A lab is a bit like a kitchen, with a multitude of 鈥渄ishes鈥� simmering at once, says听, associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery at 麻豆AV and associate director of clinical research at The Neuro's Azrieli Centre for Autism Research (ACAR).
New students can feel lost in the flurry of activity, but Elsabbagh encourages them to dive in and contribute 鈥� most importantly, with their own ideas.
Elsabbagh scoops up that collective wisdom to keep her lab cooking. A committee of lab members at all career stages, for example, reads every graduate school application before deciding who gets the nod.
During the pandemic, her lab members have come together in other ways, too, leading one another in yoga and meditation workshops, quiz nights and a virtual drop-in gathering called 鈥榗ookie time.鈥� The team-building helps with their mission: to discover how early social experiences and other environmental factors might protect against autism and related conditions.
Elsabbagh told听Spectrum听about her 鈥渘eurotic scheduling鈥� (and its limits), why she is not active on social media, and the secret to inbox zero.
Spectrum: What big question drives your research?
Mayada Elsabbagh:听My research centers around understanding factors that influence early brain development, such as genetic factors that are rare in the general population. I鈥檓 particularly intrigued by the idea of resilience, and the possibility that the brain essentially adapts its own development to respond to situations of adversity.
On my sabbatical next year, we鈥檙e planning to explore the intersection of disability and refugee status. This involves people who have experienced trauma and may show signs of disability. We plan to track the extent to which biological factors contributed to their trajectories, versus some of those traumatic experiences.
S: Whose work do you admire?
ME:听The person who got me interested in the field to begin with was my late supervisor,听. She鈥檚 very well known for her work on developmental trajectories, and she actually was the person who shifted my career trajectory toward an appreciation of issues around development. That鈥檚 led to where I took my research today.
S: What does a typical day look like for you?
ME:听Predictability is the only thing that I don鈥檛 have in my schedule. I experience a perpetual sense of chaos.
It鈥檚 like cooking: There鈥檚 many dishes going at the same time, and you鈥檙e trying to shift gears between different modes of working, whether that鈥檚 the deep thinking involved in writing and reviewing papers or the collaborative process of developing trial protocols. And from that chaos, I try to impose strategies to create order and get a few meaningful things done every day.
S: What are those strategies?
惭贰:听Neurotic scheduling that I modify at the last minute anyway. Over the pandemic, I have gone from maintaining many to-do lists to fitting one list on a single page. So in a single glance, I can manage issues related to my work, my family and my health.
I also surround myself with extremely organized, talented, reliable people, knowing that I can trust my team to do the things that I miss and the things they鈥檙e much better at doing, whether administrative, scientific or related to our interactions with families.
Another strategy that has worked extremely well for me is letting go of things that realistically won鈥檛 happen and managing my guilt about not getting something done. And really trying to end each day with the feeling that at least one thing I did was meaningful and that this is what I wanted to be when I grew up.
S: How much sleep do you get?
ME:听I absolutely cherish my eight hours of sleep, without which I will not have a productive day. There鈥檚 also a coffee ritual in the morning, without which the day does not look very promising.
S: When and where are you most productive?
ME:听I love working in cafes. In Montreal, that鈥檚 not unusual. My house is in an area full of nature. That鈥檚 my second-favorite spot, except that house fills up with people in the summer 鈥� family members come and stay with me 鈥� so no work gets done. Instead, a lot of cooking happens in the summer, and a lot of just hanging out. A lot of doing nothing happens in that house as well.
S: Do you listen to anything while you work?
ME:听I like white noise, like what you get in a cafe.
S: What is your favorite scientific conference?
ME:听Is it too controversial to say I don鈥檛 love conferences? I increasingly find conferences, especially the big ones, overwhelming and kind of disappointing. When I go to a conference, my wish is to learn something new, meet somebody new and interesting, think differently about an issue or be inspired. And I find that larger conferences tend not to deliver those things. So recently, I started thinking about conferences as places where I catch up with people I don鈥檛 see very often, making sure that I have fun scheduled alongside a minimalist list of the kind of science that I want to stay up to date with 鈥� usually the type that I don鈥檛 do myself.
S: Do you have any good conference memories?
惭贰:听At a workshop in Italy, we got served espressos in the morning and freshly cooked risotto for lunch. I kept thinking, 鈥淲hy can鈥檛 we just do this all the time?鈥�
S: What are you reading right now?
惭贰:听That鈥檚 kind of a hard one on the heart, because I am not reading for leisure anymore. The pandemic has blurred this boundary between work and life. This summer, when I worked at home, I found that to the extent I was able to get concentrated time, I spent it working. Before the pandemic, I鈥檇 been trying to catch up on the older writings of听, in which he defined concepts of resilience around exposure to adverse events. It鈥檚 not always the easiest read, but his papers certainly offer lots to think about.
S: What journals or magazines do you subscribe to?
ME:听I do not have favorite journals. I look for good papers, irrespective of journal. I鈥檓 very skeptical of the things that get published in high-impact journals. My experience is that it鈥檚 not the quality of the work that determines whether and where it gets published, but a scientist鈥檚 connections within the field and the ability to package the work.
S: Are you active on social media?
惭贰:听Not very. I鈥檝e never shied away from controversial topics, but I find the level of engagement on social media to be problematic. It only allows simplistic and superficial positions. I am on Twitter, and it鈥檚 been fine, except that I don鈥檛 contribute to debates because I find it difficult to narrow down my thoughts and pick a position without the space to justify it. I would also rather be selective in what I look at and read. On the other hand, I admire the power of social media and what it can do when used for positive purposes.
S: What do you eat or drink while you鈥檙e working?
惭贰:听My morning coffee, which is the ritual I mentioned. And then, in the afternoon, I try to remember to drink lots of sparkling water, but it doesn鈥檛 always happen.
S: Does your lab have any traditions?
ME:听My team has a spontaneous ability to self-organize and take initiative. We have something called 鈥榗ookie time,鈥� a weekly drop-in virtual session where people just hang out and chat and eat a cookie. Over the summer, we had a few in-person picnics on Mount Royal, too.
S: How many unread emails do you have in your inbox right now?
ME:听I am proudly an inbox zero person. I鈥檓 looking now, and I鈥檓 at 29. But that鈥檚 because I鈥檝e been in meetings all morning.
S: What鈥檚 your secret?
ME:听I think it was听听who got me hooked on the inbox zero method 鈥� if it takes less than two minutes to reply, you do it. If it鈥檚 something you have to think about, you schedule it and put it somewhere you can find it. I also feel good about deleting emails, in a way that I was not before.
S: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
惭贰:听A lot of us go into science because we want to exert some impact on the world; we want to change the world. This is not something you can only dream about. It鈥檚 a matter of learning to find and capture opportunities for that in your day-to-day work. This may sound idealistic, but it鈥檚 actually a very strategic way to approach research 鈥� and it鈥檚 led to tremendous success for me and my team.
About ACAR
The Neuro鈥檚听Azrieli Centre for Autism Research (ACAR)听transforms research, training and care to improve the quality of life of autistic people and their families. Established in 2017 thanks to the听, ACAR operates in the spirit of Open Science, inclusion and community collaboration. The state-of-the-art research centre is committed to advancing understanding of the mechanisms underlying autism and related conditions, developing new diagnostic tools and effective interventions through translational research and integrated care, and training the next generation of fundamental and clinical autism researchers.
