Page 14 - EUREKA! Summer 2018

“I’ve always been interested in preventative medicine

and the idea that nutritional and lifestyle factors, and the

biological, social and physical environments we’re exposed

to early in life, profoundly affect our health trajectories.”

technical concepts into everyday language. Connor dem- especially for a professor who is not only pursuing her own
onstrates the value of communication on her lab’s website, research and teaching but also helping Carleton shape its
connorlab.ca, with graphic icons and detailed yet not overly Health Sciences program, launch graduate studies streams
dense language. And before Palladino and Srugo accom- and move into a brand-new building. Yet she sees all of
panied her to late-winter conferences in San Diego and these responsibilities as pieces of the same puzzle — just
Banff respectively, they practiced their presentations — for as she sees human health as an integrated state — and has
Palladino, a poster presentation; for Srugo, a 10-minute talk learned how to be “fiercely protective” of her time to be
— during lab meetings. able to do the deep thinking her research requires.
These efforts paid off. Srugo’s conference talk, to a di- One of Connor’s projects involves analyzing data from
verse group of obstetrician-gynaecologists, neonatologists, the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals
paediatricians, governmental health officials and research (MIREC) study, a massive Health Canada and Canadian
scientists, beat out graduate students, postdoctoral fellows Institutes of Health Research biomonitoring project that
and clinical trainees to win the best oral presentation award examined potential adverse health effects of prenatal expo-
at the annual Canadian National Perinatal Research Meet- sure to environmental chemicals in 2,000 Canadian women
ing. “Sebastian said to me, ‘Now I understand why you had and their infants in 10 cities from 2008 to 2015. Connor and
me change my slides five times,’” laughs Connor. “Details her MSc students in Carleton’s Health: Science, Technology
matter. These types of science communication opportunities and Policy program are working to determine how maternal
help put the university on the map.” weight, weight gain in pregnancy and exposure to heavy
Fourth-year Health Sciences major Sebastian Srugo recently beat out graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and clinical trainees to
win the best oral presentation award at a national perinatal research conference in Banff. If the overarching goal of their work is to help Connor’s focus on undergraduates may seem unusual, metals while pregnant are related to the cognitive develop-
shape public health policy and improve health across the country and around the world, scientists and students need to be able to
distill technical concepts into everyday language.

ogy and preterm birth whose lab was conducting research Sinai whose DOHaD research group she was recruited to
on undernutrition during pregnancy, amongst other work. lead, set the tone for how she works with students at Car-
This direction captured a lot of her personal interests, and leton. They must contribute to her research, including ongo- You are what one day be used to inform public prompted into action. Moreover, uncov-
she had the technical skills from her undergrad to do the ing collaborations with Mount Sinai, but also have to put their health stakeholders and policymakers. ering relationships between geogra-
type of hands-on lab work that Palladino and Srugo are now own spin on it. “My research can’t grow without input from you Tweet Carleton’s six-year-old HSTP program phy, breastfeeding attitudes and other
mastering. Moreover, Challis had studied under the lead- a variety of viewpoints,” says Connor. “That’s why I put so emphasizes skill acquisition and the factors, such as socio-economic status
ers in fetal physiology and was part of its evolution into much time and effort into working with undergraduates. It use of problem-based approaches to or demographics, could help shape tar-
the exciting new field of DOHaD. These connections sent takes them a long time to do things, and they make mistakes. Mining social media data to understanding complex health issues. geted interventions to improve attitudes
Connor to New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom Despite this, they bring new perspectives on the world and to improve public health Lee Clark, Iryna Demchenko and Zoe towards breastfeeding and exclusive
during her doctoral studies — “global hotspots for DOHaD the problems we face, so we can learn from each other. Com- West — who are supervised by Health breastfeeding rates, and better support
research,” she says — and helped her land a postdoctoral mitting to them and their training empowers them to be the A picture may be worth a thousand Sciences professor Kristin Connor — are mothers who choose to breastfeed.
fellowship at the Liggins Institute and National Research creative scientists we want to help develop, and allows them words, but how much information using specialized software and algo- This research technique is still a
Centre for Growth and Development in Auckland. to see that their insight is valuable to what I do. I don’t take can be conveyed in a 280-character rithms to perform sentiment analysis on work-in-progress, but has the power to
“It’s crucial to have a good mentor,” says Connor, who students into my lab to do make-work projects. They contrib- Tweet? A lot, if you study the emo- Twitter data. Ninety percent of Canadian provide insight into health outcomes,
followed her two-plus years in New Zealand with four years ute to real-world research. There are tangible outputs.” tional response to a specific topic from women express an interest in exclusive behaviours and knowledge. “Figuring
as a research fellow at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research thousands of Twitter users across the breastfeeding, which has myriad ben- out these steps and methods is the
Institute at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital with Stephen Lye Strong communication skills are another tangible output country, according to a trio of master’s efits, including disease prevention for most important thing for us,” says Clark,
before taking her current post at Carleton. “You need to that Connor wants to cultivate among her students. It’s students in Carleton’s Health: Sci- babies, but less than 25 percent exclu- “because they can be used to look at
have people who believe in you and trust you and train you, one thing for a young researcher to understand a complex ence, Technology and Policy (HSTP) sively breastfeed for the recommended just about any health issue. What I’m
and then give you independence and know that you’ll go scientific idea; explaining it to a general audience can be program, who are exploring attitudes six months. If the HSTP students can learning most is how to do this kind of
out and do science that excites you — and do it well.” extremely challenging. But if the overarching goal is to help toward breastfeeding on social media identify geographic regions where work. We want to make social media
The guidance that Connor received from Challis and Lye, a shape public health policy and improve health across the and helping to refine this research negative feelings about breastfeeding analysis something you can do even if
preterm birth and pregnancy complications expert at Mount country and around the world, you need to be able to distill technique to the point where it could prevail, local health agencies could be you’re not a computer scientist.”

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