Blog – Visiting other research labs, a personal reflection

One of my most favourite things to do is to visit another research lab and just spend time there. I have been privileged to do this twice over the course of my academic career so far. Both times have been great opportunities to get to know people, set up exciting collaborations and find out how other academics do things. Perhaps most valuably for me, I have also found it valuable to spend time away from my usual grind to refocus.

As part of my NIHR Advanced Fellowship I planned my most recent visit to a wonderful lab, run by Prof Maya Henry, at the University of Texas, Austin. Prof Henry is a speech and language researcher with whom I have built a relationship with over the last few years and who is a mentor on my fellowship. She has been doing research on speech and language interventions for primary progressive aphasia for some time and was the first to present speech and language intervention research at the International Society of Frontotemporal Dementia Conference (a very important and bio-medically focused conference). She is a leader in the field of intervention research on Primary Progressive Aphasia, and a visit to her lab showed me why.

Prof Henry’s lab run a smooth ship. They comprise a combination of researchers, students and speech and language therapists (or pathologists) who work for the lab as a lab manager as well as doing therapy on the intervention studies. The lab run a tight ship of regular meetings, open communication systems and a super open and friendly atmosphere. They collaborate with several other labs, and they have excellent systems in place for doing so. Much of my time was spent observing their current studies underway and discussing ideas, data and doing research with them. It was super inspiring, and I felt incredibly valued as a collaborator. We genuinely spent hours and hours discussing data, and I realised that I was also lending fresh eyes to their own work.

I learnt so much it is rather difficult to condense this into a paragraph, but I picked up both small hints and tips (how to use software to my advantage- in a way I hadn’t thought about) as well as bigger research ideas (we are writing up a project we started and have another underway). I also found it useful to explore the culture of the lab. Student speech and language therapists work in the lab, organising things, writing minutes, speaking to potential participants- this is a novel idea I hadn’t ever considered. Prof Henry has created a wonderful culture of openness and discussion, meaning people discuss everything and ideas and workloads are shared. No idea is a bad idea. This lab grows great researchers.

Given I have a family I am always filled with some anxiety when planning an overseas work trip, leaving them is always a juggle, but leaving them for nearly a month was a huge wrench. They were, of course, fine. It was me who struggled initially. But the lab and the entire team around the lab were so incredibly welcoming. Before I arrived, they were already emailing to help me find accommodation, set up a schedule of events and find out what I wanted to do whilst I was there. The schedule of events was not simply work focused, the lab also welcomed me to Austin as a Londoner, taking me for meals and tourist activities. The team told me that since the pandemic they had predominantly worked remotely, but on my arrival they were in the office most days. We went kayaking on the local river at sunset, hiking in the mountains, to a concert and comedy and had heaps and heaps of awesome food together (Tacos, chips and queso dip at every turn).

In the last week of my time there I attended the Clinical Aphasiology Conference-in Atlantic City. Prof Henry happened to be conference chair and suggested I submit an abstract. It is one of the big American language and communication conferences for clinical and academic speech and language therapists (pathologists). It was a wonderful opportunity to spread the net- make new connections and establish new links. I have linked up with several people with whom I plan to meet to plan some collaborations. I was also able to share my work with them and had several exciting discussions about my research.

This trip gave me the opportunity to take stock, cease the daily grind and get on with some of my writing as well. If you are ever in doubt, don’t be. Visiting other labs is a precious work holiday. I highly recommend it!

Author

Dr Anna Volkmer is a Speech and Language Therapist and Senior Research Fellow in Language and Cognition, Department of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London. Anna is researching Speech and language therapy interventions in language led dementia and was once voted scariest speech and language therapist (even her children agree).

Follow @volkmer_anna