Hello readers!
It’s good to be back. I’m so glad I was able to attend the annual Society for Neuroscience (SFN) conference this week—from Saturday to Wednesday night—but there’s nothing quite like home. I arrived yesterday after a red-eye with two layovers (heehee— that’s where cheap flights get me), and actually made it through the day with only four hours of plane-sleeping! I’m quite proud of myself, and probably still a bit sleep-deprived. Ah well; let’s get on with the pictures, shall we?
Dinner at the San Diego Conference Center
The adventure began when we (Yiing, me, Jane, and Kaitlin: members of the Conway lab) walked into Logan International airport at three in the morning, bleary and carrying our poster tubes. Lo and behold, upon entrance we saw that there was a preponderance of bleary poster-tube-carrying people! They were so ubiquitous across our trip that I have to include a picture for you (see the link, except no one was carrying bats in their tubes), and we had to explain several times to curious airport employees what was going on :). The tubes certainly made identification of SFN-ers easy, and at times it felt like the whole of Boston was heading out to San Diego!
http://www.bcwsupplies.com/products/poster-accessories/shoulder-strap-for-bat-or-poster-tube.htm
We soon found out that our flight had been cancelled, so we went back to Kaitlin and Galina’s place in Boston to wait until 7pm in the evening. It was sad to miss the first day of SFN, but we made the most of it: Yiing and I tackled our respective homework with a vengence. We finally arrived in San Diego at 10pm their time, and were happy to go straight to sleep before the conference the next day.
http://neurdiness.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/society-for-neuroscience-conference-a-paradox/
I realize now that we failed to take many pictures of the actual conference, as we were so enthralled by attending the talks :). But the above link shows a picture of what the poster sessions looked like– there were 30,000+ neuroscientists in attendance, so this was a BIG conference. Besides looking at posters, we attended lectures during the day, and also had the opportunity to talk to vendors (mostly in order to receive free stuff :)). A typical schedule would be to leave the hotel in the morning, attend the morning session of talks (called symposia), check out the posters and eat lunch, go back to the afternoon symposia or look at posters, then head out with friends for the evening or attend the SFN socials.
Here we are hanging out after the afternoon lecture sessions, before dinner. Me, Jane, Kaitlin, and Yiing’s laptop are all present, plus the beautiful sunset reflected in the background.
One of the most amazing talks I attended was Dr. Doris Tsao’s Presidential Lecture on face recognition. I was so impressed by her research– she presented it like a story, with logical steps, but reading between the lines you can see how confusing her data must have been when it was first analyzed. She says, “now these cells’ responses corresponded to what we expected, but these cells up here show a whole different pattern of response. What could be going on? In order to find out, we conducted this next series of experiments, which showed that they were in fact encoding…” I look at how she threw herself into unexpected findings in order to elucidate model mechanisms, while the normal response would have been to puzzle over why the experiment wasn’t working, and I admire her so much. If only we were all scientists of her caliber!
Dr. Doris Tsao giving a Presidential Lecture on face recognition; Yiing got us seats that were front and center.
Because everyone asks, I have to tell you about the weather too. Did you know it was snowing in Boston? Not in San Diego :). Not to say you shouldn’t bring a sweater, but their late autumns are a far call from Minnesota weather, or Massachusetts. They have PALM TREES and sunsets. Hmm… 🙂
As Yiing describes this photo: working in the sun.
But we didn’t come to this conference ONLY to gawp at all the amazing research going on! We actually presented our own posters, though not at the main conference. The Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) hosted a SFN-social on Monday night, where Yiing, Jane, and I presented the work we’ve been doing. Here we are with Rosa, an alumni from the Conway Lab, who presented her work at the main conference but came by to see how we were doing :).
Jane, Rosa, and Yiing and I at the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) poster session.
And Yiing and I afterwards :).
In the evening after the symposia, we were free to venture around downtown San Diego, and we took advantage :). One night we went to a Wellesley College alumni gathering where we met some fabulous alumni, many in graduate school and some even with their own labs. Dr. Anne Churchland from Cold Spring Harbor was particularly wonderful to meet, and we learned about graduate school admissions, her work, and her recommendations for some of our work from her. It was great to chat with our teachers at Wellesley who were also attending the conference, current Wellesley undergraduates with whom we don’t usually have time to catch up at school, and old Wellesley students, all in the same place :).
The Gaslamp quarter: where we mostly spent the evenings in San Diego.
Paige and Ally at the Wellesley Alumni social! They, along with Farah, are in the Wiest lab, and we had several outings with them.
And the other nights too we were happy to run along Fifth street, eating and drinking and dessert-ing :).
Our last night, Yiing, Jane and I went adventuring our own, and found this French cafe. Most delicious dinner ever: crepes for dinner, then crepes for dessert… this is me and Jane :).
And ice cream was necessary, of course. We had to come back to this two times in a row!
Ghirardelli’s. They give free samples.
Farah, Paige, and Yiing at Ghirardelli’s.
We arrived back yesterday morning, filled with science from the days and fun from the evenings :). I’m currently in catch-up mode, but I’m so glad I was able to attend SFN. I went into the conference hoping that I would figure out exactly what I wanted to study for the rest of my life, and I can’t say I was successful in that lofty goal, but I learned quite a bit about what other groups around the world are doing. I eliminated some options for what I want to do in graduate school, and confirmed to myself that I need to start researching papers and labs now, to really explore what I’m interested in. Up to this point in my life I was able to follow my parents’ guidance for some of my academic choices, but from here on out it needs to be all me–so I need to figure out what it is precisely that I like and wish to pursue :).
That self-knowledge was great to learn, and that aspect of my experience doesn’t even include how valuable it was to see the science! As soon as I got back I began telling people about the creativity used in creating the experiments I heard about, and I no doubt will over-share my new neuroscience knowledge in the next few weeks :). Moreover, seeing neuroscience as a global community, not just as our lab or as our hallway of labs, was eye-opening. It showed me that I have so many more choices for where I can go in the future, and that the types of research and people involved in neuroscience are far-reaching and marvelously diverse.
I have to go to class now, but would love questions and comments! Wellesley funded my attendance at this conference, and I owe so much of this experience to the community here :).
Best to you all, and hope you have great Fridays,
Monica