“Think Alike?” Episode 4: Trust and Transparency

Episode 4: Trust and Transparency

Claire Sexton: Hiding mistakes doesn't do the research culture any, favors. And I think that trust is vital because, you know, we need a transparent environment. 

Naiara Demnitz: Having that trust that I could come to you and say, you know, look, this mistake has happened. What do we do now? It's such a meaningful thing because that creates the rubric. That means that in the next mistake you're also transparent in all of that. And I think it could so easy also go the other way if you have a mentor who isn't open.

(Podcast Host): Welcome to Think Alike?, a podcast from Neuronline that delves into the art and science of mentorship within the neuroscience community. Neuronline is the Society for Neuroscience's home for learning and discussion. Join or renew your SfN membership to be part of the premier neuroscience community that's pushing the field forward, support your career and advance the field alongside your peers. With year round unlimited access to to expert led webinars, SfN annual meeting perks and many other benefits. Become a member of the Society for Neuroscience or rejoin today at sfn.org / membership. This episode's guests are mentor Dr. Claire Sexton and former mentee, Dr. Naiara Demnitz.

Claire Sexton: Hello, my name is Claire Sexton

Naiara Demnitz: And I'm Naiara Demnitz.

Claire Sexton: And together, we're going to be discussing, mentoring and thinking alike, for this Society for Neuroscience, podcast. And we'll be talking about our mentoring relationship and then also, wider mentoring environments as well. so should we go back to when we first met, which you reminded me was summer 2014. So over 10 years ago now, which is why, my memory might be a bit fuzzy for some of these details. but, in 2014. So I'd finished my doctorate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford in 2011, under the supervisor supervision of, Klaus [unknown]. and I was looking into late life depression using different MRI techniques. then I'd moved, to the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, still at the University of Oxford, to do a postdoc with Heidi, Johansenberg, looking, at the, effects of aging on the brain and also the role of modifiable factors like physical activity and sleep. So I was about three years into that postdoc, and at the same time, where were you?

Naiara Demnitz: So summer of 2014, I was finishing up my master's and I was pretty sure that I wanted to do a PhD in something related to lifestyle factors and the brain as we get older. And that led me to contact you and Heidi. So I was finishing my masters in London and I remember sending you guys an email and then we met over Skype. And I actually have a really clear recollection of this because I was so nervous. I mean, you just had. It was so rare that you'd have this, you know, really strong meeting. And it felt like it was so much, dependent on that. But both of you made me feel so at ease by the end of the meeting. And this is why I still remember it so strongly. I was referring to you both as you guys. Like, oh, what do you guys think about this? And I think my language had gotten so casual that afterwards I was kicking myself and thinking like, oh, actually, no, that was a bit too. So you definitely put me at ease very quickly. And yeah, the memory stayed.

Claire Sexton: No, but I think there's a couple of points there. And one is then just the value in this cold calling, that it, it doesn't always come off. Sometime you email people. I remember I emailed somebody about PhD position. Never got a reply. But you don't lose anything. And then other times you can send that cold email and, you know, it flourishes. so after you'd reminded me of that, I remember that call. I remember that we both immediately liked you. And we had a research assistant position coming up, which then you applied for and you got that. And then it was during that time, I think, that you then were applying for various PhD scholarships.

Naiara Demnitz: Yes. And then I, at first I thought, oh, I received none of them. And I think maybe that's just memory. You remember the rejections a bit more strongly, but I clearly must have gotten one of them because I did get a PhD. So I went back and I did get a scholarship from the Department of Psychiatry and the Clarendon Foundation. And so I started my PhD with you and Heidi and Klaus where we were looking at mobility and the brains of older adults. And I think there, I mean, even from the very start, we had this combination of different supervisors, so different mentors with different mentorship styles. So you were, very much my first go to person. You were also my day to day supervisor.

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Naiara Demnitz: and then I also had Heidi and Klaus, who I would meet to a little bit less meet with a little bit less regularly.

Claire Sexton: Yeah, and you were my first PhD student. So, yeah, it was a new experience. How did we set up our mentoring relationship practically so you know, how often we met, for example, here again, I couldn't really remember. All I remembered was, us being in touch often. but I couldn't remember if we had regular check ins or if it was more informal. I even struggled to remember if we were based in the same building because, you know, had supervisors and we were split across, psychiatry and also, clinical neurosciences, which are about a mile apart.

Naiara Demnitz: Yeah, no. So I used to sit downstairs in an office with all of the students and then you sat upstairs with an office with all of the PIs. And what I remember is practically to set it up. it was really informal. So I think we sort of just had a system where at the start I would pop upstairs and ask you a question if there was something quick that we could look at or if there's something straight straightforward. Or I would then email you to ask for a meeting if it was to. If we needed to discuss something that would require a little bit more time. And then on top of that, if I remember correctly, we used to also have regular meetings with the other supervisors, so as more of a, a bigger group, but that was less frequent. And I think somewhere along the way we kind of figured out what work, what worked for us, like how, you know, how often I could come or how frequently I needed to come or what the best way to reach you was. and one example that I have for that is I really like set deadlines. and I think for me I know that they really work. So I remember asking you to put deadlines on your calendar and on my calendar of when I had to, for example, hand something into you or a chapter or a draft. And for me that really worked because of course in a PhD you have, you have the right after three or four years you need a thesis. But there's so much space in between where we don't necessarily have very fixed deadlines and having these sort of agreements that we might have to come up and might be a bit arbitrary. But they were really helpful for me along the way. And I actually now it's something that I offer any student if they would like to have some additional deadlines. Yeah. Along the way helps for them. And many do take me up on that.

Claire Sexton: Yeah. And I. But I think we both kind of benefited from. Obviously we had work that we were doing and data collection and everything like that. But our calendars were pretty, open and flexible in those days, which kind of permitted like a kind of open door relationship. and I think, yeah, more important than like the logistics of, you know, how we set up our relationship, I think was, was the environment of it. And m. When I look back, I was so lucky to have Klaus as my PhD supervisor, so his office was next, door to where I worked. His door was always open. He always had time whenever I knocked, need an advice or to talk things through. And you know, I think I went into an environment where I felt, he put supporting the people in his team first, over and above being concerned about the results of the project and when they got done. and that was a really liberating kind of environment to start off with. And Heidi equally always had an open, door. Never had to think twice about approaching her, was always receptive to new ideas. And I'd benefited immensely from that type of supportive environment. And then, you know, I was trying to you know, continue that as best as I could with you.

Naiara Demnitz: I think that definitely passes on. And I mean Klaus is just the kindest person. I completely second that. And with Heidi, I mean she's so inspiring. But something that always, I've always really admired was her style of leadership. She has this calming assertiveness, this calming leadership style which you don't see that often. And it really amazed me how assertive she can be without ever raising her voice. So she's just, you know, her whole persona and leadership style is incredibly inspiring. I think that was also great to have as a, as a mentor.

Claire Sexton: And I think when we were Oxford, thinking back, you know, there were a number of women in kind of high profile leadership positions, including Heidi. And they all had unique, you know, approaches and kind of asserted themselves in different ways. and there wasn't only one model of leadership or mentorship. and that

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Claire Sexton: was great to have because I think sometimes, you know, as women it's still that you kind of have to try and be, you know, an alpha woman in order to assert yourself. But there were, you know, there were different ways that people had been successful definitely.

Naiara Demnitz: And I, Yeah. And I think sometimes just having that diversity in the style because we can reduce it to, there's the sex differences in the leadership and having more women and having more men. But even within men and within women there's so much variety. Right. In how they communicate and how people communicate with us is how people impose things. And I think that can be. Yeah, it can just be really nice to have a healthy breadth of that.

Claire Sexton: And there was also, in the environment there was, you know, there was different networks of support in terms of, you know, the mentoring relationships that we had, also advisors through, through colleges, also kind of peer to peer, mentoring. So there was, you know, support and people to call upon. you know, it wasn't an environment I ever felt isolated in. but it was one that also. I think there was a lot of independence. When I look back, you know, there was a lot of independence.

Naiara Demnitz: Yeah.

Claire Sexton: Early on in terms of, contributing.

Naiara Demnitz: Yeah. And I think what I should say is also, I mean, there's. With that independence that comes a lot of trust. So you need to have a lot of trust that also that people will be doing what their work, and that they will, be doing their work in the way that you've sort of agreed to. But you also hope that it comes with a safety net, that sort of mentorship relationship. and I felt that very early on. And it makes me think of. I don't know if you can remember it as clearly as I can. but I think this is about the first year of my PhD. I made this mistake where on my spreadsheet, my age column was wrong. Age, this really common covariate you added to basically any analysis in the work that we do. I crucially put this column completely wrong in my linear model, which meant that age hadn't been covaried out. The first time I show you these results, I get these incredible results because we haven't controlled for age. I showed these. I showed them to Heidi, showed them to you. Then I get back to my desk when I realized, that these. They're completely scrambled. It hasn't been added properly. And I just broke down and I remember running up to your office upstairs and be like, claire, I'm so sorry. I burst out crying. the age is completely wrong. And to me it felt like this horrible, horrible thing. But also, you know, for you, it was a complete. You're just like, of course it's fine. You just. Now we do it again. But having that trust that I could come to you and say, you know, look, this mistake has happened. What do we do now? And I think that's also so important to have.

Claire Sexton: Yeah. And I think that trust is vital because everybody does make mistakes. And we need a transparent environment where then, if mistakes are, ah, found that they can be corrected. And hiding mistakes really doesn't do anybody, doesn't do the research culture any, any favors. So then it needs to have that people need to be able to be comfortable, you know, coming forward so that then, yeah, there can be learnings, there can be corrections, and, you know, especially when somebody's starting out, you know, and these are very preliminary analysis. And, you know, you're just learning the techniques just learning, you know, scripting, everything like that, there's not going to be anybody who does it perfectly.

Naiara Demnitz: And it's such. But it's such a meaningful thing because that, that creates the. The rubric that means that in the next mistake you're also transparent and all of that. And I think it could so easy also go the other way if you have a mentor who isn't open with that or has, you know, I don't know, is less supportive of these mistakes. and I think that's also certainly something that I've learned both from you and from Heidi and also Klaus which I think brings me to one of the other, pointers that we had in our sort of prompts for here, which was about different types of learnings that you had from your mentor. And I think it really made me think about indirect learning because, of course, one thing was coming to you for, you know, help with scripts or how do I build a model or how do I do this analysis. But there were other things that you kind of learn along the way which aren't a direct answer to a question. So, for example, you're a really good speaker and you've. And I'm not just saying this as a compliment, like I remember you getting awards for being a really good public speaker. and watching someone that is good at public speaking, for example, can be really inspiring. And there's other things that you learn from that. Watching how you deal with questions like how you're answering the topics can be really important as well. And I think, yeah, that sort of thing is something that I pass. I try to really remember that we're not just learning in that one to one moment. You're learning and your PhD, you're

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Naiara Demnitz: learning throughout it. Right. there's also small stuff, and I think these are probably quite boring examples. But it's something that stuck with me, which is how you're structured your projects as you're going through. So when you're starting an analysis and how you kept track of everything that you do. yeah, as you're going through it. And it's something that I actually keep to this day. Yeah. Oh, and I guess a final example was also your interest in public engagement or public, public patient involvement. Is that what it's called now? PPI? Yeah, PPI. And that was something completely new to me. I mean, I had never tried it before, and I just remember a whole discussion about, look, this is something we should try. It's really important to get the public or patients involved in the start of your project, not just at the end where we tell them, okay, this is what we found. But can we do this groups or can we develop, co create new tasks and so forth. And that was something that I have to say I had never tried before, I hadn't really thought much of, but got completely interested after I saw how much you worked with it. And it's something that I, yeah. Do to this day. so, yeah, so some examples of things that you learn along the way outside of your direct PhD project.

Claire Sexton: Yeah, and again, I think like again the environment is crucial to that. There was, you know, space for me to get involved with things with like awareness initiatives, with PPI initiatives, you know, to be exploring new things. And there was time for that, you know, which was, which was such a luxury and I, know isn't the case, everywhere. So again, you know, I think a theme through all of this, you know, one of them is that, is that what type of environment, cultures, you know, productive mentoring, and being that support and a bit of space in there as well. we did have like a few adjustments to make along the way. Because then, you know, in your final year, I moved then to the States, I moved to the University of California, San Francisco, to do a fellowship at the Global Brain Health Institute for a couple of years. So I was over there while you were in the kind of crucial writing up stage and.

Naiara Demnitz: Yeah, and this meant of course, I could no longer sort of pop upstairs to come and ask your question or sort of brainstorm with you or something like that. But I have to say it wasn't as hard as I think. And also a lot of people would ask me, oh, how is it now that Claire isn't in Oxford anymore, like she's over there in San Francisco. Are you worried? but it was a lot more, a lot easier than that because I think we had established a really good rapport. It had been three years or so by then, you know, we. I knew that I could always reach out to you. I knew how certain how we communicated with each other. So it wasn't actually the challenge that it could have been. and I think that was largely due to the fact that we already had a good communication established before then. yeah, I mean it's hard to say of course how much of that could also be. Imagine if you'd had a student starting out that year and that was their very first year, how that would have proceeded. I don't know whether you need to have that rapport in person beforehand. But certainly I think for us it was really helpful. It wasn't a big challenge once you've gone.

Claire Sexton: Yeah. And I agree, I think it would be a bit more tricky, if it was starting out that way. But then also I think more so it'd be. I knew I was kind of leaving you in an extremely supportive environment where you still had, you know, ah, Klaus and Heidi. And there was another two PhD, students that I was supervising or co supervising, by that time. So then, you know, there was that kind of peer to peer support as well. And you all, you know, seem to have a great connection, between you. And I remember you coming out to visit, in San Francisco.

Naiara Demnitz: That was really fun and so to say. Yeah, we really did. So there were three of us, your students at the time, and we had a really good sort of peer to peer rapport. I remembered we all practiced our PhD defenses with each other's, with each other. So one of them came over to my living room at one point and we just sat down on a sofa and we had their thesis in our hands and we're just practicing grilling them with questions. and we did that for, for all of us. And that sort of support again comes back to that environment that you're saying. So it's, it's set by the mentor, but it also, you know, it's very helpful if you have that relationship

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Naiara Demnitz: between everyone else in the lab. And I imagine, I mean these things are very correlated. Right. Like we probably look at the mentors as well in that relationship to then also emulate it amongst us. And then in the States, it was really, really incredible because I got to meet some of the group that you were staying at, who was a really influential group in our field. And then through you had the opportunity to give a talk in that group, to meet the professor from that lab. And I think that also made me think of one of the big parts of mentorship, which is the sort of opening up of the networking. Right. Like your mentor will have a much richer, more connected network than you. And I think in this, often in this relationship there are some introductions that can be made or some very, very helpful connections that can be made. And, it's so meaningful. And I certainly benefited a lot from that through you and Heidi and Klaus throughout.

Claire Sexton: Yeah, well, I never had any worries about, you know, the kind of you finishing your PhD or the others finishing because you were all excellent students, you know, all clever, conscientious, hard working, so, you know, all a joy to supervise. And you all got your PhDs, or went on to successful careers. And after San Francisco then yeah, I moved to Chicago, for a position at the Alzheimer's Association. And we remained in overlapping circles so we'd still bump into each other at meetings and the like.

Naiara Demnitz: Yes, I recently ran into you at a conference in D.C. and that one was by chance. I remember you were coming out of the loop and that was a great surprise. After the PhD, I then went and very much followed in your footsteps actually after being introduced to the Global Brain Health Institute. from that visit to San Francisco, I then did a similar fellowship, but at ah, Trinity College, Dublin. and then after that I got a position here in the Copenhagen University Hospital where I still work with older adults and physical activity interventions. And I think what you're mentioning there is how about the time that passes afterwards and how you still stay in touch and you still link up or you might do a project together or maybe it's something more informal than that. And I think mentorship relationships, uh, lot like a long term relationship, they might change nature after a while. So say after your PhD ends or you change your job, but you keep the connection with the person and over time you end up collecting a network of mentors from different places and life stages. So while I don't reach out to you anymore for a small question, so I wouldn't anymore come upstairs or email you asking how do I deal with this reviewer, for example, I would still go for you if I have a question and I have still gone to you when I had a question about where to move to, do I take this job or sort of larger career decisions. and I think that is sort of for life, for life relationship that you take from a mentorship relationship that's clearly been, you know, that's worked well.

Claire Sexton: Yeah. And likewise, you know, it's not like I'm in touch with you or Klaus or Heidi, you know, like day to day or you know, even month to month. But I'd always feel comfortable, reaching out to advice for you all and, and for me those relationships always kind of, well to me at least I perceived them as quite flat. Like if I was wanting feedback on something or if somebody was suggesting an idea, it would be kind of the same type of conversation if I was speaking to my supervisor or if I was speaking to somebody I supervised. and then that has kind of carried on. I'd always feel comfortable, you know, reaching out for advice to you all and would, you know, appreciate it all, quite equally, as well. And then now though, you're based in Denmark.

Naiara Demnitz: Yes. And I mean. Oh, sorry, yeah. No, I think you were gonna maybe ask about the cultural differences. Yeah, yeah. Ah, because, and I, the reason I was going to jump in there is because you mentioned about sort of the flat systems that you've encountered. So in the UK I think, and I had had the same experience and I would also. That's how I would describe academia in the UK. It's quite flat. But then I moved to Denmark and I have to say here it is very flat. So it's, it's quite different structure, which is great and it's something I actually really like. it's also a very small country which means

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Naiara Demnitz: everyone knows each other. So within, you know, a certain field you very quickly get to know the same. It's the same sort of group of scientists and same group of researchers, which can be a challenge for someone who wasn't educated here or has moved into the system. Right. So coming from abroad, I don't know this network and I don't know this sport of researchers. So even though it is flat, it can still be hard to to approach it. And that is something that I think I, The mentorship role is also so important when you're moving countries, which is so common in academia. Right. You're moving countries or you're moving into a different environment or it could even be a different field, the mentors. Having a really good mentor is such a fantastic way to get embedded into this new network and to the introductions again. But also you sort of lend your reliability, if that makes sense. You bring your mentee into the conversation. And I think that I've been lucky again to have a good set of, mentors over, which has really facilitated this for me.

Claire Sexton: Yeah. And I think so there's, you know, kind of cultural differences in different, different countries and then also then the kind of mentorship experience seems to, you know, vary with career stage. so, you know, I moved from you know, academia into the, the non profit space in the States and you know, then my calendar had started to look extremely different to how it was when, you know, I was, was supervising you. And you know, and I'll be honest, there's, you know, there's been times that I've struggled, you know, to be the type of mentor that I'd like to be in terms of, you know, finding time, being accessible, staying calm, you know, especially in, you know, results driven, environments and you know, providing the right type of support and you know, it's something that I'm still working on. But I always remember back to like talking to somebody who said, you know, they supervised, you know, one or two students and they'd kind of worked out through trial and error what worked. And they were like, okay, I've got this down. Had the new student come in, then, you know, those same approaches, you know, wouldn't, didn't work at all for that next student. So then it is kind of like a continual, learning, process. And then, yeah, trying to, be honest with ourselves about how that's going. But then, you know, kind of as you, you know, progress in your career thing that you touched upon earlier, which is really great to be able to do, is kind of connect people, you know, and join those thoughts. And I think, you know, we're able to do that now on a global basis. Far more so. We both had some really nice international collaborations while we were at Oxford. I spent some time in Oslo. You went out, to Calgary. And they were really productive times. But now with organizations like SfN but also the Alzheimer's Association's membership society, ISTAART they can connect researchers, the world over. So with ISTAART was like 120 different countries, where members are based in, and when you've got that kind of global network and then you're able to kind of just have short chats with PhD students, you know, be encouraging and then also say, you know, would you like an. Is there anybody of these speakers that you would like an introduction, to and then. Or just being like, oh, you'd be able to talk to so and so. So just making those kind of, links and having that, that, that kind of, you know, encouragement and connection is something that, you know, doesn't necessarily have to take up a, you know, a lot of time, but can make a difference in people's, careers. And it's something that I've always been, you know, extremely grateful for when I've received.

Naiara Demnitz: I completely agree with that and I think a particular example from some of the initiatives. Well, one of the initiatives that I'm familiar with was from ISTAART which I think you started was the Meet the author from the Alzheimer's Association, which was such a. You would basically invite junior scientists, so PhD students or postdocs, I think, to come and do a webinar, where you would be like in a journal club, you'd present an article that was relevant for your field. But you invite the PI or the lead author from that paper to also come to that online journal club. And that was

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Naiara Demnitz: such a fantastic way to sort of break those barriers and make that connection. And it was no longer just, you know, nationally, you could just, okay, who is the leading person in my field? Let me have a webinar with this person and get to know them. And you know, it really helps break a lot of barriers where couldn't, which it couldn't be, would be very challenging otherwise.

Claire Sexton: Yeah, yeah. And that was a great kind of webinar series that we were able to do. And it did, you know, connected early career researchers with, you know, amazing world leading researchers the world over. And it led to, you know, some of them presenting their work, you know, because it's quite daunting to present, you know, somebody's paper to them. But the students would always put in so much work and they'd do a beautiful presentation and they'd say, you know, the authors would be like, this is better than I present it. You know, invitations, yeah, to go and have internships at their labs and everything like that. and yeah, those types of networking opportunities are out there. There's different ones through SfN, through ISTAART which you can, I'm going to give a quick plug is alz.org/istaart which is free for students and anyone, based in a low and middle income country.

Naiara Demnitz: I will add to the plug, although I don't know if it counts as a plug if I'm not involved with them, but I've heard of them and I think they're also really good sort of networking, environments, they're more leading. Well, it's about women mentorship. So one is called Women in Neuroscience and the other one is Women's Neuronet. And both also offer, mentorship schemes which could be of interest if, if that's something that you're looking for. And then I guess we had a prompt which was to do with the title of the podcast. So Claire, I'll ask the question to you. Do you think mentors and mentees need to think alike?

Claire Sexton: yes, I think for some things they do. You know, I think, you know, there's nice bonuses for what to think alike on, you know, in terms of we'd always enjoy going out to restaurants, menu choices, certain reality TV shows. But I think mostly, you know, so I think it's shared values can really make a difference. And that trust and that if you have those, you know, that kind of foundation, and then if you've got that foundation, then it can withstand other challenges, because you can always kind of regress, to that. And then it needs, yeah, kind of shared values, Trust, like honesty and openness. And you know, with those things, as I shared, you know, that can change over time, like we talked about. And we can. And it can change when there's like competing, you know, distractions and everything like that. But, if there's that open and there's openness and there's that, honesty kind of underpinning it, then kind of looking out for the other person, I think that's really vital.

Naiara Demnitz: I think that's spot on. I think the trust is something that needs to come in early on and you sort of need to have that as a basis. And I agree about the shared values. I actually, I think it's not necessarily thinking alike because you can be aligned eventually without having the same sort of out mindset for it, but there are things that you need to be aligned with and that's sort of, of what do you value most and what, you know, are, we here for the transparency. Do we believe on something that this should be meaningful? You know, that sort of alignment on what, where you stand and what your lines are. And I think those are important as well. Sort of the integrity that you have around your work.

Claire Sexton: The kind of why you're doing it and the how from that, rather than, you know, the how in terms of, you know, whether one statistical approach is better than the. The other 100%.

Naiara Demnitz: So to be specific, we don't need to both agree that Bayesian is the best new statistical model, but we should both agree that research should have a meaningful impact on people's lives. For example. Thank you, though, Claire. Great chat to you and hopefully speak to you again soon.

Claire Sexton: It was lovely catching up with you, Naiara. And thank you, for everybody for listening.

(Podcast Host): This podcast is brought to you by Neuronline, SfN's home for learning and discussion, where you can find a variety of additional professional development resources and opportunities

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(Podcast Host): to connect with other neuroscientists. Check out the link in the show notes to learn more. Think Alike? is produced by Amanda Kimball, Adam Katz, Eiman Abdelgadir, Taylor Johnson, Emily O'Connor, Dominique Giles and Marie Dussauze. Thanks for listening.

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