EJN: We talked about big or surprising findings, but those kinds of results take a lot of hard work and a lot of time. What is your favorite thing about the day-to-day of being a neuroscientist that keeps you going?
TRAINOR: I have to say what I enjoy most is working with my graduate students and postdocs - on an individual basis, and also in our lab meetings. I have people in my lab from a number of different backgrounds: some have a music background, some a neuroscience background, and others come from computer science or computational fields. They all bring different perspectives to a problem. Especially during lab meetings, when people present what they’re proposing to do, or are interpreting the results of their data analyses, we are able to bring all these different perspectives to the table. I find that so exciting because these days the complexity of what we’re trying to study requires this multidisciplinary lens. What I enjoy the most in those conversations is trying to figure out the answer to some question, and being able to look at it from all these different perspectives. The field has really changed in this way. Forty years ago, people tended to work more in their own little areas. I find it really exciting how multidisciplinary we’ve become.