Michele Diaz received her undergraduate degree from Penn State and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Duke University. She returned to Penn State this summer to lead its Social, Life, and Engineering Sciences Imaging Center (SLEIC), as well as become an Associate Professor of Psychology and a co-funded faculty member of the Children, Youth, and Families Consortium. Prior to her return, she was the Associate Director of Brain Imaging and Analysis at Duke.
What are some of things that brought you back to Penn State?
First, being the director of the imaging center is a great opportunity. There are the organizational and community challenges in keeping the center running. But most of all, it is the community of investigators here. That was a really big draw for me. There are so many individuals doing really great, interesting research…and they are all really nice people. Another thing that’s really special about Penn State is the SSRI. Few institutions around the country have cross-university research institutes like it, and it’s fabulous for faculty and for social science research here.
You mentioned challenges. What challenges do you see?
The imaging community is a very diverse group of researchers. There are a number of investigators who are experts in imaging methodologies and there are others who have never used imaging before, and there are yet others in between these extremes. How do you allocate time in the center? How do you draw new people into using these powerful methodologies? How do you support training for new investigators and ongoing development of established investigators for using a rapidly changing technology?
So, how do you support both new training and ongoing development?
Training at different levels is going to be a focus of the SLEIC’s activities over the coming years. We need training for faculty who may not be interested in learning the smaller details, but who want a conceptual overview of what this tool can do. We need levels of training for graduate students, research assistants, and post-docs, and those who want to become experts in imaging methodologies.
When you meet colleagues who are unfamiliar with neuroimaging, how do you introduce the center to them and explain and promote its services?
I tell them that imaging is a great way to learn about the brain. But, I am not an imager for imaging sake. I ask investigators if imaging is an appropriate method for their research. Imaging is a complicated and lengthy process without a lot of latitude. I talk to investigators about shaping their research questions to fit what this technology can do to advance their research.
When new leaders come on board, they often talk about direction. What can you say about the direction you are planning for the SLEIC?
I want to recruit more researchers to use the center. Another one of my goals is to improve the efficiencies of data collection for researchers who use the center. There is a lot that goes into imaging. As I’ve said, it’s a very complicated method, and it takes a lot to get a project up and going. What I can do is build an infrastructure so it’s easier for people to collect data. If an investigator has never done an imaging study, I can appreciate that it will take a lot of time to learn. I want to try and come up with a system that gives new investigators time to learn, but doesn’t take away from others’ time to use the center’s resources.
Your own research is on the cognitive neuroscience of language. Can you talk about that?
The big question I want to answer is: How does the brain work and support cognition? In particular, how does the brain operate with respect to language? What are the brain regions that are important to language? How do they work together? How does the brain change with age with respect to language function? We know that some aspects of language are more prone to decline across age than others. It’s interesting to me that we all have the same brain, but the pattern of decline is not the same in any particular region. I want to know how brain region changes influence cognition, particularly language, as people age.
You have your own research interests. As SLEIC director, how familiar do you have to be with the other disciplines that use imaging tools?
There are a lot of researchers from many disciplines whose work profits from the use of imaging technologies. At Penn State we have faculty members from HDFS, Kinesiology, Biomedical Engineering, and several areas of Psychology, among other disciplines, all of whom study brain functioning and injuries. I try to be an expert in a range of methods. My Ph.D. adviser was focused on methods, and that really gave me a good idea of what one method can do versus another, or the advantages of one experimental design versus another. So, I don’t have to be an expert in everything, but I can generally tell investigators if the designs will work or not. I want to think creatively with investigators and find out what’s feasible, but if I suggest ideas, I trust that investigators will know when a particular approach won’t work in their area.