In my opinion, one of the most exciting things that occurs in the life of a scientist is the ability to start their own research laboratory. In some ways it is like starting a business, in that you have to not only have the idea and have to find investors (i.e. funding), but then you also have to recruit bright and talented individuals that not only share in your vision, but also help you evolve to answer some of the most pressing questions and give those answers back to the lay community.
As such, I started my research laboratory at USC in 2016 with the goal of helping uncover risk and resilience factors in brain development using neuroimaging techniques. In just four years we have been successful and have grown in many ways with various funded projects. But as we started this year, I wanted a way for our team to align in our big ideas and really solidify our mission. In addition, I wanted us to be able to improve our ability to communicate what we study and why we study brain risk and resilience in children and adolescents to a larger audience without all the scientific jargon. Through a series of thoughtful meetings, ImageThink allowed for us to not only verbalize and visualize our united efforts, but also enhance our creativity and we had fun in the process!