Latest / Dementia Researcher Vodcast / Relay Podcast - PIA to Elevate Early Career Researchers

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Relay Podcast - PIA to Elevate Early Career Researchers · Dementia Researcher Vodcast

• 0:00
  (upbeat music)
• 0:02
  - [Voice Over] Hello, and welcome to season seven
• 0:04
  of the Dementia Researcher "ISTAART Relay Podcast."
• 0:08
  In this series,
• 0:09
  members of the ISTAART professional interest areas
• 0:12
  interview each other about their PIAs
• 0:15
  and the hot topics in their fields.
• 0:18
  Each guest then becomes the next episode's host,
• 0:21
  passing the conversation
• 0:22
  along from one researcher to the next.
• 0:25
  We're releasing one episode a day in the run
• 0:28
  up to the Alzheimer's Association International Conference
• 0:31
  this year in London and online,
• 0:34
  showcasing the work of the ISTAART PIAs.
• 0:37
  Thank you for listening.
• 0:39
  (upbeat music)
• 0:45
  - Hello, everybody.
• 0:47
  Thank you very much for tuning in.
• 0:49
  I'm Joe Kane.
• 0:50
  I'm geriatric psychiatrist and a researcher,
• 0:54
  and I work at Queen's University
• 0:55
  in Belfast in Northern Ireland.
• 0:57
  I am the chair of the Lewy body dementias PIA,
• 1:00
  which is the best PIA.
• 1:02
  Today, I'm delighted to be speaking
• 1:04
  with Sindhuja Govindarajan from the PIA
• 1:08
  to elevate early career researchers, or PEER.
• 1:11
  Sindhuja, you're very welcome.
• 1:13
  I'm really excited to be speaking with you today.
• 1:16
  Could I please start by asking you
• 1:18
  just to tell us a bit about yourself please?
• 1:20
  - Happy to. Thank you, Joe, for that introduction.
• 1:23
  My name is Sindhuja.
• 1:24
  I was until recently
• 1:27
  a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.
• 1:30
  As of the recording time, I'm transitioning
• 1:32
  to an assistant professor role
• 1:35
  at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
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  I am the outgoing chair of PEERs PIA,
• 1:41
  which is decidedly the better PIA for sure.
• 1:46
  - Well, agree to disagree on that I think, Sindhuja.
• 1:49
  - Fair. - But it's really exciting,
• 1:53
  it's really exciting that you're making such a big move
• 1:56
  over to Europe, and I'm really excited to hear
• 2:00
  about your journey there today.
• 2:01
  Before we talk about your work with the PIA,
• 2:04
  could you tell us a little bit about your own research?
• 2:07
  - Sure, happy to.
• 2:08
  I work primarily with neuroimaging.
• 2:11
  I'm looking at the brain from outside
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  and so in-vivo scans,
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  and that's because I told myself at a very young age
• 2:19
  I'm scared of cutting open things.
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  And so it's been looking at what's happening in the brain
• 2:26
  inside the head with advanced neuroimaging scanners.
• 2:31
  In the field of dementia research, I'm pretty new.
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  I started in '21.
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  In the field of dementia research,
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  I've been interested in looking at what are the patterns
• 2:40
  of brain changes that happen
• 2:42
  years before people have cognitive symptoms.
• 2:44
  So we hear so much about modifiable risk factors,
• 2:48
  midlife cardiovascular risk factors,
• 2:51
  and nearly half the human population has hypertension
• 2:54
  or something else beyond the age of 50.
• 2:58
  But not everybody ends up
• 3:00
  with neurological challenges that come from that.
• 3:03
  So my interest is in finding out
• 3:06
  what exactly happens
• 3:07
  when people have some systemic risk factors
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  and how can we measure the severity of it
• 3:12
  within an individual brain.
• 3:15
  And so for that, we do machine learning,
• 3:17
  which is just looking at large quantities of data.
• 3:20
  I'm talking tens of thousands of brain MRI scans,
• 3:23
  and looking at subtle patterns
• 3:25
  that can be detected years before even, you know,
• 3:29
  when they present no cognitive challenges.
• 3:31
  Yeah.
• 3:32
  And the hope for that
• 3:33
  is to potentially identify participants
• 3:37
  or people who may be at increased risk
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  as opposed to tolerating their risk factor well.
• 3:46
  - Great, and what type
• 3:46
  of imaging modalities are we talking about?
• 3:50
  You mentioned MRI.
• 3:51
  Is it all structural imaging?
• 3:53
  - That's great, so I do have experience in MRI
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  with structural functional diffusion.
• 4:00
  I've done other studies in neurodegeneration before,
• 4:03
  worked with PET in the past as well.
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  But for my work in dementia,
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  thus far it's been primarily structural imaging
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  and looking at vascular integrity markers
• 4:13
  using flare MRI and things like that.
• 4:15
  So far in the area of dementia research,
• 4:18
  I've been focusing primarily on structural MRI,
• 4:21
  that's T1 and flare imaging
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  for who's aware of those modalities.
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  And the primary reason for that
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  is that with machine learning and AI,
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  what you need are really large quantities of data
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  that are easy to acquire.
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  So you are able to scan it
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  in pretty much any clinical scanner
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  without necessarily going
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  for specific, like, sensors,
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  specific processing paradigm.
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  So we've amassed a lot of structural imaging data,
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  and it lends itself to a lot of investigations
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  of highly specific hypotheses, I guess.
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  - That's great, so you're talking
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  about really big datasets.
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  Can you give us an idea
• 5:00
  of how many scans we're talking about?
• 5:03
  - Sure.
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  Currently, we're looking at a dataset
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  which has around 65,000 participants
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  in total with longitudinal scans.
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  So I think it's close to 90,000 total MRI scans.
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  And at UPenn,
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  we work on a way to harmonise damages,
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  which means different scanners
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  are collecting different sequences.
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  Even though they're the same label,
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  the way they're collected may be different.
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  So we need to find a way to make them
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  comparable across different locations.
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  And so we have data predominantly from the U.S.,
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  of course the UK Biobank,
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  some from Australia,
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  some from Germany, some from South Korea.
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  So we need to,
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  we have a way of harmonising them,
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  which is taking out the scanner noise
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  and retaining only what's relevant,
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  which is biological contributions to the imaging measures.
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  - It's really interesting that, you know,
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  you're talking about harmonisation and standardisation
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  after the scans have been taken,
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  which is really exciting and gives us,
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  it always makes us think of the clinical scans
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  and all those scans that are right there
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  that aren't necessarily yet being leveraged
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  in the way we could.
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  There is a lot of buzz about AI and machine learning,
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  and I wonder,
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  do you engage with your participants on that?
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  Are they able to understand the difference
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  between, you know, machine learning that you do
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  and the machine learning that they hear about in the news
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  and they talk about what their relatives?
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  - That's a fantastic question.
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  I've had an interesting background.
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  So I started my research into brain imaging
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  sitting hands down at the scanner,
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  modifying the pulse sequences,
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  and trying to get the best picture
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  that's robust, reproducible,
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  and provides meaningful measures.
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  So I've interacted with participants
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  of, you know, different clinical backgrounds,
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  and I'm also aware of the different challenges
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  that come with scanners of different types.
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  So I feel like I take a very cautious approach
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  to machine learning and AI
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  in the sense that we're not promising the world everything,
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  a tool that fixes all,
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  but instead I've so far been very focused
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  on a clear clinical question
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  and a very easy-to-interpret, easy-to-understand
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  type of measurement that comes out of it,
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  more interpretable than, let's say a black box,
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  which just says, "Hey,
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  you're gonna have this in 15 years," or something like that.
• 7:46
  As far as engaging with participants now,
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  I don't do a lot of that.
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  I did not do a lot of that
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  during my postdoctoral fellowship,
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  but when my new job,
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  in the next role that I take on,
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  I foresee there will be some,
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  you know, more hands-on talking to people,
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  getting more scans, things like that.
• 8:09
  - Great, that sounds really exciting.
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  And we look forward to following up on your work.
• 8:13
  Thinking more broadly about the field in general,
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  what's really exciting you about dementia research
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  or neuroimaging at the minute?
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  What's really making you develop ideas
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  and get excited about your work?
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  - I like that it's a very personal question,
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  so I can tell you what excites me
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  rather than what I've heard people are excited about.
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  Personally, I believe
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  we're starting to leverage the power
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  of, you know, larger models.
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  There are very phenomenal studies
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  coming out of many labs across the world with large data.
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  What interests the most is,
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  or what excites me the most
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  is we've moved kind of beyond looking at,
• 9:01
  "Hey, this is dementia,
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  this is hippocampus that's shrinking,"
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  and going to addressing polypathology,
• 9:08
  like, different forms of dementia.
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  And we're trying to see, can we measure this in vivo?
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  Can we find ways to relate
• 9:17
  what we see in structural MRI
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  or different types of, you know, PET imaging
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  with the different tracers?
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  Can we look at what are the different ways
• 9:26
  in which the disease or the pathology
• 9:31
  develops over time?
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  So what I'm talking, in essence,
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  it would be considered subtyping
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  and staging kind of algorithms,
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  which have come from the UK as well.
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  I think that's very interesting
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  because at the end of the day,
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  the brain is the same.
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  Everybody has hippocampus for the most part.
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  But the way people are at increased risk
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  or increased resilience,
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  how education provides
• 10:01
  some kind of reserve in developing dementia symptoms
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  in how the modifiable risk factors
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  we have every few years we're adding a couple more
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  based on research,
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  how the effect seems
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  to have specific patterns.
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  They have a specific imprint in the brain
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  and we're able to now start mapping the trajectory of it
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  and have these, like, diverging paths saying,
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  "You start here, you go over there,"
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  and then start developing
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  a core pathology and things like that.
• 10:34
  I think that's the part that excites me, which is learning
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  as a community about how the brain is affected
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  with different vulnerable factors
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  as well as different progression pathologies.
• 10:46
  Yeah.
• 10:48
  - There's something so cool about neuroimaging that,
• 10:51
  you know, the prospect of being able to show
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  our patients and the public,
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  "This is what it looks like when you've got,
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  you know, cognitive resilience.
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  This is what it looks like
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  if you go down one of those paths compared to the other,"
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  and all the statistics in the world
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  and all the encouragement
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  and public health initiatives in the world
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  aren't really as good
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  as being able to show something to somebody on a brain.
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  So that sounds really cool.
• 11:22
  - I agree with the public health aspect of it.
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  That's another thing that I'm very interested in following,
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  which is all the lifestyle intervention trials
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  that have been coming out recently,
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  looking at modifications over decades if possible
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  and seeing how ageing is so heterogeneous
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  and how with certain checks
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  and balances along the way,
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  we can potentially have people
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  have long, fulfilling lives.
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  - It's amazing.
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  And you're here, I suppose,
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  not because of your neuroimaging expertise,
• 12:00
  but because of your role in PEERs.
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  What are your colleagues
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  and what are your PEERs talking about in your PEER?
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  What's the big issue
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  and what are the big challenges
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  that face them at the moment?
• 12:14
  - That's great.
• 12:15
  I think before getting to that question,
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  I will give you an overview of what PEERs PIA does.
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  As the name suggests,
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  it's for elevating early career researchers
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  and that's our entire paradigm,
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  which is offering programming support,
• 12:32
  professional development opportunities
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  for early career researchers.
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  Not only from a specific area of research,
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  but across the board of dementia research.
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  That's our primary goal.
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  So that includes advocacy programmes.
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  We can talk more about the specific programming that we do,
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  but the biggest challenges we would like to address
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  are how unequal opportunities are,
• 13:00
  depending on where you are from,
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  depending on what area
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  of research you are from
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  and whether you have the mobility
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  to be able to reach across borders.
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  So we try to bridge some of these
• 13:14
  through virtual programming.
• 13:16
  But Alzheimer's Association also has some ways
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  of having local programming,
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  like the Neuroscience Next Conference
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  that happens that's free for online registration
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  that happens in different locations.
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  So people who are not generally attending
• 13:35
  the annual international conference
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  either through funding reasons, visa concerns,
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  any number of possible reasons
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  that could be preventing them from travelling,
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  they're able to go to a local conference
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  and present, participate, and learn more.
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  I mean, and we try our best to interface
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  with the local communities
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  and promote them as well as offer programming
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  from behind the Zoom camera.
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  - And do you get the sense that's something that's,
• 14:03
  you mentioned borders as being really significant
• 14:06
  and very significant obstacle.
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  Do you think that's something that's becoming better
• 14:10
  or worse or staying the same
• 14:11
  in terms of how we look at research globally?
• 14:14
  - Antarctica, and that's our whole goal.
• 14:16
  So the working groups,
• 14:17
  we have them across the different continents,
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  and we have representatives from these continents
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  that could be senior or mid-career researchers
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  who are offering the mentorship.
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  And we have junior researchers taking on the role
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  of the committee lead
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  or the special interest group chair,
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  and they bring us this kind of concerns
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  that are most prevalent in their location.
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  How can we bridge, how can we tap into resources
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  that are available in the Western world
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  and how can we pass this on
• 14:50
  as mentorship meetings or as grants-related programming?
• 14:55
  That's what we do.
• 14:56
  With that, what we've observed
• 14:58
  is in some of the continents,
• 15:00
  there already exist a good network.
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  There is already a critical mass
• 15:05
  of researchers pursuing this
• 15:07
  and awareness of dementia research as a career possibility.
• 15:12
  But in a couple of places it's not very common.
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  So finding members interested in a working group
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  and sustaining them
• 15:22
  through leadership transitions
• 15:24
  has been a challenge that we face.
• 15:26
  But on the bright side,
• 15:28
  the kind of things we do
• 15:29
  is we leverage our working group members
• 15:33
  and connect people to local organisations.
• 15:37
  I'll give you an example.
• 15:39
  So in South America there is an organisation coming up
• 15:42
  as the World Young Leaders in Dementia or WYLD.
• 15:46
  It's led by people from there.
• 15:48
  And so PEERs PIA interfaces with them quite a bit
• 15:51
  to offer programming that promotes funding opportunities
• 15:55
  or mentorship opportunities to people who may need it.
• 15:59
  In Europe, we interface
• 16:01
  with what's called the INTERDEM Academy.
• 16:04
  And our working group members from PEERs PIA
• 16:07
  also have a working role there.
• 16:10
  And so we're able to offer more programming to that.
• 16:13
  But in some other continents,
• 16:15
  for example, as you can imagine, I'm from India
• 16:17
  and Asia is a huge continent
• 16:19
  and we try to have one representative,
• 16:24
  but that doesn't cover the breadth
• 16:25
  of opportunities that may be available.
• 16:27
  So what we end up having
• 16:29
  is a rotation of people from different countries
• 16:32
  within the continent,
• 16:33
  and being able to offer programming
• 16:35
  for the duration of their tenure,
• 16:38
  offer programming relevant to the country they are in.
• 16:42
  That's how we operate.
• 16:45
  - That's really cool, 'cause it sounds
• 16:46
  like a really democratic, inclusive process
• 16:49
  that really makes sure
• 16:51
  you reach all four corners of the globe.
• 16:54
  And what's really interesting as well
• 16:55
  is that I find that working with PIA
• 16:59
  to be a good kind of primer in the leadership anyway,
• 17:03
  so not only are you directing people
• 17:05
  towards leadership things,
• 17:07
  but being involved in the PA itself
• 17:09
  is nurturing leadership skills.
• 17:12
  That's really clear.
• 17:13
  (mellow music)
• 17:19
  That's been really helpful to set the scene
• 17:20
  for what I want to talk about next,
• 17:22
  which is get into a little bit more detail
• 17:24
  about the work of the PIA itself.
• 17:27
  Could you gimme some specific examples
• 17:30
  of how the PIA has supported the field that you work in?
• 17:34
  - Sure.
• 17:36
  As with other PIAs,
• 17:39
  we have specific types of programming
• 17:41
  that I briefly glossed on.
• 17:43
  We have webinars
• 17:45
  where we try to partner with individual scientific PIAs.
• 17:49
  As I mentioned before,
• 17:50
  our PIA doesn't have
• 17:54
  strict borders on what area of research people are from.
• 17:57
  This is for all early career researchers,
• 18:00
  all parts of the world.
• 18:01
  So we have interfaces
• 18:03
  with specific research areas
• 18:08
  where we provide webinars
• 18:10
  that are geared towards ECRs.
• 18:12
  We promote, like, we promote the PIA
• 18:15
  that we are collaborating with
• 18:17
  along with promoting the ECR within the PIA.
• 18:19
  So we provide opportunities for early career researchers
• 18:23
  to present their work in a global stage.
• 18:26
  So that's one way we've connected with the science.
• 18:29
  Another way we do that is also
• 18:31
  what we call neuroscience mentoring clubs.
• 18:34
  These are off-the-record non-recorded meetings
• 18:38
  where a more senior person,
• 18:41
  either could be from a continental group representative
• 18:44
  or it could be someone very general,
• 18:47
  will share their career trajectory, including what kind
• 18:50
  of tools and resources they couldn't find earlier,
• 18:54
  but what they would be able to support new researchers with.
• 18:57
  And that's where ECRs
• 19:01
  from other parts of the world could join in,
• 19:03
  ask questions that could be related to,
• 19:06
  "How do I find grants?" or it could be related to,
• 19:10
  "How do I train on this specific skill,
• 19:12
  this specific technical component?"
• 19:15
  And they have been very fruitful.
• 19:18
  We've had closed room discussions like that.
• 19:21
  In addition, we also collaborate
• 19:24
  with the ISTAART ambassadors
• 19:26
  to provide programming in person at AIC,
• 19:31
  and this could be workshops on specific skills,
• 19:33
  like, how do you use AI in research kind of a thing.
• 19:37
  Or we also do regular workshops
• 19:40
  on how to build your writing portfolio,
• 19:44
  how to manage,
• 19:46
  how to do project management,
• 19:48
  or in this upcoming year,
• 19:51
  I'm sure we'll have some time to go over specific programmes,
• 19:55
  but we have how to give an elevator pitch,
• 19:57
  so we kind of get people ready for the conference
• 20:01
  and ready for their career.
• 20:02
  And somehow that translates back
• 20:05
  into how they're able to advocate for themselves
• 20:08
  and move up in dementia science.
• 20:12
  - That sounds really great,
• 20:13
  sounds really practically focused.
• 20:15
  And also, it's great to see you
• 20:19
  shout out some of the ambassadors,
• 20:21
  the ISTAART ambassadors
• 20:22
  who just bring a real enthusiasm,
• 20:25
  and it's great that you're providing them
• 20:28
  with a platform to look at their next steps
• 20:31
  and to bring them into the community.
• 20:33
  So that sounds really exciting.
• 20:35
  Our next question I want to ask you about your own journey.
• 20:38
  So how did you end up getting involved in this PIA?
• 20:41
  - I think I have to give credit to the PIA itself
• 20:44
  and Adam Smith, our host.
• 20:48
  My first in-person AIC was in 2022
• 20:52
  and I was checking out these lunchtime skills workshops.
• 20:56
  I think that's what they're called now,
• 20:57
  but they had different names in the past.
• 21:00
  I was mind blown.
• 21:01
  I was mind blown at how it was organised
• 21:05
  and how it removed the frills of having
• 21:10
  a fantastic research idea, hypothesis,
• 21:12
  the funds to do the science
• 21:15
  and then present it and have compelling results.
• 21:18
  No, this was all about learning how to be a scientist
• 21:23
  or how to be a researcher more generally.
• 21:27
  I remember one of the first workshops I went to was,
• 21:31
  what does neuroimaging actually tell you?
• 21:33
  Like, what does the different fields actually tell you?
• 21:35
  And we had these live demonstrations
• 21:38
  and people had a chance to do a trivia quiz kind of a thing.
• 21:41
  It was a learning journey packed into a very tight workshop
• 21:46
  that had practical, take-home messages.
• 21:50
  That's when I decided, "I'm joining this via."
• 21:54
  That's how I got involved.
• 21:55
  And I was very fortunate that the position was open
• 22:00
  for an election during the off season,
• 22:02
  not during the cyclical season.
• 22:05
  And I put my hat in the ring and I got elected.
• 22:09
  I think that's how I got into it.
• 22:11
  It's been very rewarding.
• 22:15
  I get to move across research areas.
• 22:18
  It feels like I have a ticket to go to any field I want
• 22:22
  and I get to hear about the different
• 22:26
  research topics that our members work on,
• 22:30
  as well as how science is done in different institutions,
• 22:35
  in different countries and things like that.
• 22:36
  It feels like I have an all-access pass,
• 22:40
  and I'm very grateful for this opportunity.
• 22:44
  - Your enthusiasm really, really comes through,
• 22:47
  and for anyone who's listening to this,
• 22:48
  you're just beaming
• 22:50
  talking about being involved in the PIA,
• 22:52
  so that's fantastic.
• 22:55
  So given everything you've said
• 22:58
  and the great ideas
• 23:01
  and the great mechanisms that brought you into the PIA,
• 23:04
  could you tell us a bit
• 23:05
  about what you've got planned for AIC?
• 23:08
  - Absolutely.
• 23:09
  The first thing I've got planned
• 23:10
  is I am not going, unfortunately.
• 23:13
  I will be moving between countries,
• 23:16
  and hopping onto a third country
• 23:18
  was not in my agenda for this summer,
• 23:21
  but we have some great programming.
• 23:23
  Our executive committee is made of phenomenal,
• 23:28
  phenomenally talented and motivated members,
• 23:33
  and we have several programming opportunities.
• 23:36
  Let me open up that so I can give you the exact details.
• 23:39
  So we have,
• 23:41
  before the conference starts on Friday,
• 23:43
  there are two workshops.
• 23:45
  One is on leadership skills
• 23:47
  and development workshop for emerging scientists,
• 23:50
  which we partnered with AWARE,
• 23:52
  which is Alliance for Women Researchers in dementia.
• 23:56
  So we partnered with them for a leadership workshop.
• 24:00
  And in the afternoon on Friday, July 10th,
• 24:03
  we have a workshop on engaging people
• 24:06
  with lived experience in dementia research.
• 24:09
  Again, this is a collaboration with the partnering PIA
• 24:13
  who primarily work on how to engage with the caregivers
• 24:17
  and partners who make dementia research possible.
• 24:22
  On Saturday, which is considered PIA day,
• 24:25
  at very early in the morning at 8:30
• 24:28
  we have a skills kind of conversation
• 24:33
  about how to identify your 60-second research story,
• 24:38
  how you can own your expertise.
• 24:40
  And this is great because you go there and prepare,
• 24:42
  practise your research speech,
• 24:46
  your elevator pitch,
• 24:48
  and you're prepared for the rest of the conference.
• 24:52
  And on Sunday, which is the first day of the conference,
• 24:54
  we have social support and bingo,
• 24:59
  social bingo, for early and mid-career researchers.
• 25:02
  These are easy ways to get to know people
• 25:05
  in your own career stage
• 25:08
  and, you know, perhaps mid-career as well,
• 25:11
  build your network that's outside of your usual pathways
• 25:14
  of finding network,
• 25:16
  and sometimes we get great topics
• 25:20
  that are challenges
• 25:22
  among different groups of people
• 25:25
  and we bring that back to PIA
• 25:27
  and discuss how we can offer programming in the future.
• 25:29
  So that's a great place to meet with our executive committee
• 25:32
  as well as meet new people
• 25:35
  and form your own circle of friends for this conference.
• 25:40
  And then during the conference, Monday through Wednesday,
• 25:43
  every afternoon at lunchtime,
• 25:45
  there are skills workshops,
• 25:48
  and PEERs PIA is partnering and collaborating
• 25:51
  with other PIAs
• 25:52
  for at least one workshop every day.
• 25:55
  So on Monday at lunchtime we have collaborating
• 25:58
  with people with lived experience in dementia research,
• 26:01
  again, with partnering PIA.
• 26:04
  On Tuesday we have a workshop on crafting your narrative CV.
• 26:08
  And this I thought was very important
• 26:10
  because a lot of the institutions funding partners
• 26:15
  are moving away from a written CV
• 26:18
  which just lists your accomplishments and your papers
• 26:21
  into a more narrative one where you highlight
• 26:24
  how this contributes to science in general.
• 26:27
  So we have that workshop on Tuesday
• 26:30
  in partnership with the neuroimaging PIA.
• 26:34
  And on Wednesday we have a PEERs PIA only skills workshop
• 26:39
  on how to establish an effective writing routine.
• 26:42
  And to me,
• 26:45
  one of the highlights for all these workshops
• 26:47
  is how collaborative they are,
• 26:49
  not only with ECs and other groups,
• 26:52
  but some of these are being led by our members.
• 26:55
  So people who are interested
• 26:56
  in gaining leadership experience
• 26:58
  or expanding their skill on a specific topic of interest
• 27:03
  could absolutely get involved
• 27:05
  and build on their leadership skills.
• 27:07
  - That all sounds really interesting.
• 27:09
  You've come up with some really exciting, engaging ideas
• 27:13
  as a means of engaging with your PIA.
• 27:17
  From the perspective of someone who,
• 27:20
  both in PIA and and locally,
• 27:24
  trying to engage early career researchers,
• 27:27
  what do you think is the most common pitfall
• 27:30
  that organisations fall into
• 27:31
  when they're trying to go about engaging that group?
• 27:36
  - That's a great question.
• 27:38
  I can speak of an example
• 27:40
  that we've frequently faced
• 27:42
  in the last few years of my time here.
• 27:46
  I would say a lot of the times,
• 27:49
  organising groups like the executive committee,
• 27:51
  including our own,
• 27:53
  we've shouldered all
• 27:56
  of the organisational duties on ourselves,
• 27:59
  thinking, "We wanted to be part of this group,
• 28:03
  so it's up to us to make it happen."
• 28:05
  But in the more recent years what I've noticed
• 28:09
  is that our members are very interested,
• 28:12
  they're interested in participating,
• 28:14
  they're interested in contributing
• 28:16
  and organising things as well.
• 28:18
  But often, more often than not, what we hear
• 28:20
  is that you're not sure how to get started,
• 28:24
  where to get involved.
• 28:26
  Some of the options we've tried
• 28:28
  are having specific examples
• 28:31
  of the kind of support we need.
• 28:34
  We could say, "Hello, we're planning this event,
• 28:37
  we're looking for people who can host
• 28:39
  and looking for people who can monitor chats
• 28:43
  on the Zoom question and answers, Q&A,"
• 28:47
  and if we have some specific requests
• 28:49
  and we are able to provide the time, that's easy.
• 28:52
  That's an easy way to ask people to join
• 28:55
  because the asks are clear and they're able to contribute.
• 29:01
  And another way we've done,
• 29:03
  especially some of the skills workshops we've done recently
• 29:06
  with collaborative mindset, is reaching out,
• 29:10
  reaching out to our network.
• 29:12
  Like I said, I'm very fortunate that my area of research
• 29:16
  has perhaps one of the largest PIAs, neuroimaging PIA,
• 29:19
  and I have this all-access pass to other PIAs as well.
• 29:23
  So I'm able to, say, call out a friend of mine
• 29:27
  or a colleague of mine
• 29:28
  or someone whose paper I really admire,
• 29:31
  call them and say, "Hey,
• 29:32
  we're interested in putting this together.
• 29:34
  Would you like to contribute?
• 29:35
  These are the expectations,"
• 29:37
  or, "These are some of the ideas we have,"
• 29:40
  and then they bring own ideas.
• 29:41
  So I think in my experience,
• 29:43
  the quickest answer would be reach out.
• 29:46
  A lot of the times there is interest,
• 29:49
  but not clarity,
• 29:52
  and sometimes there are pitfalls as well.
• 29:56
  In some cases with our continental groups we found
• 29:58
  that we operate on a timescale,
• 30:01
  not just a time zone, but a timescale
• 30:03
  that cannot be met by people in a different environment.
• 30:08
  And so we've had to take on the lead if necessary,
• 30:11
  but more than anything,
• 30:13
  we've specifically tried to involve members
• 30:17
  and provide support behind the scenes
• 30:20
  in how they can organise the different events.
• 30:23
  Yeah.
• 30:25
  - Thank you. That sounds like great advice.
• 30:27
  So being really specific
• 30:28
  about what you're asking people to do
• 30:31
  is definitely something I'm going to reflect on.
• 30:34
  - If I may add one more thing to that,
• 30:37
  recently, because AIC is in London
• 30:42
  and over the last few months,
• 30:45
  I believe perhaps February or March,
• 30:48
  we requested that ISTAART reach out
• 30:50
  to all PEERs members in UK
• 30:53
  and ask if they're definitely attending the conference,
• 30:56
  can they participate, can they help us organise?
• 30:59
  I believe it was UK and Europe,
• 31:01
  and we did have a lot of members contributing ideas
• 31:04
  and how they would,
• 31:07
  how they feel prepared to be part of a programme
• 31:12
  that we plan to have.
• 31:14
  And it was so good
• 31:16
  that we received perhaps more than a dozen responses
• 31:20
  and we've had to turn some of them, like,
• 31:22
  turn some of them away
• 31:24
  or ask if they would do a webinar instead.
• 31:27
  So that's definitely been successful in our current,
• 31:32
  like, or immediate AIC programming.
• 31:36
  - Great, so there's loads of interesting things
• 31:39
  you guys have lined up at AIC and beyond,
• 31:42
  so it's really exciting
• 31:43
  to hear about both your work and the work of the PIA.
• 31:47
  We would love to keep chatting,
• 31:48
  but we're constrained by time.
• 31:51
  So it's time to end today's podcast.
• 31:54
  I want to thank you, Sindhuja,
• 31:55
  and I want to welcome you to Europe.
• 31:58
  I want to wish you the very best
• 32:00
  for what I know is a big move ahead for you.
• 32:02
  So thank you very much for joining us.
• 32:04
  - Thank you, Joe. I'm very glad to be here.
• 32:07
  And for anyone interested,
• 32:09
  please look up PEERs PIA on the ISTAART website
• 32:13
  and you'll be able to find us and reach out to all of EC.
• 32:16
  You're also able to email istaart@alz.org.
• 32:20
  You can find information of all of this
• 32:22
  on the Alzheimer's Association website.
• 32:25
  Thank you.
• 32:26
  - Thank you.
• 32:27
  (upbeat music)
• 32:29
  - [Voice Over] You have been listening
• 32:30
  to the "Relay Podcast,"
• 32:32
  delivered as a collaboration
• 32:33
  between Dementia Researcher and ISTAART.
• 32:37
  This podcast is made at University College London
• 32:40
  with generous funding from the NIHR,
• 32:43
  Race against Dementia, Alzheimer's Association,
• 32:47
  Alzheimer's Research UK, and the Alzheimer's Society.
• 32:51
  Please like and subscribe
• 32:53
  and share your thoughts in the comments.
• 32:55
  (upbeat music)