Synthesis & Synergy: Finding Connection Across Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 1, Knowledge Translation, and Higher Education Research

Abstract

Graduate students are socialized into three key domains of academia throughout their studies – research, service, and teaching. The outcome of this socialization is impacted by a student’s disciplinary affiliation, training environment, and supervisory relationship. This multi-disciplinary dissertation represents a scholarly examination of three examples of disciplinary research, service, and teaching. For disciplinary research, we explore characterizing the DNA damage response of ataxin-1, the disease-causing protein of the neurodegenerative triplet-repeat disorder Spinocerebellar Ataxia type 1. For service, we examine the positive impact of a knowledge translation platform for ataxia research ataxia patient and family member readers, as well as its volunteer writers and editors. For teaching, we investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted graduate students' and postdoctoral fellows' development due to laboratory closures. Further, we return to this examination of the influence of COVID-19 on academia through the exploration of disparities in publication pressure reported by scholars in Canada. Though seemingly disparate research topics, each line of inquiry is grounded within research pragmatism, namely the identification of practical solutions through a clear understanding of a phenomenon. This breadth of research would not be possible without interdisciplinary graduate training, which develops scholars adept at creating innovative solutions to complex or ill-defined problems. Overall, this dissertation offers a snapshot of the opportunities and challenges of interdisciplinary research training within a biomedical research department.