Latest / Crafted Connections / EP 47: Endurance, Curiosity, and the Brain with Dr. Grace Houser

Transcript

EP 47: Endurance, Curiosity, and the Brain with Dr. Grace Houser · Crafted Connections

• 0:03
  Katelyn: Hello, welcome to Crafted Connections.
• 0:07
  Katelyn: I'm Katelyn Calhoun, and this is a podcast all about storytelling and building genuine community.
• 0:12
  Katelyn: Here we'll dive into the art of storytelling, unpack strategies for making meaningful connections, and hear from incredible humans who are using their story to create impact.
• 0:22
  Katelyn: So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's craft some connections.
• 0:27
  Katelyn: Hello, welcome, my friends.
• 0:32
  Katelyn: Thank you so much for pressing play.
• 0:34
  Katelyn: I'm Katelyn Calhoun and you are listening to Crafted Connections.
• 0:38
  Katelyn: Today I've got a wonderful guest.
• 0:41
  Katelyn: She actually is a childhood friend of mine.
• 0:44
  Katelyn: We'll give some more backstory on that, but Dr.
• 0:46
  Katelyn: Grace Houser is in the virtual house, if you will.
• 0:51
  Katelyn: And I I love this woman so much.
• 0:54
  Katelyn: It's so fun because I, you know, I'm doing this and I'm just like realizing that I know the most interesting people.
• 1:01
  Katelyn: And to like to pick your head up one day and be like, wait a second, my childhood friend is a neuroscientist is like so freaking epic.
• 1:07
  Katelyn: But I'm so excited for you to to hear about her experiences, about her field of study.
• 1:13
  Katelyn: And one thing I do want to point out I thought was so cool is finding these like similarities in our work.
• 1:19
  Katelyn: So like she talks a little bit about like the use of light in science and like the manipulation of it.
• 1:25
  Katelyn: And you know, I've got this video background, and so that was super cool to be like, oh yeah, I I use that all the time too, and lots of collaboration and science, right?
• 1:35
  Katelyn: And and the video space and the storytelling space and the sharing your life experiences is all about collaboration station.
• 1:43
  Katelyn: So so that was super cool, and then we both have this affinity for endurance tasks, right?
• 1:48
  Katelyn: Whether it be I'm, you know, editing something that is crazy tons of frames, or in her case, you know, studying something for a very, very long time and seeing how far you can take it.
• 1:59
  Katelyn: So we speak, we speak to all of this, but the beauty of community, the beauty of we we can't do it alone, both being supported over the years of our work and our our living in a village, right?
• 2:12
  Katelyn: And then also the the supporting others.
• 2:14
  Katelyn: And and so so excited for you to hear all about Dr.
• 2:19
  Katelyn: Grace Houser's life.
• 2:20
  Katelyn: Uh, and I hope that you enjoy this conversation.
• 2:23
  Katelyn: As always, thank you for being here.
• 2:25
  Katelyn: I'm ever, ever, ever so grateful.
• 2:28
  Katelyn: Dr.
• 2:31
  Katelyn: Grace Houser.
• 2:33
  Katelyn: Dr.
• 2:33
  Katelyn: Houser, D.
• 2:35
  Katelyn: Houser on the streets.
• 2:36
  Katelyn: How are you?
• 2:37
  Grace: I'm doing great, Katelyn.
• 2:39
  Grace: How are you?
• 2:40
  Katelyn: I'm amazing.
• 2:40
  Katelyn: I'm so amazed.
• 2:42
  Katelyn: I'm amazed that I've known you for so long.
• 2:44
  Katelyn: One, I've done the math, right?
• 2:45
  Katelyn: And two, that we get to do this.
• 2:48
  Katelyn: So excited.
• 2:48
  Katelyn: I'm so grateful that you said yes.
• 2:50
  Katelyn: For the people, before we get to like everybody feels like they're not included, can you give the listeners a little bit of background about who you are?
• 2:59
  Katelyn: And then I will give them background about who we are.
• 3:02
  Grace: I am a neuroscientist, a sort of neuroscience cartographer.
• 3:08
  Grace: So most of my neuroscience is based on making maps in the brain and the spinal cord.
• 3:13
  Grace: And I am also a mother of two beautiful children and a partner and a very dedicated friend and colleague.
• 3:23
  Grace: I am a vegetarian, and I would say that I eat mostly plant-based, but I really love cheese, so I have to make space for that.
• 3:31
  Katelyn: Yeah.
• 3:31
  Katelyn: You gotta be honest with yourself.
• 3:33
  Grace: Yeah.
• 3:33
  Grace: I am an avid runner and turned weightlifter as of the past year.
• 3:41
  Grace: Gotten really into that.
• 3:42
  Grace: I love books and films and yeah.
• 3:50
  Katelyn: This is great.
• 3:51
  Katelyn: You've done it.
• 3:52
  Katelyn: You've done it.
• 3:53
  Katelyn: You've given people the context.
• 3:54
  Katelyn: I love, I love, I love, I love.
• 3:56
  Katelyn: So cool thing, you and I grew up in the burbs of Cleveland together in Ohio, USA, and now you no longer live in the USA.
• 4:05
  Katelyn: Where are you?
• 4:05
  Katelyn: Where are you based?
• 4:06
  Katelyn: Uh, how did you get there?
• 4:08
  Katelyn: Can you kind of give us background that on that as well?
• 4:10
  Grace: Yeah, and I guess that's a bit also a core part of who I am as well, because I am an American expat living in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• 4:19
  Grace: And I've now been an expat for about eight years.
• 4:23
  Grace: So I started off in Paris, France, where I did my master's and my PhD, and then now have post-PHD moved to Copenhagen, Denmark and been here almost four years.
• 4:34
  Grace: Oh my god, it's almost been nine years actually.
• 4:36
  Grace: Well a lot, I can't do the math.
• 4:39
  Katelyn: So nine years overseas.
• 4:41
  Grace: Yes.
• 4:41
  Katelyn: And then like almost four years or almost five years in Copenhagen.
• 4:45
  Grace: So it was, it was almost almost exactly five years in Paris, and then it's almost been four years in Copenhagen.
• 4:52
  Grace: So yeah, it's between eight and nine.
• 4:54
  Grace: I'm not that far off.
• 4:55
  Katelyn: Holy goodness.
• 4:56
  Katelyn: Yeah, no, that it does feel like you just went to Paris yesterday.
• 4:59
  Katelyn: For sure.
• 5:00
  Katelyn: Unreal.
• 5:00
  Katelyn: So yes, I mean there's there's so many wonderful things.
• 5:03
  Katelyn: And I think the coolest thing about this, and I want to give some context to both our conversation and this episode.
• 5:08
  Katelyn: So, like, I started this podcast very much being like, you know, I built my career on coffee meetings and like just like telling everyone I know what I do, who I am, what I want, who I want to be, all that jazz.
• 5:22
  Katelyn: And it has like just built this beautiful, colorful life for myself, right?
• 5:25
  Katelyn: But then through that, it's like the connections we make with people and the different times we meet them in life.
• 5:30
  Katelyn: And like we met, are you ready for this?
• 5:33
  Katelyn: Like freshman year, we were in the in the same school, right?
• 5:37
  Katelyn: With a crossover of similar friends when we were 14, right?
• 5:41
  Katelyn: And I don't know about you, but I'm a 92 baby, so I'm turning 34 this year.
• 5:44
  Katelyn: Lord, that is 20 years, Grace, since like we were like eating lunch in the same cafeteria, you know, and then then over the course of high school we became friends, which is what a gift.
• 5:54
  Katelyn: And and then we've stayed in touch and have have had this thing called friendship for like 20 years now.
• 6:00
  Grace: It's incredible.
• 6:01
  Katelyn: It is.
• 6:02
  Grace: Our friendship has transcended time and space in literally.
• 6:07
  Katelyn: 100%.
• 6:07
  Katelyn: And and you know, and then it's just so cool though to then even go further and be like who we were as 14-year-olds, you know, versus like who we are now.
• 6:18
  Katelyn: And then to sit and and that's what's been so beautiful about me getting to do this podcast is like to look at the people I know and be like, holy shit, she's a neuroscientist.
• 6:28
  Katelyn: Like, she's cartography braining, you know, or cut cartographing.
• 6:34
  Katelyn: What's the verb for cartography?
• 6:36
  Katelyn: Do you know?
• 6:37
  Katelyn: You don't have to.
• 6:38
  Grace: I don't know.
• 6:38
  Grace: Map making?
• 6:40
  Katelyn: Map making.
• 6:40
  Katelyn: There you go.
• 6:41
  Katelyn: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:41
  Katelyn: Well, let's simplify, shall we?
• 6:42
  Grace: But it's very much a noun, a cartographer.
• 6:46
  Katelyn: Yeah, just like there you go.
• 6:48
  Katelyn: You got it is a cartographer.
• 6:51
  Katelyn: That's how you noun or you verbify it.
• 6:53
  Katelyn: Yeah, so so I'm just I'm so excited to to dig in and really like highlight your journey to this place, right?
• 6:59
  Katelyn: And of course, this is all within like we're human beings and like life has its pros and cons at any given time.
• 7:07
  Katelyn: But I really want to just like celebrate your achievements and talk about like the journey to get there and like how freaking cool that you've you've built a life for yourself overseas and you also got your PhD, which actually let's rewind to that spot because I feel like you were like, you were like less than a year until you were gonna finish it.
• 7:23
  Katelyn: And I remember like that the just like the uphill battle that was that journey.
• 7:27
  Katelyn: Both you and our our mutual friend Tresa were were in the PhD slog at the same time.
• 7:32
  Katelyn: And every time you all would check in, I'd be like, do you have to do it?
• 7:36
  Katelyn: Like, you know, and and it just felt like so much.
• 7:39
  Katelyn: In retrospect, how does that look now?
• 7:41
  Katelyn: What is what is it like, are you are you glad you stuck with that goal?
• 7:45
  Katelyn: Like, you know, give some insight on that because I think there's a lot of like perception around getting your PhD and your doctorate.
• 7:51
  Katelyn: And I would love to hear from you know a close, lovely pal about that experience.
• 7:56
  Grace: Thanks, Katelyn.
• 7:56
  Grace: Yeah.
• 7:57
  Grace: So I remember that those conversations very well.
• 8:00
  Grace: Uh because a lot happened during that time.
• 8:04
  Grace: I mean, during the PhD, there was COVID.
• 8:06
  Grace: We were all thread off by that.
• 8:08
  Grace: I had my first kid.
• 8:10
  Grace: So without the support of like family being, you know, an ocean away.
• 8:15
  Grace: We're friends, right?
• 8:16
  Grace: None of us lived over there.
• 8:17
  Grace: My closest friends weren't there.
• 8:19
  Grace: My closest family wasn't there.
• 8:21
  Grace: There was COVID, there was the baby, I was pregnant, you know, all in different order than that.
• 8:27
  Katelyn: But and you also, I mean, you were living in like the middle of Paris, which was like a major city, right?
• 8:33
  Katelyn: It's one of the major world cities that like during a pandemic time, you didn't you were like stuck in a little apartment, like a you know, a doctoral or a a grad student apartment.
• 8:43
  Katelyn: And so it, you know, with with a partner, with a baby, just trying to figure all that out.
• 8:47
  Katelyn: Oh my.
• 8:48
  Grace: Yeah.
• 8:48
  Grace: So I mean, I I remember telling you, and I I do remember this conversation when you said, Do you have to finish it?
• 8:54
  Grace: Because I was in a really dark place.
• 8:57
  Katelyn: And and maybe that's not what you want to hear, but
• 9:00
  Grace: No, I think it meant a lot to me, actually.
• 9:03
  Grace: Like just knowing that I could let go and that it didn't have to be a problem, like almost felt freeing because it did feel like something I had to do no matter what, since I was in it.
• 9:13
  Grace: And like, I I don't remember what you said.
• 9:17
  Grace: You were you were talking to me about like you don't have to finish everything, it's not necessarily like quitting something.
• 9:23
  Grace: Uh you said something like this, like, you know, it's not really about quitting, or it's not exactly quitting, or like sometimes things aren't right for you.
• 9:31
  Grace: You don't have to follow through with everything you set out to do.
• 9:35
  Katelyn: Which is funny because, you know, I'm out here.
• 9:38
  Katelyn: Was I actually applying those things to my own life, right?
• 9:41
  Katelyn: Because there are a few things, especially like in years since then, that I kept sticking with when maybe it was time to like let it go.
• 9:48
  Katelyn: And I think it is something we can always use the reminder of, right?
• 9:52
  Katelyn: And and I am like, I am proud of you for sticking with it and doing it, but it is, it's like giving yourself that space to think about it and like look at what are my options.
• 10:00
  Katelyn: And does it have to be what I thought I wanted five years ago?
• 10:03
  Grace: Yeah.
• 10:04
  Grace: So much changes.
• 10:05
  Katelyn: Yeah, it does.
• 10:06
  Katelyn: Even even in like, especially in a year, even in like a month, right?
• 10:10
  Katelyn: Like, I don't know if you you ever look back.
• 10:12
  Katelyn: I mean, you are your children are young, right?
• 10:15
  Katelyn: So it's like you are and you are so there's a lot going on.
• 10:18
  Katelyn: There's a lot of moving parts.
• 10:19
  Katelyn: You you're working full time, your your partner just launched a business.
• 10:23
  Katelyn: Like, there's so much going on.
• 10:24
  Katelyn: I could only imagine like just a month's times, how much changes, especially with like the development of a new business, a you know, young children, you know, your own research, which I'm also fascinated to dig into as well.
• 10:38
  Grace: So yeah, yeah.
• 10:40
  Grace: No, it's it's incredible that I finished the PhD and ended up here because we really thought that wasn't gonna happen at one point.
• 10:48
  Grace: It's just you know, it's not something that everybody does for a reason, you know.
• 10:54
  Grace: And I guess I think you and I also have this mindset.
• 10:57
  Grace: We're both ultra runners, I guess.
• 10:59
  Katelyn: Tenacious endurance
• 11:02
  Grace: We have we're set out for these things.
• 11:04
  Katelyn: Yeah.
• 11:04
  Katelyn: Yeah.
• 11:05
  Grace: And we know, yeah, we know a bit what it's like to, you know, get in over our heads with things sometimes.
• 11:11
  Grace: And you know, it was it was an incredible experience, and I'm glad it's in the past.
• 11:16
  Katelyn: Yeah.
• 11:16
  Katelyn: And you can like really just be proud of yourself for it.
• 11:19
  Katelyn: I for the record, I am very proud of you for it.
• 11:21
  Katelyn: And you get you get to be proud of yourself for it.
• 11:23
  Katelyn: And then I I want to dig into that endurance.
• 11:26
  Katelyn: I'm just gonna call it an endurance gene for the lack of, you know, for the lack of what else to call it, but but there is a level of, you're right.
• 11:34
  Katelyn: And I I found in my own like entrepreneurial journey, in my own, you know, editing insane amounts of footage, the ability to just step by step and keep moving and knowing that like it will end eventually, you know, and you you commit to a thing.
• 11:49
  Katelyn: And and then when you when you do achieve it, you're like, okay, great, right?
• 11:52
  Katelyn: Because I even there was, and I've never actually finished the Appalachian Trail, but it's it is a you know, a bucket list item, right?
• 11:59
  Katelyn: And my little sister has always been like, do you have to?
• 12:02
  Katelyn: Like, why would why would you do that kind of thing?
• 12:04
  Katelyn: And and same thing with like ultra running, you know, you you look at it and you're like, I want to do, you know, what I want to take what society considers a long distance run, and I want to like extend that by like, you know, a third or more of the miles kind of thing.
• 12:18
  Katelyn: And like what attracts you to those types of challenges and and what is it like when you're in those challenges to like just to stick it out and and keep going?
• 12:26
  Grace: Yeah, that's a good question.
• 12:27
  Grace: I guess most directly with running, you know, you start out small and then you keep seeing like what your body is capable of.
• 12:35
  Grace: You're like, well, I could do this.
• 12:38
  Grace: Maybe I could, you know, take it a step further.
• 12:40
  Grace: What's gonna happen?
• 12:41
  Grace: And I think that's also part of being a scientist is the curiosity of it.
• 12:45
  Grace: Like, let's see what I can do.
• 12:47
  Grace: Where are my limits?
• 12:50
  Katelyn: Yeah.
• 12:50
  Katelyn: Okay, then so in like in your scientific work, like, first off, like what exactly are you working on?
• 12:57
  Katelyn: You said, you know, mapping out brain and spinal things, but like what what is the what does the work look like?
• 13:04
  Katelyn: What can you share?
• 13:05
  Katelyn: And and what are your like neuroscientific goals?
• 13:09
  Grace: I mean, yeah, my journey has been long in science, but since I graduated back in 2014, oh my god, it's been more than 10 years.
• 13:17
  Grace: I've been doing like posts, yeah.
• 13:19
  Grace: In a real job in science.
• 13:21
  Grace: Wow, okay.
• 13:21
  Grace: She's a big girl.
• 13:23
  Grace: Yeah, right now the main goal of my lab or our main uh purpose or one of our core pillars is understanding locomotion, like animal movement.
• 13:38
  Grace: So that's kind of the very umbrella, like the big, the big goal.
• 13:42
  Grace: So we're not really working on diseases, we're not curing cancer, we're not you know, doing maybe some of those more like noble clinical things, but it's basic science research and trying to understand how systems work.
• 13:55
  Grace: And we're we're a mix of like computational neuroscientists and experimental neuroscientists.
• 14:01
  Grace: So I am mostly an experimental neuroscientist, and like part of my contributions to this overall idea of understanding the locomotor system is I guess these ideas of maps.
• 14:14
  Grace: Like I like I don't know any other way of putting it, but I trace neurons, which are like the nerve cells.
• 14:21
  Grace: So you have other cells that make up uh the brain and spinal cord, but a lot of what people refer to are are neurons.
• 14:28
  Grace: And those are the these are the cells that are going to be like computing information and sending signals to your body, telling it what to do, interpreting things.
• 14:37
  Grace: And so my idea is that I am tracing like neurons that live in the spinal cord and seeing if like how they're communicating with the brain by tracing their axons, which is they need to send their axons in order to communicate with other cells and other regions.
• 14:54
  Grace: Um so you have uh these neurons in the spinal cord that will send axons all the way up to your brain and and vice versa.
• 15:01
  Grace: So you have kind of this bi-directional uh talking between the brain and spinal cord.
• 15:06
  Grace: And this is really important, these long-range connections for making motion happen.
• 15:12
  Grace: Right.
• 15:12
  Grace: Like any movement that you can think to do, which is uh, you know, really a key aspect of life.
• 15:17
  Grace: Like we need motion in order to run away from scary predators, to eat, to build house, you know, it's uh it's a fundamental aspect of biology.
• 15:29
  Grace: So my uh my thing is to see like how where those cells are going, but very specifically, like very finitely and with a with a high resolution, like looking at the cellular level and their processes, like where is it?
• 15:44
  Grace: Where is it going?
• 15:45
  Grace: Who's it talking to?
• 15:47
  Grace: And like making these maps.
• 15:49
  Grace: There's also this concept of cell types.
• 15:51
  Grace: So not all of the neurons are the same and they have different functions, maybe they express different genes and they do different things.
• 16:00
  Grace: So I can target those genetically with some technology, like some genetic technology that we have um with the mice, and that way I can
• 16:08
  Katelyn: Right.
• 16:08
  Katelyn: And so this is something that folks don't know.
• 16:10
  Katelyn: You do this mostly with mice in the lab where you're maybe I should No, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:15
  Katelyn: I just because we hadn't gotten that, like, because my next like question from here is like day in, day out, like when Grace goes when Dr.
• 16:24
  Katelyn: Houser goes into the lab, like what does it look like as far as like the right like the the Monday through Friday, if you will.
• 16:31
  Katelyn: And and and how many mice are you working with?
• 16:34
  Katelyn: That that's also I never really asked that.
• 16:36
  Grace: Yeah, I think last year in 2025, it was about a hundred.
• 16:40
  Katelyn: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:41
  Grace: Animals that I yeah, owe all of this data to.
• 16:46
  Grace: And yeah, it is with mice.
• 16:48
  Grace: We also work with rats.
• 16:49
  Grace: I would say I mostly work with mice, but I have also, you know, rats have their own.
• 16:54
  Grace: They're a little bit larger, but they're also more they're a little bit smarter and you can do more with them behaviorally, but I mostly work with mice and
• 17:02
  Katelyn: Yeah, and you're I mean, because again, you're going, you're getting down to the cellular level, so you don't necessarily need them to like you're not like training them or figuring out the psychology of it, you're literally figuring out like the biology of the operations and how that actually works, like on a neurobiological level.
• 17:17
  Grace: Yeah.
• 17:17
  Grace: Yeah, for the moment I'm not doing behavior either.
• 17:20
  Katelyn: Okay, cool.
• 17:21
  Katelyn: Is that something you eventually are curious about?
• 17:23
  Katelyn: You have done it in the past.
• 17:24
  Katelyn: Okay.
• 17:25
  Grace: Yeah, I've done it in the past, um, but yeah, I'm mostly yeah, this is very like what we call histology, like looking at the tissue, looking at the cells, like how they look, where they're positioned, making these maps.
• 17:39
  Grace: So you don't have to, you know, look at like unique behaviors, which I think as a biologist is very interesting.
• 17:45
  Grace: Like I always kind of admired like those biologists, you know, from decades ago who were observing animals and their native environment and having journals about them and uh you know, understanding.
• 17:58
  Katelyn: Your Jane Goodall's, yeah.
• 17:59
  Katelyn: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:01
  Grace: And that was always, you know, really inspiring to me.
• 18:03
  Grace: But I I learned that biology is a lot more than that.
• 18:06
  Grace: And now that we have all these different technologies that are improving all the time, we have access to different ways of manipulating genetics and different ways of like understanding the activity of these cells, like recording them, uh, whether it's electrically or even with light and you know, things like this.
• 18:26
  Grace: And the technology is just very, very impressive now.
• 18:28
  Grace: And we're doing things that we couldn't have done decades ago.
• 18:31
  Katelyn: There you go.
• 18:32
  Katelyn: That's awesome, Grace.
• 18:33
  Katelyn: That's so cool.
• 18:33
  Katelyn: And then so, like, what was the transition?
• 18:36
  Katelyn: I'm just I'm curious about the like when you were like, I'm gonna start working with mice.
• 18:41
  Katelyn: Like when you know what I'm saying?
• 18:42
  Katelyn: Like you, you're like, I'm gonna pursue the sciences.
• 18:44
  Katelyn: I think, I think you knew that, like, you know, from when we graduated high school.
• 18:48
  Katelyn: When were you like, I want to get into the biology of it?
• 18:51
  Katelyn: When were you like, oh, I wanna, I wanna be in the lab this way?
• 18:55
  Katelyn: When did you decide you wanted to get your PhD in this?
• 18:58
  Katelyn: How what was kind of that path?
• 19:00
  Grace: Yeah, that was a that was a path.
• 19:02
  Grace: I graduated and I guess a lot of my practical work was in the hospitality industry.
• 19:08
  Katelyn: That's fair.
• 19:09
  Katelyn: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:10
  Grace: Like outside of just pure education of me attending classes, I was always like a barista or working weddings.
• 19:17
  Grace: I got offered a job to manage a cafe, but I I mean, I really wanted to do something with my degree.
• 19:24
  Grace: Like, that's why I was there.
• 19:26
  Grace: And I did, I did fall in love with science.
• 19:28
  Grace: I'm a very curious person by nature.
• 19:31
  Grace: And so I just started applying for jobs around campus.
• 19:36
  Grace: I was at Ohio State University and I just wanted to try something, honestly.
• 19:40
  Grace: Like I felt that science was fascinating, so I looked into like which labs we're hiring, and I'm like, I just need to try something.
• 19:48
  Grace: You know, like I'm still young, I'm still like I don't really know what I want on on such a finite level, like on such a strict level, but I I know that I want to get into this.
• 20:00
  Grace: And there was an opportunity working with mice with uh Dr.
• 20:04
  Grace: Susan and Joe Travers at Ohio State University, and they work with taste.
• 20:08
  Grace: And so I applied there, and luckily I got the job.
• 20:14
  Grace: It was a research technician position.
• 20:16
  Grace: And I think that's where I really fell in love with it.
• 20:19
  Grace: I mean, I know I started there because I needed to have a job, I wanted to try something in my field, like put my studies to work, you know, really branch out and they gave me an opportunity, and I just I really fell in love with it.
• 20:32
  Grace: They were they were closer to the end of their career when I started, and they also had this like nostalgic science aspect to them.
• 20:41
  Grace: Like they I really felt like they loved what they were doing.
• 20:44
  Grace: They were so knowledgeable, I could always learn from them, and they had like the patience, you know, they they've already made it for themselves, right?
• 20:51
  Grace: They had their lab, they had been running their lab for decades at that point.
• 20:55
  Grace: So they had nothing to lose, they were just enjoying themselves.
• 20:58
  Grace: And that was captivating to me to like see science done by people who genuinely love what they're doing and who want to share that with somebody.
• 21:06
  Grace: And it was also a small lab, so I got a lot of attention and I could ask all the questions that I wanted to ask.
• 21:12
  Grace: And I got to put my hands in like every experiment that was going on.
• 21:16
  Grace: And it was it was a very special time for me.
• 21:20
  Grace: And so I decided to take it a step further and you know, try to go for a master's and a PhD to see what I could make out of this.
• 21:27
  Grace: And I guess you know, in the end, it it's also like running.
• 21:31
  Grace: You you make it so far and you're like, well, let me see what else I can do with this.
• 21:34
  Grace: Like, is this it?
• 21:35
  Grace: Like, am I just gonna be a marathon runner or am I just gonna be a lab technician, or are there is there something are there more opportunities out there for me?
• 21:44
  Grace: Is there more I could do with this?
• 21:45
  Grace: Like I wanted to participate in the conferences and I wanted to be more involved in the pod project design.
• 21:52
  Grace: And so the only way to do that was to further my education and I wanted to leave Ohio for sure.
• 21:59
  Grace: I wanted that new experience.
• 22:01
  Grace: Like I was ready for a change.
• 22:04
  Grace: And then a mentor of mine, Harold Vassine, also who is a strong influence in my running, you have met Harold.
• 22:10
  Grace: Yeah.
• 22:11
  Grace: So I mean, he also inspired me like immensely when it came to science.
• 22:15
  Grace: I really felt at one point I wasn't doing well.
• 22:18
  Grace: I was like, oh, this is so hard.
• 22:20
  Grace: I was taking his class and I had some meetings with him to get back on track.
• 22:24
  Grace: And he kind of like brought it back for me.
• 22:26
  Grace: And it didn't feel as hard, and it started to feel more interesting again.
• 22:30
  Grace: And he he really like pushed me in a way that I wanted to be pushed in.
• 22:35
  Grace: Like he heard what I was saying.
• 22:36
  Grace: He's like, I hear you saying that you want to be a scientist.
• 22:39
  Grace: Like I hear what you like, what you don't like.
• 22:41
  Grace: And I don't want to be pushy, but I want to like reflect to you what you're saying to me.
• 22:47
  Grace: And it sounds like this is something you want to, you know, pursue.
• 22:52
  Grace: And he put me in contact with a PhD student of his who then had a lab in France now.
• 23:00
  Grace: So he was further along in his career.
• 23:02
  Grace: Um, it was one of his first PhD students, and this guy was Basim Hassan.
• 23:07
  Grace: And so I moved to Paris to join his lab, and it was actually with flies.
• 23:11
  Grace: So I went from mice to fly.
• 23:14
  Grace: And I did that for my master's, which was about a year.
• 23:19
  Grace: And that was really fun.
• 23:20
  Grace: And unfortunately, they didn't have funding to hire another PhD student at the time.
• 23:24
  Grace: But our neighboring lab had recently gotten some funding, and they were working with mice.
• 23:29
  Grace: So I transitioned back to mice and I joined the lab of Nicolas Renier, also in Paris, just next door.
• 23:37
  Grace: And I have still a lot of good connections with Bossum and his lab, and that was nice to see them throughout my PhD, but also to experience something new.
• 23:46
  Grace: And then I was, you know, also it was a bit uh I would say the cartography theme kind of started there as well.
• 23:53
  Grace: I was looking at like plasticity differences in the brain.
• 23:57
  Grace: So again, you know, taking pictures of neurons like but and then looking at their morphology and how they change with the different manipulations to the animal to try to understand plasticity a little bit better, like how our nervous system adapts to changes.
• 24:13
  Grace: So I got really into that for my PhD.
• 24:15
  Grace: And that's also where I learned the technique uh that I brought here to Copenhagen, which was tissue clearing and 3D microscopy.
• 24:23
  Grace: So I make the whole tissue transparent.
• 24:25
  Grace: It's it's very conventional to when you look at a brain of a rodent like a mouse or a rat, that you would slice the brain into very thin slices and then put them on a microscope slide and look at it at a very high resolution, beautiful pictures of of cells and axons.
• 24:41
  Grace: But here we can actually make the entire organ transparent.
• 24:44
  Grace: You can make an entire mouse transparent.
• 24:46
  Katelyn: What?
• 24:47
  Katelyn: What does that entail?
• 24:50
  Grace: Yeah, it's a lot of chemistry.
• 24:52
  Katelyn: Like I'm in here, like in my like Photoshop or my Canva, and I'm like changing the opacity on things, and you're like, I'm gonna do it with real living things.
• 24:59
  Katelyn: Wait, okay, so the chemistry, like you can give me just a little bit more about this.
• 25:06
  Grace: Yeah, so I mean, I am not a physicist, but I do know that light interacts with matter in many different ways.
• 25:14
  Grace: Uh it bounces off, it reflects, it gets absorbed.
• 25:17
  Grace: I mean, light is wild, right?
• 25:18
  Grace: You look at the sky, you look at a rainbow, you look at your reflection in the pool, in the lake, and you're like, how is it doing that?
• 25:25
  Grace: That's wild.
• 25:26
  Grace: But there's so much going on there.
• 25:27
  Grace: And the idea is that things are opaque or reflective.
• 25:31
  Grace: And if you want something to be transparent, you kind of have to, you know, remove all of those properties.
• 25:37
  Grace: You have to pro like inhibit light from interacting with the object in these different ways.
• 25:42
  Grace: And a lot of this comes from like that's they're not homogenous in the way that they interact.
• 25:48
  Grace: So you have something called a refractive index, and that's just a physics term to say how like light interacts with something.
• 25:55
  Grace: And in the brain, you have you have different things.
• 25:59
  Grace: You have lipids, you have fat, you have water, and you have proteins.
• 26:02
  Grace: And those are the main components of a brain.
• 26:05
  Grace: And what we're most interested in is proteins.
• 26:07
  Grace: Like that's how we understand, you know, like cells will will have proteins that you will uniquely describe them that allows us to learn about them.
• 26:16
  Grace: So we don't care so much about the fat and the water.
• 26:18
  Grace: So we remove that.
• 26:19
  Grace: So with chemistry, you say bye, you remove the fat, you remove the water, and then you replace that with a solvent that has the same refractive index as the proteins.
• 26:30
  Grace: And and so it's like about removing things that you don't need and trying to homogenize what it what remains.
• 26:37
  Grace: Like how the light interacts.
• 26:39
  Katelyn: This is blowing my mind, but I'm also then thinking about like, I mean, and this is uh kind of like a direction I would like to go, but I'm thinking about like the crazy creatures at the bottom of the ocean, the ones that we know about, right?
• 26:51
  Katelyn: And like the crazy wild things that their bodies do, right?
• 26:54
  Katelyn: So it's like one, what you said totally makes sense, like it does make sense on how you you really can, gosh, manipulate certain materials and chemistry and and the physics and how it all interacts.
• 27:05
  Katelyn: And I, you know, I didn't pursue science, but I love that we both like light is so important to both of our fields in so many ways.
• 27:12
  Katelyn: And that is so cool, Grace.
• 27:14
  Katelyn: Wow.
• 27:15
  Katelyn: Oh my gosh.
• 27:17
  Katelyn: Hey y'all.
• 27:19
  Katelyn: You know I love telling stories, gathering stories, and finding a way to help people connect their story with the people that will get it.
• 27:28
  Katelyn: And that's what my story strategy sessions are all about.
• 27:30
  Katelyn: So over at Calhoun Creative Consulting, my strategic storytelling firm, we do one-on-one and or facilitated workshops in relation to really honing in the strategy around your story.
• 27:43
  Katelyn: It's a bit of messaging meets content creation, meets storytelling, and then how do we put that out in the world?
• 27:49
  Katelyn: How do we show up regularly?
• 27:50
  Katelyn: There's a bit of mindset work around it, right?
• 27:52
  Katelyn: To actually tell your story.
• 27:53
  Katelyn: Whether you're launching something new or trying to rework your brand or just feeling a little foggy on how to communicate with your people, this is how to get clear.
• 28:00
  Katelyn: We'll dig into things like your narrative, how to uncover what matters most, maybe map out a few content pillars while we're at it.
• 28:06
  Katelyn: You'll also get a recording of our session so you can revisit the conversation anytime you like.
• 28:10
  Katelyn: Let's shape a story that actually feels like you.
• 28:13
  Katelyn: So book yours today.
• 28:14
  Katelyn: There is a link in the show notes.
• 28:15
  Katelyn: And hey, while you're at it, use the code podcast, all caps, P-O-D-C-A-S-T for 25% off your session.
• 28:23
  Katelyn: I would be honored to spend time with you and suss out your story.
• 28:27
  Katelyn: Let's dive back into the episode, shall we?
• 28:30
  Katelyn: I would like to go down this path.
• 28:34
  Katelyn: You because because my brain is now thinking about those crazy fish at the bottom of the ocean.
• 28:39
  Katelyn: And this came from when you were talking about how you are not, you know, you're not necessarily doing like the research or, you know, cancer research or disease research, but rather like just learning more about the brain.
• 28:53
  Katelyn: And, you know, I've always heard and and thought that, you know, space, the ocean, and the brain are all just things we like.
• 29:01
  Katelyn: There's just so much more to learn about.
• 29:03
  Katelyn: So I would love to hear your thoughts about that.
• 29:05
  Katelyn: If you think that's even true, like let me know.
• 29:09
  Katelyn: Break it down, Grace.
• 29:10
  Grace: We have so much to learn about the brain.
• 29:12
  Grace: We know like very, very little.
• 29:14
  Katelyn: And what does that look like to be like in that field?
• 29:17
  Katelyn: And and and I don't know.
• 29:19
  Grace: Yeah, I mean, it's you're always learning something.
• 29:22
  Grace: So it it just feels impossible sometimes to wrap your head around it, but it's also really exciting.
• 29:28
  Grace: Like you know, there's never gonna be a dull moment.
• 29:30
  Grace: There's always something to learn, and there's always a question to ask.
• 29:34
  Grace: So I think that that's really fascinating.
• 29:36
  Grace: But it can be frustrating when you just want to know like why something is the way it is.
• 29:42
  Grace: And you also have that with pharmacology.
• 29:44
  Grace: I do, I do some mapping also of activity on pharmacology.
• 29:48
  Grace: Like we've done it with like amphetamines and morphine, like some pain drugs.
• 29:53
  Grace: And we've also looked at the GLP-1's like semaglutide and these other things.
• 29:57
  Grace: And we're just like, what happens to your brain when you take these drugs?
• 30:00
  Grace: Because a lot of people are taking like these are, you know, FDA approved drugs.
• 30:05
  Grace: But you know, when it comes down to it, we don't, I can tell you, we don't really know how they work in the brain.
• 30:11
  Grace: Like we know, you know, we know they're safe from clinical trials in a from a certain extent.
• 30:16
  Grace: We know uh, you know, that they have a certain desired effect in some situations, but there's still like a lot we don't understand as to how you know some of these drugs that we're taking to treat conditions even work in our brain.
• 30:29
  Grace: Like what we don't know every region that that lights up when you take a drug.
• 30:33
  Grace: Like there's so much that we don't understand, or like you said, these fish at the bottom of the ocean.
• 30:38
  Grace: I think I hear headlines all the time, oh, we discovered this animal at the bottom of the ocean.
• 30:44
  Grace: I think I think neuroscience is the same way.
• 30:46
  Grace: They're like, oh, we discovered this cell that does this thing and communicates this in the brain, and we think it is involved in memory or whatever.
• 30:54
  Grace: And I mean, you have you know, billions of uh of neurons.
• 31:00
  Grace: What are they all doing?
• 31:01
  Grace: They're not all doing the same thing, but we don't know.
• 31:04
  Grace: I mean, it's impossible.
• 31:05
  Grace: And every time we look at these things, even when you read these papers, it's like a snapshot of that.
• 31:09
  Grace: Like you have like 1% or less of the brain you're talking about or the cells you're talking about.
• 31:15
  Grace: There's so much to to be understood, and it's so fun to like get into that, but there's only so much you can do.
• 31:22
  Grace: Like I can't research every disease that's out there, you know.
• 31:25
  Grace: I have to, I have to sort of like find my niche in it.
• 31:28
  Grace: And like my favorite thing is to collaborate with people.
• 31:32
  Grace: Like I like having my own project, but I think I like more doing a bunch of small things for other people because then I get to learn about Alzheimer's, and then I get to learn about like how cocaine is in the brain.
• 31:45
  Katelyn: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:46
  Grace: And I get to, you know, like all these things.
• 31:49
  Grace: It's just more interesting to me to be involved in all these different aspects.
• 31:53
  Grace: And then you get like a more holistic view.
• 31:55
  Grace: It can be really easy to kind of get this tunnel vision on this one thing you're working on or this one brain region.
• 32:02
  Grace: But I mean, it's not in isolation, right?
• 32:06
  Grace: Like our our brain is a whole unit and the spinal cord, yeah, which a lot of people forget about. Shout out, spinal cord.
• 32:13
  Katelyn: We love a shout-out.
• 32:18
  Katelyn: I know.
• 32:18
  Katelyn: It's like when we wrap up the episode of like, Grace, anything you wanted, you know, call out or did that I forgot.
• 32:24
  Katelyn: And you're like, shout out to the spinal cord.
• 32:26
  Grace: It exists, it does some important things.
• 32:29
  Katelyn: And we forget.
• 32:29
  Katelyn: Yeah, I know we do.
• 32:31
  Katelyn: We talk about the brain all the time.
• 32:32
  Katelyn: I I was very I'm resistant and and like I don't want to go down the journey of neuroplasticity because like everybody's talking about it.
• 32:39
  Katelyn: And like, you know, I think I think you're just shedding light on so many things that we don't talk about with the brain, right?
• 32:44
  Katelyn: And and to go back to like the thing about drugs and not knowing what drugs do to the brain, like you weren't like saying that to like scare anyone.
• 32:51
  Katelyn: It's just true.
• 32:52
  Katelyn: Like when you watch a commercial in a pharmaceutical commercial that we have in the States, like the side effects are like, watch out for this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.
• 33:01
  Katelyn: And it's like, okay, sure, I'll take it.
• 33:03
  Katelyn: Like, and it's crazy how that can be.
• 33:06
  Katelyn: Oh my goodness.
• 33:08
  Grace: Yeah.
• 33:08
  Grace: And it's just amazing to me, like, but I guess you get it, you have to treat these conditions, right?
• 33:13
  Grace: But there's so many drugs on the market that we we still don't really understand their effect on one of our most important organ systems that we have.
• 33:22
  Grace: So we just kind of take it as like, oh well, this these people are alive and they seem fine, so I guess it's okay.
• 33:30
  Grace: But I mean, the brain's a bit more complicated than that, right?
• 33:33
  Grace: Like, it's not really so black and white or straightforward.
• 33:36
  Katelyn: Yeah, no.
• 33:37
  Katelyn: And so, you know, lest we keep going forever about how much we don't know about the brain, I would like to call out.
• 33:44
  Katelyn: I love, I love what you shared about essentially what were your early mentors.
• 33:49
  Katelyn: And I love the opportunity to be curious that you were were given from from these people.
• 33:56
  Katelyn: And like, what does it mean to to feel so seen and heard, you know, from early mentors?
• 34:03
  Katelyn: And, you know, how how have you, how do you like make sure that you're you're you're connecting with those people on a regular basis so that like so that when you know things get hard, whether it be in your work or in your personal life or in, you know, well, those are the two options, I suppose.
• 34:18
  Katelyn: Like how you how you like continue on or you know, face challenges.
• 34:23
  Katelyn: Because I I appreciate you sharing some of those those harder experiences, right?
• 34:27
  Katelyn: Because it is, it is so scary to be, you know, 21, 22 and be like, I know I'm still young, but I have no idea what I'm doing.
• 34:34
  Katelyn: And then, and then to meet people who who kind of help you through that, and especially when you're like, I'm just not getting it, but I know I really want to.
• 34:41
  Katelyn: And I also feel like an insane person for for that.
• 34:44
  Katelyn: So yeah, any thoughts on all those heartwarming things that I'm feeling about about your uh your early mentors?
• 34:51
  Grace: Yeah, I think early mentors have definitely had some of the most profound impacts on my career and like shaping my interests professionally that I out of anything else.
• 35:02
  Grace: And you're right that you know, staying in contact with these people is so important.
• 35:06
  Grace: And that's actually something I appreciate a lot about your podcast because I have listened to it.
• 35:10
  Grace: Not every episode, but quite a few episodes.
• 35:12
  Katelyn: It's okay.
• 35:13
  Katelyn: I keep making them.
• 35:14
  Katelyn: I'm like, no one's able to keep up.
• 35:16
  Grace: Like and I love like I love genuine human connection.
• 35:21
  Grace: And I also have this, you know, you have this responsibility.
• 35:24
  Grace: And since I've had that impact as well, like these early mentors, I, you know, you have this like feed forward effect where I also feel the same because I start to become a mentor for people as well.
• 35:35
  Grace: Like I start to mentor bachelor's students, I start to mentor master's students, even PhD students.
• 35:40
  Grace: So you start like the mentee becomes the mentor at some point, and you and that's you know, you you bring it full circle.
• 35:46
  Grace: You're you remember what these people did for you, and you're like, I want like you're very inspired by it.
• 35:53
  Grace: And I think, you know, as humans, as people, we're we are very connected socially.
• 35:58
  Grace: Like it it brings us a lot of pleasure to make these connections, and it does, it makes your heart warm, and and it's so beautiful.
• 36:06
  Grace: And especially when you're young, and I didn't realize it, like you you know you have these passions and this curiosity, but you don't have the direction.
• 36:15
  Grace: Yeah, and everyone kind of because also every job description and every time you go to an interview, they're like, What do you want to do?
• 36:25
  Grace: But you're still so young, and you're just like, I know I like this and I like that, and I'm excited by this, but it's I think the mentors play like a large role in like listening to you and showing you things and like helping you realize like what what it is that you want to do and like what direction you want to take things because you don't know all the possibilities.
• 36:44
  Grace: You haven't been around, you've been around like I don't know, maybe two decades at that point.
• 36:49
  Katelyn: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:49
  Grace: Like, how do you even know what's possible?
• 36:51
  Katelyn: I always think about it this too.
• 36:53
  Katelyn: It's like, yeah, okay, maybe you've been around two decades, but like the first 10 you're like learning to walk and talk and read and like I don't know, not steal other people's toys on the playground.
• 37:02
  Katelyn: And like it's so much, you know, it's so much.
• 37:05
  Katelyn: Like, yeah, we expect so much, and that's that's been honestly too like a a recurring theme in in the interviews I've had with people on this podcast is like we tell our 18-year-olds, like, you should know, or like what do you want?
• 37:20
  Katelyn: You know, and I think you you just you said it perfectly with like, I don't know, like, you know, I all you gotta do is like you want a sample platter to kind of like see what what are the options.
• 37:30
  Katelyn: And I I love remind me of Dr.
• 37:32
  Katelyn: Harold Vassine?
• 37:34
  Katelyn: Is that how you say this?
• 37:34
  Grace: Yeah, Harold Vassine, yeah.
• 37:36
  Katelyn: Vassine, okay.
• 37:36
  Katelyn: Uh so yeah, Dr.
• 37:37
  Katelyn: Vassine's like I love, I love what you described him doing, which was like repeating things back and being like, is is this what you're saying?
• 37:46
  Katelyn: kind of thing.
• 37:47
  Katelyn: Because because sometimes people that's like that's such good listening.
• 37:50
  Katelyn: That's such good listening.
• 37:52
  Katelyn: And and then to like to experience that from someone is is so magical.
• 37:57
  Katelyn: Like to be like, oh, you you're at least trying to listen.
• 38:00
  Katelyn: Even if he's repeating something back to you, that's not what you said or not what you were trying to say.
• 38:05
  Katelyn: That's it's so cool.
• 38:06
  Katelyn: Yeah, no, and I love it.
• 38:07
  Katelyn: It is really fun to be the age we are now, right?
• 38:10
  Katelyn: And to realize, oh, now we're like kind of, you know, we we've been around the block a few times, you know, and we're we're still young to like try a lot of things and pursue a lot of things.
• 38:20
  Katelyn: And also, you know, we've we've had our bumps and scrapes that we kind of like were able to move through.
• 38:24
  Katelyn: And I don't know, I'm just I'm really enjoying, especially after moving through the bumps and scrapes, I'm enjoying this time in my career particularly.
• 38:33
  Katelyn: So I'm not sure uh where you where you how you feel about that.
• 38:36
  Grace: I think you, you know, once you realize that you're resilient, then you're like, I can take it.
• 38:41
  Katelyn: Yeah, you're like, you better watch out.
• 38:42
  Katelyn: She can't be stopped.
• 38:44
  Grace: Uh no, I I was just gonna say, uh, yeah, and of course, I keep in contact with these people.
• 38:48
  Grace: I keep in contact with Joe, Susan, and Harold.
• 38:50
  Grace: Like we exchange emails.
• 38:51
  Grace: I mean, you know, not every day.
• 38:53
  Grace: At least a few times a year, we're exchanging some emails.
• 38:58
  Grace: Like, yeah.
• 38:58
  Grace: I mean, I care a lot about these early mentors of mine and these people who have shaped my life in this profound way.
• 39:04
  Grace: And I like the last thing I want to do is lose sight of that.
• 39:08
  Grace: And I think they're also genuinely interested in like what happened to me and what I'm doing, you know, as like seeing me, you know, because I've known some of these people since I don't know, 2012 at this rate, 2014.
• 39:22
  Grace: Yeah.
• 39:22
  Grace: And it's been more than 10 years.
• 39:24
  Grace: It's it's nice to see like the trajectory.
• 39:27
  Grace: And I think there's something really important into keeping contacts, like keeping these people in your life who you care about, who have made influences, and even just reaching out to say like happy new year or like what's going on or sharing something, a picture, is is just very, yeah.
• 39:44
  Grace: It keeps the closeness.
• 39:46
  Katelyn: And I love, love, love.
• 39:47
  Katelyn: Okay, well, so let's let's talk about Dr.
• 39:49
  Katelyn: Facine and how he got you.
• 39:52
  Katelyn: Because you you've been a runner.
• 39:53
  Katelyn: You you were in cross country when we were in high school.
• 39:56
  Katelyn: You've always loved running, as have I.
• 39:58
  Katelyn: But like what the fun thing is, you're my like you're my ultra running origin story, right?
• 40:03
  Katelyn: Which technically means Dr.
• 40:05
  Katelyn: Facine is my ultra-running grandpa.
• 40:06
  Katelyn: You know what I'm saying?
• 40:07
  Katelyn: Like, you're my ultra-running mom, he's my ultra-running grandpa.
• 40:10
  Katelyn: We love it.
• 40:10
  Katelyn: I love it.
• 40:11
  Katelyn: Uh so and you know, he got us.
• 40:15
  Katelyn: Uh, we did a project filming Mohican 100 together, and you ran the 50 in 2015?
• 40:23
  Katelyn: No, no, no, it was way before that.
• 40:25
  Katelyn: 2014?
• 40:26
  Katelyn: Because we filmed it in 2015 and you
• 40:28
  Grace: Yeah, so that must have been the year before.
• 40:30
  Grace: It must have been 2014 then now.
• 40:32
  Grace: Yeah.
• 40:32
  Katelyn: Yeah.
• 40:32
  Katelyn: So talk talk about your your origin story of how you how you got interested in ultra running.
• 40:38
  Grace: Yeah, I I think it was heavily Dr.
• 40:40
  Grace: Vassine.
• 40:41
  Grace: So I would I was very inspired by him.
• 40:44
  Katelyn: And can you describe his personality?
• 40:47
  Katelyn: Because I couldn't just say he's a jolly fella, but I think you can you can dig in a little bit more.
• 40:51
  Katelyn: Just like because you described his like mentorship style, but just like for someone who you know and love, I would love for you to describe this man to the world.
• 41:00
  Grace: Yeah, I mean, he's one of my favorite people.
• 41:02
  Grace: Yeah, so he's a German and you know, very pragmatic in a way.
• 41:09
  Grace: He's very well read.
• 41:10
  Grace: Like he loves reading, he's very knowledgeable, he has an impeccable memory.
• 41:14
  Grace: He's like the kind of guy that will sit you down and talk to you and take the time to listen to you and also take the time to like relate to you and tell you stories of his life that are both like very practical, but also very, very funny, not just because of the German accent and the the culturally different way of delivering information, but like you you feel like you're in it in his stories.
• 41:38
  Grace: He is a very, very good storyteller.
• 41:39
  Grace: And I will rem remember a lot of his different stories from yeah, being a construction worker and putting on roofs to being like a man who teaches at Ohio State University.
• 41:52
  Grace: Yeah.
• 41:53
  Grace: And so I, you know, I I really got to know him when I would go into his office hours because I was actually doing very poorly in his class.
• 42:00
  Grace: So I needed to turn things around.
• 42:03
  Grace: So I spent a lot of time in his office, like and he helped me out a lot.
• 42:07
  Grace: And then I I would get to know him and he opened up to me more, and he would share me these stories, and they were so funny, and we would just laugh.
• 42:14
  Grace: And uh, I was always very inspired.
• 42:16
  Grace: He always had very like inspirational things to say, very moving things, and it and always gave things like a fresh perspective.
• 42:23
  Grace: Again, because I felt like I was very naive and maybe a little bit impulsive.
• 42:28
  Grace: So I needed some of that direction and it helped a lot.
• 42:32
  Grace: But also like so when I was hearing his stories about how he became a runner, which was later in life, like he was almost put on like statin drugs.
• 42:40
  Grace: I think he had some like, you know, just what normally happens if you're not if you're so focused on your work and you're not doing much to exercise, right?
• 42:48
  Grace: So you you kind of get faced with this, like, okay, you need to do something for your health.
• 42:53
  Grace: And he took it, you know, like, I am gonna, you know, I'm gonna do something.
• 42:57
  Grace: And, you know, he really turned his life around in a way and got into running.
• 43:00
  Grace: I think like in his 50s, and you know, ended up running a hundred-mile ultra marathon in the mix.
• 43:06
  Grace: And I just found the story so inspiring.
• 43:09
  Grace: But I never really thought that I could do it myself.
• 43:12
  Grace: I'm like, oh, this is something that Dr.
• 43:14
  Grace: Vassine is doing, but he's incredible.
• 43:16
  Grace: Like he's done everything, like he's moved countries, he's like
• 43:21
  Katelyn: Y ou're just like everything that I'm about to do, but I don't know.
• 43:24
  Grace: Yeah.
• 43:25
  Grace: Yeah, like he he was I I don't know.
• 43:27
  Grace: I was always like blown away by all his accomplishments and everything that he was doing and everything he would step up to do for the department.
• 43:34
  Grace: And I'm like, there's no way I can do this.
• 43:36
  Grace: Like Harold did it.
• 43:37
  Grace: And then he convinced me to run a marathon.
• 43:40
  Grace: He was going to be running the Columbus Marathon, and I really wanted to join him.
• 43:43
  Grace: I thought that would be an incredible opportunity was to run a marathon with Dr.
• 43:48
  Grace: Vassine.
• 43:49
  Grace: So I was like, Yes, I'm gonna train for this marathon.
• 43:52
  Grace: And we trained together, and I learned a lot about like pacing yourself and like, you know, the kind of training that it takes to.
• 43:59
  Grace: Run a marathon and I never knew I definitely didn't have the patience for it.
• 44:04
  Grace: I needed somebody who was wise and experienced to bestow that upon me because I would never have the patience to train for a marathon when I when I was that age.
• 44:13
  Grace: And so yeah, I joined him when we have would have such a good time.
• 44:16
  Grace: He would tell me all kinds of stories while we were running.
• 44:18
  Grace: So I just would really look forward to our long runs and our time.
• 44:21
  Katelyn: Like a live podcast from this man.
• 44:24
  Katelyn: Yeah.
• 44:24
  Grace: I felt like I could just infinitely learn things from him.
• 44:27
  Grace: And he's always reading a different book or you know, and always had something to tell me.
• 44:32
  Katelyn: This is very like um ancient Greece philosophers, too.
• 44:35
  Katelyn: Like just going on walks and talking about science and philosophy.
• 44:39
  Katelyn: I love it.
• 44:40
  Grace: Yeah.
• 44:40
  Grace: But running.
• 44:42
  Katelyn: But running, but faster and better.
• 44:45
  Grace: And yeah, so it was very inspiring.
• 44:47
  Grace: And then Mohican came up and he always volunteered at Mohican.
• 44:50
  Grace: And he had like a free spot because he volunteers, he gets like free entries to the race.
• 44:55
  Grace: And at one point he was like a little bit doubtful because I ran, I think, one or two marathons at that point.
• 45:01
  Grace: And he was a little unsure.
• 45:02
  Grace: And he's like, Well, you've only ran like one marathon, like you could have this.
• 45:07
  Grace: And but then you know, it ended up turning around that he's like, No, no, you can do this.
• 45:12
  Grace: And I think it was like his initial like reluctance that like got me to be like, No, I want to do this, but then it was like over time, it was his belief in me that really made me feel like I could do it.
• 45:23
  Grace: Because there was something that, like, when he bel he really seemed to have a good perspective on things, and I'm like, if Dr.
• 45:30
  Grace: Vassine believes I can do it, I can do it.
• 45:32
  Katelyn: Yeah, I love that.
• 45:34
  Grace: I will do anything.
• 45:34
  Grace: If he says like I can do it, then it must be true.
• 45:37
  Katelyn: Then it must be true.
• 45:39
  Katelyn: This man's word is law.
• 45:41
  Katelyn: I love.
• 45:42
  Grace: Yeah.
• 45:43
  Grace: And then yeah, we ended up
• 45:45
  Katelyn: and then you did it.
• 45:46
  Grace: We did it, and we made the documentary two years in a row together.
• 45:49
  Grace: Two years in a row, yeah.
• 45:51
  Katelyn: And that was then introduced me to it.
• 45:52
  Katelyn: And I remember that first year filming the ultra race of that weekend and and being like just super inspired by these people, right?
• 46:00
  Katelyn: And and I'm classic, like same thing.
• 46:02
  Katelyn: Somebody says you can't, or like said it's hard.
• 46:05
  Katelyn: I'm like, challenge accepted, let's go.
• 46:06
  Katelyn: And then we just we buckle in, and you know, is it a personality quirk that always serves me?
• 46:12
  Katelyn: No, but it's served me more more often than not.
• 46:15
  Katelyn: So it's pretty good.
• 46:18
  Grace: Yeah, you gotta try it.
• 46:19
  Grace: You're not gonna finish every race, but you're gonna finish
• 46:21
  Katelyn: And I really haven't.
• 46:24
  Katelyn: Especially because I like to go for the big one.
• 46:26
  Katelyn: Goodness forbid I do a 50 or a you know, a 30 uh or a 50k or a 50 miler before I do a hundred.
• 46:32
  Katelyn: But eventually you do.
• 46:33
  Katelyn: Eventually you do finish it if you just keep trying them.
• 46:35
  Katelyn: Yeah, you just have to just keep doing them.
• 46:37
  Katelyn: And then eventually you're just like, if I don't finish this one, I'll have to do it again and again and again.
• 46:43
  Grace: Perseverance can take you a long way.
• 46:45
  Katelyn: It really can.
• 46:46
  Katelyn: It really can.
• 46:46
  Katelyn: And even like even the ones that I didn't finish, I mean, I made it over 50 miles for for all of them.
• 46:52
  Katelyn: So, like, okay, that's impressive.
• 46:56
  Katelyn: But like they looking myself in the mirror and saying that is different than like what people say back to me, right?
• 47:01
  Katelyn: So I am curious, and this is only if you're comfortable, but you were talking about how you were struggling in Dr.
• 47:07
  Katelyn: Vassine's class and like struggling with academics over your of like over like I would say high school and college.
• 47:16
  Katelyn: I know this because we are close friends.
• 47:18
  Katelyn: If you are comfortable talking about, you know, your experience there and if if anything came up in in your life that maybe made a lot of sense.
• 47:27
  Katelyn: Do you understand what I'm getting at?
• 47:28
  Grace: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:29
  Katelyn: Okay.
• 47:29
  Katelyn: I would really like if you're comfortable sharing the story, I think it would be really lovely for people to be like, oh.
• 47:35
  Katelyn: You know, you know what I'm saying?
• 47:36
  Katelyn: Like just we're talking, we're talking neurodivergence, we're talking, yeah, I'll just, I'll be quiet and let you share whatever you're willing to share in relation to uh your academic journey.
• 47:44
  Grace: Yeah, so it was it was around that time when I was struggling in Dr.
• 47:49
  Grace: Vassine's class and started to attend his open office hours that at the same time, like I realized that things were a bit harder for me than maybe they should have been.
• 48:00
  Grace: And maybe there was a lot of compensation in high school.
• 48:03
  Grace: I think you can more easily compensate through high school, but once you hit university, it's a different story.
• 48:08
  Grace: Like it's a whole different animal, it's a whole different beast.
• 48:11
  Grace: And so I got evaluated and I found out that I had ADHD.
• 48:15
  Grace: Also that I've had a type of reading disorder that's I think it was characterized as something like not otherwise specified, but aligned a lot with dyslexia.
• 48:25
  Grace: So a lot of times I just refer to it as dyslexia because anyway, it's written in my evaluation that a lot of the symptoms are do align with it, but there's some other things going on.
• 48:36
  Grace: So I had both of that.
• 48:39
  Katelyn: Yeah, and like along those lines, right, it's it's one of those things, right?
• 48:42
  Katelyn: As like a childhood friend of yours to like to be in classes with you.
• 48:46
  Katelyn: Like we we had AP poli sci together, shout out to Mr.
• 48:49
  Katelyn: Spelling, like all these different classes, right?
• 48:52
  Katelyn: And to be in the same like AP honors classes, and to know, like, you know, you're my friend Grace.
• 48:59
  Katelyn: I know you're really smart, but just to see you struggling in these classes, but it's clearly not for lack of trying.
• 49:05
  Katelyn: And so, but anyways, then so like you get to academic or you get to the collegiate level and you're like, okay, something's going on.
• 49:12
  Grace: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:13
  Grace: So I I really realized I was struggling more than I should have.
• 49:16
  Grace: And, you know, and it was also maybe a little bit easier in high school.
• 49:20
  Grace: It wasn't easy.
• 49:21
  Grace: Like I did work really hard and I did struggle.
• 49:23
  Grace: You did, yeah.
• 49:24
  Grace: There was new trial.
• 49:25
  Katelyn: So hard.
• 49:26
  Katelyn: We talked about it, right?
• 49:27
  Katelyn: There, and maybe not with the teachers, right?
• 49:29
  Katelyn: But like among friends, you know, you were like, I studied for four hours last night, you know?
• 49:33
  Katelyn: And it's like, oh God.
• 49:35
  Katelyn: Every minute week four hours.
• 49:37
  Katelyn: Like it's beautiful.
• 49:39
  Katelyn: And don't get me wrong, I mean, I was voted most stressed at our high school graduation class.
• 49:43
  Katelyn: So like I'm not saying that I wasn't out here overworking as well.
• 49:47
  Katelyn: But but I just like I just I just know how hard you worked and and how, you know, the weight that you carried.
• 49:54
  Katelyn: And then, you know, whether or not you recognized you were carrying that weight, it sounds like maybe it was more like in college when you're like, okay, really, should it be this hard?
• 50:01
  Katelyn: Yeah.
• 50:02
  Grace: I mean, I got voted most blonde in high school.
• 50:04
  Grace: I don't know if it's that much better.
• 50:08
  Katelyn: Dr.
• 50:08
  Katelyn: Blonde to you.
• 50:09
  Katelyn: Thank you so much.
• 50:11
  Grace: Doctor Blonde.
• 50:13
  Grace: And I think it was also because you know, part of ADHD is it's hard to focus, but uh the only way I could really focus if I if I was like really engaging.
• 50:23
  Grace: So I would ask a bunch of questions and I got made fun of all the time because I just asked so many questions.
• 50:28
  Grace: I I would easily, you know, phase out and daydream if I wasn't engaged.
• 50:32
  Grace: So I always had to be talking or getting something.
• 50:36
  Katelyn: She's got things to say.
• 50:37
  Katelyn: And then also for me, I know hyperfixation is definitely a symptom that I experience, right?
• 50:42
  Katelyn: And so just like the picking, like something your brain is just like, we are going to bite into this and we're never letting go, like a dog with a stake.
• 50:50
  Katelyn: Like it ain't gonna happen.
• 50:51
  Katelyn: It's so real.
• 50:52
  Katelyn: But anyways, okay, so but I what what I really want to do is is hear kind of your your experience, kind of the before and after of that diagnosis and and and what that all felt like and looked like for you.
• 51:05
  Grace: Yeah, it was it was really refreshing in a way to get the diagnosis and to know that I was not neurotypical because this whole time I just felt like I was trying to fit in this box and trying to do things the way everybody else was doing them, and they weren't working.
• 51:20
  Grace: And that in and of itself was really profound to me, and it kind of turned things around and made me realize maybe I need a different strategy.
• 51:28
  Grace: Maybe the strategy that works for my classmate is not gonna work for me, and I shouldn't just be frustrated by that.
• 51:34
  Grace: I should try to find something else, like what does work?
• 51:38
  Grace: And I did get some medication that I was not very diligent on taking as somebody with ADHD.
• 51:46
  Katelyn: When I was on birth control, like I would forget all the time, like it's just so hard to do the same thing the same time every day.
• 51:54
  Katelyn: Like it's just continue, yeah.
• 51:57
  Grace: Yeah, it's impossible, right?
• 51:58
  Grace: Like, there's you just in a way, I kind of thrive in chaos.
• 52:03
  Grace: Um it's also the death of me at the same time.
• 52:07
  Grace: Yeah, you know?
• 52:09
  Katelyn: Yeah, no, totally, totally.
• 52:11
  Katelyn: Oh my goodness.
• 52:12
  Katelyn: I really appreciate that.
• 52:13
  Katelyn: We've got about a few more minutes, and there's so many more things I want to ask you, but I'm very, very curious.
• 52:19
  Katelyn: Because this is crafted connections, what does connection look like or do in the brain?
• 52:24
  Katelyn: Do you know that?
• 52:25
  Katelyn: Do you do you have thoughts on that?
• 52:28
  Katelyn: What what is connection good for our brain?
• 52:30
  Katelyn: Tell me with other people.
• 52:31
  Katelyn: You you alluded to this earlier.
• 52:32
  Grace: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely not my field of study, but I I, you know, you know, I just
• 52:37
  Katelyn: feel like more than the average person you know thinks about this.
• 52:41
  Katelyn: Let's at least give it credit for that.
• 52:42
  Grace: You'd be surprised, Katelyn, how much a neuroscientist doesn't know about anything outside of their own specific task.
• 52:48
  Grace: That's fair.
• 52:50
  Grace: But I do, I would say that like I get perspectives, like I get a different perspective when I read something, whether it's like a headline or even a journal article from you know, NPR, you know, it doesn't even have to be something super scientific.
• 53:03
  Grace: I do reflect on it in a different way and understand it a little bit different.
• 53:07
  Grace: I mean, I know that connection is important for us.
• 53:10
  Grace: I understand as a biologist, like who we are, like who humans are, like we are social creatures.
• 53:16
  Grace: It's very, very important for you know humans to have their place.
• 53:21
  Grace: We're not individual like we're not individualistic uh actually.
• 53:25
  Grace: Like we identify with groups, like we we feel good when we're together.
• 53:31
  Grace: We feel, you know, these are this is what has made our like species thrive.
• 53:37
  Grace: Like we can't do it alone.
• 53:39
  Grace: And I think any modern Western parent would tell you how difficult it is even to just be a two uh grown-up household raising children and both working.
• 53:50
  Grace: Like we are meant, you know, to live as a community and function as a community and have these connections and all have our role in that and like see where we fit in that.
• 53:59
  Grace: And there's so much involved with it, you know, from uh like oxytocin to like you know, building these bonds and people saying that, like, oh, you know, your brain waves can kind of match when you have like a conversation and you're both giving each other eye contact.
• 54:15
  Grace: And there is something profound happening, right?
• 54:17
  Grace: Like there's things that are happening when you're reading a story to your kids at bedtime, like the calming effect of of this connection that you're building.
• 54:26
  Grace: And I I 100% believe in like the goodness of it for our brains and for our health, and I think it's something we need, and you know, we don't do things by ourselves.
• 54:37
  Grace: Anybody who thinks that they are who they are because of themselves is is really a delusion to me,
• 54:47
  Katelyn: It goes back to all of our conversations about you know, you your your experience with mentors.
• 54:51
  Katelyn: We didn't even dig into like you really are to reiterate what you said earlier, like being a dedicated friend, you absolutely are one of the most dedicated uh people when it comes to friendship and and you know, partnership and all that.
• 55:04
  Katelyn: So I'm just so grateful to know you.
• 55:06
  Katelyn: Is there anything else that you'd like to share in the last few minutes that we have here together today?
• 55:11
  Grace: Well, just also that I appreciate our friendship and our journey together from you know, when we meant to teaching the young kids not to do drugs and alcohol in SHUDDLE.
• 55:21
  Katelyn: Oh my god, I forgot we were we were partners on that.
• 55:24
  Katelyn: Right.
• 55:24
  Katelyn: Yeah, don't do it.
• 55:25
  Katelyn: Doesn't it's not for the brain.
• 55:28
  Grace: Don't do it.
• 55:28
  Grace: And us, I guess that's sort of the beginning of our our collaborations in making lesson plans and then
• 55:35
  Katelyn: I cannot.
• 55:35
  Katelyn: I've completely forgot about SHUDDLE.
• 55:37
  Katelyn: Yeah, we went in and we told sixth graders to say no.
• 55:39
  Katelyn: And to be fair, I wasn't lying to them.
• 55:40
  Katelyn: Like I definitely was following the rules.
• 55:43
  Grace: I mean, things took a turn.
• 55:45
  Katelyn: We do our best.
• 55:46
  Katelyn: We do our best.
• 55:48
  Grace: We do our best.
• 55:49
  Grace: I think I think at one point I was telling them how psychedelics work, and they actually thought it sounded fun, and then I felt like I failed.
• 55:55
  Katelyn: Right, because you're so because even at the time, you know, you were so excited about the brain.
• 55:59
  Katelyn: So, anyways, you know, they they recruited us, whatever.
• 56:02
  Katelyn: It worked out.
• 56:03
  Katelyn: I'm sure I'm sure we I'm sure we did fine.
• 56:05
  Katelyn: You're so amazing.
• 56:07
  Katelyn: I'm I'm so grateful for your time today.
• 56:09
  Katelyn: With that, Grace, I'm gonna, I'm gonna uh I'm gonna say goodbye.
• 56:14
  Grace: All right, bye, Katelyn.
• 56:15
  Grace: Thank you.
• 56:16
  Grace: You're the best.
• 56:17
  Katelyn: You're the best.
• 56:18
  Katelyn: Crafted Connections is lovingly produced by Calhoun Creative Consulting, a strategic storytelling firm dedicated to helping people and brands tell their stories in a way that resonates.
• 56:31
  Katelyn: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and connect with us on Instagram at CraftedConnections Pod.
• 56:38
  Katelyn: Keep creating, keep connecting, until we meet again.