The MIND Project is one today!
“I don’t see negatives. I see potential to improve and then I ask myself, how can I help?”
This is Walid. He is a newly minted instructor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and if there is one thing that jumps out the first time you meet him, it is his extremely positive and “can do” attitude. Therefore, it is only natural that when he saw that interdisciplinary research is required to create meaningful solutions for challenges of the mind, he began brainstorming what he can do to create an environment facilitating such research. This is how a year ago today what we now call The MIND Project, or TMP, was created!
As invitation emails urging interested fellows to contact Walid spread, one by one we got roped in. “We” are the team that now stands behind TMP.
We are all junior scientists - postdoctoral fellows and instructors - under the Harvard umbrella with different stories, challenges, ambitions, hopes, and research topics. What connects us is our mutual drive to create a collaborative environment wherein researchers from all scientific fields can come together and work towards addressing challenges of the mind. These challenges range from scientific research focused on neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders to how science can affect mental health awareness, promotion, and destigmatization.
During the past year we have been working to accelerate mental health research by facilitating connections between research faculty and young investigators.
“Investigators seeking to mentor the next generation in their labs use our database to announce openings. Graduate and undergraduate students input their skills, expertise, and research interests. We send the investigators a list of those interested in their research, and they select a student. And this is how the research match is made, inspiring the name MIND MATCH for this program.” Says Mahsa Eskian, postdoctoral fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
We also created TMP32 which pairs postdoctoral fellows with faculty. This program focuses on skill retention, and scientific and interpersonal fit. “It is important that scientists discover their true passion and assess where they fit best because that is how they go on to produce and do remarkable work.” Says Walid.
We believe that MIND MATCH and TMP32 are not acting only as accelerants for research, but because of their focus on “fit”, they can create a healthy environment for both the mentor and the mentee. Our goal is to protect the mental health of all parties involved by minimizing the interpersonal stress and anxiety that are prevalent in academia. We are proud that to date MIND MATCH and TMP32 have connected more than 38 junior researchers with faculty members within the Harvard community.
True to the backgrounds and ambitions that led us to Walid and TMP, we each chose to pick up a different part of this effort. For Michal Lipinski, postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, TMP's mission coincided with his freshly re-ignited interest in the challenges of psychiatry. Not having the resources available in his immediate environment, within TMP he found a community who is equally interested in addressing mental health challenges. And voilà! Behold our Community Building cluster. As to what this cluster does, well…
Truth is “our President Dr. Walid Yassine will kick our butts if we don't deliver” says Michal graciously providing a sense of comic relief for us all! But we swear he does have a serious side: “I would love the Community Building cluster to further engage the fellows who joined TMP over the last year. I wish to survey people’s goals for their time with us, and structure TMP in such a way that these goals are achievable.”
Similar to Michal, Lokendra Thakur, postdoctoral fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital, joined TMP with an ambition to “work on projects which lead to improving mental health”. His efforts at TMP are directed at “training TMP members in technical skills required for their research projects, i.e. cloud computing”, says Lokendra. The idea is to equip researchers within the TMP with an infrastructure that boosts their productivity creating that sweet sweet feeling of success!
As Michal and Lokendra look within and contemplate how to create a fulfilling environment for all members of TMP, Isabel Castanho, postdoctoral fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Fatemeh Bahari, postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, are more interested on the outside. “Amongst the many things that these past couple of years of a global pandemic have dumped on us, one thing is crystal clear: Clear communication of how scientific research and discourse are performed can save lives!” says Fatemeh.
Isabel and Fatemeh see TMP as a platform to explore how clear science communication can lead to more inclusive policies both inside and outside of academia. “At the Communications cluster we are super excited for 2022; we are planning several science communication events (check out our event for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science!!) and we are having difficult but important public discussions (again check us out on Twitter and LinkedIn). Our goal is to use science communication as a tool to educate (and learn from) the population about neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders and to promote mental health for all.” adds Isabel.
We are indeed not alone in our efforts. Since we started, we have been receiving quite a lot of support from faculty members within Harvard and its affiliated hospitals, with exceptional faculty having joined our advisory board.
Georgios Ntolkeras, clinical fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and Geo to us, has lent us his eloquent communication and writing skills to maintain the link with faculty. Like many of us, he joined TMP “because it advocates for people with psychiatric and developmental disorders and offers a multidisciplinary and collaborative scientific approach to these challenges of the mind”. Within TMP, Geo aims to foster this approach by facilitating the communication between faculty and TMP’s community.
At a time when a raging global pandemic has suddenly made the world a lot lonelier than it should be, TMP has been a place of refuge for us all. In coming together, not only did we identify ways we can contribute to each other’s research, we found support and motivation to explore our more “non-scientific” ambitions and realized that whether in the form of building community, facilitating communication, or providing professional skills, they are not that “non-scientific” after all!
When we started, we were just a few postdocs, enough to fit in a restaurant booth, and now TMP’s community includes over 170 young investigators.
Sooooo…
We have just learnt how to talk, we are after all only 1 year old, but you can be sure to hear more from us! Just wait until we can walk…
Fatemeh Bahari, PhD, is the assistant director of the Communications cluster at the MIND project. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts General Hospital studying pediatric epilepsy. Outside of her research she is most interested in demystifying the science that is done in the lab for the general public that benefits from it.