around the world registered for the event. At the peak on the zoom call, 164 individuals were online and many more watched the livestream on Vimeo.
This year, QBIN was proud to sponsor the Open Science Room, which took place from June 16-18 at the virtual annual meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM). As part of our commitment to help make science more open and accessible to everyone, QBIN has sponsored several activities organized by the OHBM Open Science Special Interest Group (OSSIG) in the past few years, including the Open Science Room and various Brainhack events.
The second annual Rising Star in Bio-imaging in Quebec was awarded to Dr. Bratislav Misic, Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University. Dr. Misic leads the Network Neuroscience lab at the Montreal Neurological Institute, where he and his team investigate how brain networks — the interactions between brain regions — support complex behaviour. We sat down with Dr. Misic for a chat to learn more about him and his research trajectory, and were struck by his humility and positivity. It was a breath of fresh air during these trying times. We hope our interview with Dr. Misic serves as a source of inspiration and wisdom for you, as much as it did for us.
Despite a raging snowstorm characteristic of Montreal winters on February 7th, attendance at this year’s annual QBIN Scientific Day was higher than ever, with almost all of the 220 registered participants from across the province braving the weather to attend the event. Some attendees even made their way over from Toronto and Marseilles, and although weather-related flight cancellations prevented one of our keynote speakers from attending, the bad weather did not stop the day from being a big success!
Learning how to work openly and collaboratively are becoming increasingly important [not to say necessary] aspects in research. Furthermore, analyzing complex bioimaging data requires knowledge in biology, statistical modeling and computational tools, and adopting good research practices early on is key for success. The Montreal BrainHack School was founded based on these premises by neuro-enthusiasts.
