Maria Pope’s challenge was clear -- present her complex Ph.D. brain research, which could potentially shift the way we understand brain function, in a concise, entertaining, accurate and informative way.
Adding to the degree of difficulty -- do it in three minutes to an audience unfamiliar with the topic with a chance to advance to regional and national thesis competitions.
For this Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering researcher, it was mission accomplished. Pope won first place in last week’s Indiana University Bloomington Three-Minute Thesis Event.
Her presentation, A Party in the Brain: Finding group interactions between brain regions, showed how brain regions can work together in groups rather than in pairs. This extends more traditional neuroscience studies that focus on building networks from pairs of brain regions. When brain regions interact as a group, they share information in such a way that the group contains more combined information than the sum of the individual brain regions. Surprisingly, some brain regions that don’t usually interact one-on-one can come together in these group interactions.
The bottom line -- this could change how we understand brain activity and could lead to new avenues for research in treatments for disease, behavior issues and brain damage.
“Winning this competition means a lot because I have done my best to make clear scientific communication a priority,” Pope said. “By participating in these events, I hope that people can have the opportunity to interact with my research in a way that is accessible and understandable regardless of their backgrounds.”
Pope, who is in a dual program in Neuroscience and Informatics, was one of eight finalists out of 20 university-wide participants. Another Luddy student, Zachary Wilkerson in Computer Science, was also a finalist. Other represented fields were in medicine, biochemistry and education.
Pope advanced to April’s regional competition at the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, with a chance to move on to the upcoming national event.
Three-Minute Thesis is an international program launched by Australia’s University of Queensland in 2008 to turn what can be an 80,000-word, two-hour thesis defense into a three-minute summary appropriate for a non-specialist audience. It’s designed to hone academic, presentation and research communication skills.
Pope said her work is highly technical and uses a lot of information theory, “A branch of math that many people have never heard of. Even when I present at conferences to other neuroscientists and network scientists, this can be an issue.”
Pope said the concepts she works with exist outside of math. Her ideas don’t come from equations, but from those concepts. She said equations are a precise way of communicating ideas, but are not the only way.
“They certainly shouldn't serve as a barrier if people want to learn more,” she said. “This research is important, and it's my responsibility to communicate it so others can appreciate its importance too.”
Pope’s Ph.D. advisor, Olaf Sporns, Distinguished Professor and Provost Professor for IU’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, said her Ph.D. thesis “is going to be brilliant.”
“In a few short years, she has created a comprehensive body of work, including multiple first-author papers, and formulated a new perspective on how brain networks give rise to dynamic patterns of information,” Sporns said. “I’m amazed that she’s able to distill this complex science into a prize-winning, three-minute presentation. Her work is already widely recognized and I’m sure she will continue to innovate and lead the field in new directions.”
Trevor M Verrot, IU assistant dean for student development and director of the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, said judges evaluated the research presentation rather than the research itself, focusing on comprehension, content, engagement and communication.
Presenters had to provide the research’s clear motivation, background and significance; describe its strategy and results; and offer conclusions and impact, all while capturing and maintaining audience attention.
“Maria's presentation reflected all of these qualities,” Verrot said, “and stands as a great example of how to share a complex project in a way that is both accurate and engaging.”
Verrot said judges were from Bloomington’s "robust community of start-up entrepreneurs an development leaders." He added that the competition, reinforced with IU’s partnership with IU Innovates, would help continue to build new and stronger connections outside of the university, and promote how IU’s advanced academic degrees contribute to the state of Indiana’s vitality.
“It aids our graduate students professionally, connecting them with potential mentors and future employers,” he said. “It also is an immediate, accessible means of sharing the fantastic research and discovery of our graduate students with community leaders, legislators, and the public.”
Pope said the competition has provided valuable practice in making her work accessible while “still keeping rigor in the concepts.”
“I hope that some people were genuinely interested in my presentation and were able to take home a new idea to think about.”