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.
Have you ever wondered how and why we should think about sex AND gender when conducting research? Join Dr Buckley, Dr Flatt and me today as we question ourselves on these topics in the field of neuroimaging. We discuss topics from how to define sex and gender to discussing interesting results. This conversation denotes the importance of continuing this dialogue and including people from different fields in and outside of academia to gain a holistic view on sex and gender.
Last summer, QBIN launched the first trial of a new program designed to engage CEGEP students in bio-imaging research and help graduate students and postdocs gain valuable mentorship experience. Three PhD students from the Integrated Program in Neuroscience at McGill University were paired with two CEGEP students from Dawson College to complete a 10-week research internship. The pilot was a great success and we plan to expand the program to include more mentors and interns from across the province in summers to come! Read on to learn more about the program from the perspective of our first three QBIN mentors, Aurelie Bussy, Stephanie Tullo, and Isabelle Arseneau-Bruneau!
In Canada, 38% of adults between the age of 20 and 79 years old suffer from hearing loss, and many never receive treatment. Furthermore, scientists have found that hearing loss often precedes diagnoses of age-related dementia by 5 to 10 years, suggesting that difficulty in hearing may contribute to cognitive decline – an interesting link that is supported by imaging studies showing functional and anatomical changes in the brains of older adults.
It is the end of the semester again and your exams are fast approaching. Your new year’s resolution was to go from expert in procrastination to expert in time management, and yet here you are again, trying to learn three and a half months of school material in one week. Like always, you have convinced yourself that in one week, you will be able to learn, understand, and memorise all the facts and theories you need to know to pass your exams. At first, cramming doesn’t sound so bad, but as the sleepless nights turn to exhausting days, you notice it becomes harder and harder. You find yourself reading the same sentence over and over as if it’s written in a foreign language. Your flash cards and clever mnemonic devices aren’t helping as much as they did yesterday. Panic starts to set in as you realise that this is taking more time than you have left, and you wonder: “why is my memory failing me now?!”. Well, it’s likely that those sleepless nights could be taking a toll on your brain because of the interesting relationship between sleep and memory.
During the 2022 QBIN Scientific Day in Sherbrooke on June 2nd, three exceptional keynote lectures were given by this year’s William Feindel lecturer, Professor Louis Collins, and the two recipients of the 2022 Rising Star in Bio-Imaging in Quebec award, Professors Sylvia Villeneuve and Hassan Rivaz. In order to learn more about their career paths, research, and interests, the QBIN blog team conducted interviews with each of the award recipients.
[This post is only available in French] Chaque année, le RBIQ annonce le concours de bourses de recrutement aux étudiants à la maîtrise et au doctorat dans le domaine de la bio-imagerie. Ces bourses visent à promouvoir la recherche effectuée par les étudiants et postdoc au sein du réseau. Ces jours-ci, nous recevons les candidatures pour les bourses de l’année 2022-23. Nous profitons de ce moment pour vous présenter à trois des récipiendaires des bourses de l’année dernière (2021-22), qui ont bien mérité cette reconnaissance. On espère que ces petites entrevues rapprochent nos membres de nos futurs brillants chercheurs!
How many times have you asked yourself whether your research has a broader impact on society? Why is it so hard to quantify the impact of our scientific endeavors? I recently sat down with a few prominent neuroscientists who are members of both QBIN and the Transforming Autism Care Consortium (TACC) network. I wanted to get a sense of the state of the art in autism bio-imaging research and what the motivating factors and benefits are behind collaborative science and inter-network initiatives in Quebec.
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!).
