UNews - office of Innovation and Research Services

5 Questions with Dr. Blythe Shepard

trevor.kenney — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:07:10 +0000

Blythe Shepard joined the Faculty of Education at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge in July 2008. She received her doctorate in educational psychology with a specialty in counselling psychology from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria in 2002 where she was a faculty member (2002-2008) and graduate advisor (2005-2008) in the Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies. Shepard is completing the first Canadian textbook for Career Practitioners and recently co-authored a national handbook for the supervision of counsellors/psychotherapists. She is the 2011 recipient of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association's (CCPA) Professional Contribution Award in recognition of outstanding promotion of the counselling profession in Canada and is President-Elect of CCPA.

What first piqued your interest in your research discipline?

In many rural areas in Canada, jobs in traditional employment sectors are disappearing while few new jobs in expanding, knowledge-based manufacturing and service industries are being developed. Rural Canadians have expressed concern about the loss of young people through urban migration. When rural communities lose their youth, they lose the creative and innovative ability of young people to find possible solutions to community problems. As a long-time rural resident, I was curious about how rural young women perceived themselves within the context of a rural community, now and in the future. I also wondered how active these young women were in the construction of future plans. A doctoral SSHRC fellowship allowed me to pursue this study. Four years later, I followed up the study with a Standard SSHRC grant that focused on rural youth in three communities in BC.

Dr. Blythe Shepard researches the factors that influence rural youth.

How is your research applicable in "the real world"?

Based on the themes that were identified in interviews with rural youth, a community workshop was designed in collaboration with rural youth. Future Bound: A Lifeworks Expedition Workshop for Rural Youth is an activity-based workshop designed to help youth examine their past, current and projected future life paths. The workshop activities are readily adapted for use by counsellors and teachers. The Possible Selves Mapping Interview is used by practitioners in Wellington, New Zealand (Geoff Plimmer, PhD of FutureSelves Ltd.) while Campus d'Alfred de l'Université de Guelph translated sections of the Future Bound Workshop for use with their rural students.

What is the greatest honour you have received in your career?

From 2000 to 2005, I was involved in a unique experiment in genuinely interdisciplinary research funded by SSHRC and NSERC. A set of carefully constructed complementary case studies on the east and west coasts of Canada were developed to achieve an integrated analysis of the long- and short-term impacts of socio-environmental restructuring on the health of people, their small communities and the environment. A total of 70 natural and social scientists and 167 trainees worked together with local communities to produce leading-edge research. Upon completion of the project, the Coasts Under Stress Research Team was awarded the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria Craigdarroch Team Award for Societal Contribution.

How important are students to your research endeavours?

I believe in maintaining an active role in supporting and collaborating with graduate students. A mentoring relationship that acknowledges our different worldviews, epistemological understandings, learning styles, etc. is a powerful form of social learning. I encourage and support students to take an active role in all parts of my research program in order for students to develop as researchers and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. My vision for our work together is that of a facilitator who guides students over their shoulders.

If you had unlimited funds, which areas of research would you invest?

My research interests would continue to focus on rural women across the lifespan but would expand to include various types of rural communities in several provinces (e.g., remote, near urban centres, resource based, etc). The following questions would guide my research: (1) How do rural women weave work into the tapestry of their lives in communities experiencing social and economic change? (2) What are the work-life issues, supports and challenges for rural women? (3) What are the differences in socio-economic structures in each rural community and how do they affect women?

Each month, the Legend will present 5 Questions With . . . one of our researchers. For a look at the entire catalog of 5 Questions With . . . features, check out the Office of Innovation and Research Services website at www.uleth.ca/research/research_profiles. If you'd like to be profiled, contact Penny Pickles at pickpj@uleth.ca

This story first appeared in the January 2013 edition of the Legend. For a look at the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

5 questions with . . . Dr. Aaron Gruber

trevor.kenney — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:04:30 +0000

Dr. Aaron Gruber received his PhD in biomedical engineering from Northwestern ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Chicago, Illinois, writing his dissertation on computational models of working memory and its modulation by dopamine. He joined the faculty at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge in 2009.

Gruber's laboratory investigates the neural basis of attention and decision making in complex environments, with a focus on how neuromodulators such as dopamine influence neural synchronization, information encoding, and learning in cortical and subcortical brain structures. One goal of this investigation is to better understand how subtle alterations of neural dynamics, such as that associated with psychiatric illness and psychoactive drugs, can lead to distractibility and poor decision-making.

Dr. Aaron Gruber eyes readings from neural activity in a test subject.

What first piqued your interest in your research discipline?

For as long as I can remember I have wondered why people often want things that they don't need or that ultimately lead to poor outcomes. This could be a third helping of ice cream, an expensive and impractical car, or a pack of cigarettes. Where do these desires come from and why are some people better able to resist such temptation?

When I later came to appreciate that all of our thoughts and actions are a result of patterned neural activity, and that we can observe and analyze this activity, I became hooked on neuroscience. During my graduate studies, I learned about the then-recent finding that the neuromodulator dopamine is critical for imparting 'wanting' and is critically implicated in drug addiction as well as some psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia. Ever since, I have been intrigued by how dopamine affects neural signaling, and how this influences decision-making. The field of neuroscience is presently very exciting, as we are rapidly accelerating our understanding of how thoughts emerge from dynamical interactions of neurons. Such understanding will open doors to unprecedented advances for the treatment of thought disorders, developing brain-machine interfaces (thought-controlled devices), and developing intelligent algorithms and synthetic systems. I find this extremely interesting, and am excited to be a part of it.

How is your research applicable in "the real world"?

Understanding the neural basis of decision making and the contribution of dopamine will likely lead to the development of better treatments for the very serious consequences that result from dysfunction of this brain process, such as obesity, addiction and schizophrenia. Furthermore, this research will support the development of future technology for interfacing with intelligent devices.

What is the greatest honour you have received in your career?

I am most satisfied when others acknowledge that my lab's work makes an impact. For instance, this occurs when other scientists use our work to guide their experiments or interpretations. One of my greatest honours, however, was a letter from a young teenager with a mental illness who thanked me for my research, and expressed hope that such work would help lead to the development of a cure within his lifetime.

How important are students to your research endeavours?

Both undergraduate and graduate students are essential to my research in a number of ways. First, they are an integral part of data collection, which requires a great deal of technical work. Second, many good students impart a fresh perspective by questioning the foundations on which the experiments rest. Third, the process of training students helps reveal limitations in my knowledge and requires that I maintain a big-picture view of my lab's activities so that I can provide rationale for each experiment without predication on a large body of literature unfamiliar to students. Lastly, many students bring energy, interest, and inquisitiveness to the lab that helps preserve the wonder in our work and fosters learning and discovery among the entire lab.

If you had unlimited funds, which areas of research would you invest?

I would establish a technology development centre that would facilitate utilization of contemporary technology in electronics, nanotech, and materials science for performing neuroscience research. Engineers could likely increase data collection by orders of magnitude by utilizing design and fabrication technology available within large electronics companies.

Increasing the amount of simultaneously recorded data will likely be an important development for discovering how networks of neurons in the brain process information, which is one of the fundamental questions in neuroscience.

This story first appeared in the December 2011 issue of the Legend. If you'd like to see the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

5 questions with . . . Dr. Aaron Gruber

trevor.kenney — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:07:22 +0000

Dr. Aaron Gruber eyes readings from neural activity in a test subject.

What first piqued your interest in your research discipline?

How is your research applicable in "the real world"?

What is the greatest honour you have received in your career?

How important are students to your research endeavours?

If you had unlimited funds, which areas of research would you invest?

This story first appeared in the December 2011 issue of the Legend. If you'd like to see the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

UNews - office of Innovation and Research Services

5 Questions with Dr. Blythe Shepard

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5 questions with . . . Dr. Aaron Gruber

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