What can you do with a CURL Student Bursary? Just ask Ana Miranda Guimaraes!
At the 33th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Sciences, Ana presented a poster about her investigation into rhythmic processing’s influence on the statistical learning of language.
“Although I had [experience] presenting research at CURL conferences, I had never presented research at such a large event to an audience that specialized in Psychology. I didn’t know what to expect!” recalls Ana. “However, my experience was incredible! I had a lot of fun discussing my research with other individuals in the field, and I truly appreciated receiving feedback and insight about how I could improve and expand my research in the future.”
By attending the conference’s other talks and poster presentations, Ana interacted with a variety of topics, including autobiographical memory, animal models and language, and auditory perception of language and music. Moreover, she saw the value of knowledge mobilization in action: “Knowledge is never produced in a vacuum,” she says. “It’s produced by sharing ideas and engaging with different perspectives!”
Ana regards her time at Annual Meeting as extremely valuable for her development as a young researcher. “This experience allowed me to reflect more deeply about my research and about the questions I’d like to explore in the future. By discussing divers methods and results with different researchers in Psychology around Canada, I was challenged to consider more explanations for my own study results, to reflect on the connections between methods and conclusions, and to think deeply about next steps for research [in this area].”
Ana is applying to grad school for Fall 2024, and she can’t wait to complete more research. Way to go, Ana!