SIG: Inclusion in Neuroscience - Post 5

SIG: Inclusion in Neuroscience - Post 5

Author: Grace Dorsey 

Undergraduate intern for the B-RAD Lab at the University of Alabama 

This week for the Inclusion in Neuroscience SIG, each team offered insight into their current progress and future plans, with a special focus on their prospective audiences. The meeting, held on Monday, October 11th, 2021, also served as an avenue for brainstorming and education through some initial findings from two groups. 

Additionally, each individual was asked to reflect upon:

• What are we increasing inclusion for?
  

• What are potential solutions you can include in your research?
  
• How can we use this opportunity to explore vs narrowly focusing on having a product for the end?
  

The individual team updates are as follows:

Team 1 (Technological Constraints)

• Audience: Potentially increasing specificity of infographic audience from the general public to white psychology students at the University of Alabama.
  
• Progress: Interesting initial findings related to the early adopters of EEG, specifically Hans Berger who may have had Nazi ties. Also gathered information on the different types of EEG, including saline, water, dry and gel.
  
• Goals: To connect with student organizations and businesses to gain knowledge on how to work with coarse and/or curly hair, including hairstyles adopted by individuals with this type of hair. 
  

Team 2 (Racism in the Dissemination of Neuroscience)

• Audience: Those who don’t have ready access to education on how to approach analyzing research.
  
• Progress: Selected Wix.com as the website platform.
  
• Goal: Source relevant videos and articles for their website’s content, as well as develop methods of sorting the information.
  

Team 3 (Inclusion in Neuroscience)

• Audience: Current and prospective Neuroscience students, faculty and researchers at the University of Alabama.
  
• Progress: Decided upon a literary magazine with several ideas for articles. Defined inclusion as a characteristic of a social and/or academic community that not only means said community has a wide range of backgrounds and identities, but also that individuals from minority groups feel comfortable communicating and contributing without fear of bias.
  
• Goal: Further construct a plan for the content, set deadlines and narrow down the focus of each feature. On a wider scale, it is to have real conversations with professors, researchers and scholars to paint an accurate portrayal of the inclusion as it pertains to UA’s Neuroscience population.
  

Team 4 (Building Trust)

• Audience: EEG Researchers.
  
• Progress: This week, each member found two articles about historical instances of scientific exploitation of populations. The examples discussed during SIG included Willow brook State school, Tearoom Trade, MK Ultra, and the Plutonium Trials. 
  
• Goal: To find more information as it relates to mistrust in science, as well as look into potential solutions to improve the relationship between researchers and participants from groups previously taken advantage of.