Last week, This week

Working at the Sackler is becoming more and more enjoyable. I feel much more adjusted now and I think that our team is starting to feel a lot closer than we did in the beginning, so that is certainly a positive thing. We are all excited, nervous, and ready to deal with our child subjects.

Most of my day is spent working with children, teaching them about the brain and engaging them in brain-related games. The children we've worked with so far have really impressed me with their intelligence, curiosity, and energy. They spend quite some time in the experimentation rooms, so we try to make their break time (time in between experiments) as enriching and entertaining as possible. It's hard, sometimes, to strike a nice balance between education and fun, but I think we're getting it. It's definitely going to take some practice! Anyway, it's been exciting for me to be exposed to a new generation of smart, mature, and dedicated children.

I'm also about to start working on a project called Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), which is a brain imaging technology that is similar to MRI in the way that it produces very accurate images of the brain that doctors and psychiatrists can analyze. We are trying to make correlations between areas in the brain called "white matter tracts" and mathematical and literary ability. We will be studying some data that has already been collected on groups of children in New York and California. The process of analysis, I think, will be particularly challenging, as one "brain scan" is made up of a 30 x 30 image which basically produces 900 "points of interest" that we need to analyze. But like most daunting tasks, practice makes perfect.

Aside from working with children and DTI, I am still gathering some data on my enumeration experiment. This is an exciting one because I have been administering this experiment on my own without any help/supervision. My independence here is something I really appreciate.

Sometimes I forget that the Sackler is a nonprofit organization, as it is comfortably housed in the renown Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. But lo and behold, the hard-working and dedicated staff really reflect the sheer determination and energy of the classic nonprofit. Everyone arrives early and works late, driven mostly, I think, by an intrinsic motivation to succeed and do well.

Today my supervisor made a really nice comment about me that made my day, and I think I'll leave off on that note. I asked her how I could help make her load a little easier, and she said that I have been helping her immensely and that I was the kind of person that she would only have to "tell something once to." Receiving this feedback is really nice; it rewards my efforts and makes me feel like I have done a good job.

Anyway, in my next blog I will try to write more comments about the seminars we have been having and the places we have been visiting. What I will say right now is that I am so grateful to those organizations like the Fortune Society that have seen an ill in society and are doggedly trying to fix it.

Until next time!

Hello first entry!

So technically this isn't my first week of work, but hey I'm going to update anyway! Well I am working at the Sackler Institute of the Weill Cornell Medical Center, which is an institute that specializes in Developmental Psychobiology, but really I just say it's a neuroscience research lab. I'm working with my supervisor Cathy (who is really awesome if she ever reads this :) on a few things.

First I should back up and describe research at the Sackler. Ultimately we are investigating how children perceive different speech sounds, acquire bi-lingualism, and how (and what) different parts of the brain become activated as a result of listening to variations of various (oohh check that alliteration...) sounds and phonemes.

My specific project focuses on a process called "enumeration," which measures reaction time to counting activities. The exact experiment involves a program that flashes a certain number of dots on a screen, either in a random assortment or grouped by some multiple, and then having the participant count the number of dots as quickly as he or she can. The researchers will then use this "reaction data" to analyze different aspects of visual perception and math processing.

Secondly! We are working on developing a curriculum for teachers to use during "Brain Awareness Week," which is a week dedicated to teaching children the science of the brain (neuroscience, I suppose) and promoting discussion about neuroscience issues. As a side note, I just saw a bolt of lightning and it was very frightening. Yes, anyway, this means I have spent a good amount of time researching different kinds of games/activities/lessons for children concerning the brain. Which also means that I have seriously refreshed my memory about all things brain.

This experience, I think, will be extremely enriching for me. As a Psychology major, learning about (let alone being immersed in) actual psychology research is amazing, to say the least. As a person concerned with social justice issues, working towards bridging the gap between neuroscience findings and their implementation in the educational system is also very exciting.


To wrap it up, my experience at the Sackler Institute has been spectacular so far, first because I truly esteem the Sackler team's dedication to research (and their enthusiasm and support for Tyler and I working there), and second because I am dedicated to establishing a much needed link between the often "alienated" realm of research with the real world of New York City public schools and schools across the United States, for that matter. I have faith that my time here will be meaningful and productive, and I look forward to every minute of it.

Thanks for reading!