Monday
14th March
Creativity with Neuroscience
On Monday, topics are framed around the theme of ‘Creativity with Neuroscience’. How is creative knowledge made? Where does biology become imagination? How does it nurture early years development,support late life flourishing?
The video below which was first broadcast on St Patricks Festival TV as a ‘taster’ of the day.
10.00–11.00
Introduction: Neuroscience of Creativity
Richard Roche (NUI Maynooth), Mani Ramaswami and Tomas Ryan (Trinity College Dublin) and Agustin Ibanez (GBHI/BrainLat)
Hosts Brian Lawlor and Ian Robertson (Global Brain Health Institute).
Please see below for video of the session. Please note, as the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Prof. Richard Roche is a Professor and Deputy Head of Department at the Department of Psychology, Maynooth University, where he has been employed since 2005, following undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral study at Trinity College, Dublin. His areas of interest are cognitive neuroscience/neuropsychology, particularly memory, ageing, dementia, stroke, brain injury and synaesthesia. He has published 38 research articles, over 90 conference posters, several book chapters and three academic books (plus two novels). He has to date accrued over EUR 1.4 million in research funding and has graduated nine PhD students and three MSc students. He is currently involved in collaborations between Maynooth University and the Alzheimer Society of Ireland, as well as Peamount Healthcare and Beaumont and St Vincent’s Hospitals. He has served as President of Neuroscience Ireland and was Founding President of the Irish Brain Council. He is also strongly committed to science outreach and public engagement and has served on the FENS Communications Committee since 2020, of which he became Chair in 2022.
Website:
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/psychology/our-people/richard-roche
Social:
https://twitter.com/RRocheNeuro
https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-roche-12457516/
Agustín Ibáñez is a neuroscientist interested in global approaches to dementia and social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience. He is the Director of Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat) at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI) in Chile. He also holds international positions from the USA/Ireland [Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) at the University of California San Francisco and Trinity College Dublin)] and Argentina [Cognitive Neuroscience Center]. Agustín holds a track record of +300 publications (+120 in the last five years), including top-ten journals (e.g., Lancet Neurology, World Psychiatry, Nature Reviews Neurology, Nature Human Behavior, JAMA Neurology, Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Brain, Neuron). He has received funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), ANID (Chile), COLCIENCIAS (Colombia), DAAD (Germany), MRC (United Kingdom), CONICET (Argentina) and Alzheimer’s Association, Tau Consortium, GBHI, Takeda, and NIH/NIA (USA). He is the founder of critical regional initiatives, such as the multi-partner consortium to expand dementia research in Latin America (ReDLat) and the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium on Dementia (LAC-CD). His work has been highlighted in the BBC, Nature, Nature News, Discovery Channel, Popular Science, Daily Mail, Newsweek, Le Monde, and Oxford University Press, among others.
Websites:
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6758-5101
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/agustin-ibanez-0
Social:
https://twitter.com/AgustinMIbanez
https://www.instagram.com/dr.agustinibanez/
Tomás originally graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2005 with a BA in genetics. He completed his PhD in molecular neuroscience under the supervision of Seth Grant at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK in 2009. His thesis work was supported by a Wellcome Trust PhD Fellowship. Following a year as Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University Cambridge, he relocated to the USA to work as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the group of Susumu Tonegawa (Nobel Laureate, 1987) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At MIT he was centrally involved in the development of novel genetic methods that allow for the labelling and manipulation of specific memory engrams in the rodent brain. This work was supported by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and RIKEN Brain Sciences Institute, Japan. He started his research group in 2017 at Trinity College Dublin, where he is Associate Professor in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology (sub-discipline of Biochemistry) and a Principal Investigator at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN). Tomás also holds a joint faculty position at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research team is supported by the European Research Council (ERC), Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the Irish Research Council (IRC), the Jacobs Foundation, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine, and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).
Website: https://ryan-lab.org
Social: https://twitter.com/tjryan_77
Dr Mani Ramaswami is Professor of Neurogenetics at Trinity College Dublin and Director of Trinity College Institute of Neurosciences (TCIN) His research interests include nervous system, neural networks, computational neuroscience, molecular neuroscience. Mani serves as an editorial member and reviewer of several international reputed journals. He has authored of many research articles/books related to nervous system, neural networks, computational neuroscience, molecular neuroscience.
Professor Brian Lawlor (MD, FRCPI, FRCPsych, FTCD (Hon), DABPN) is Conolly Norman Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, and Site Director of the Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity College. He is a geriatric psychiatrist with an interest in dementia, late-life depression, loneliness and brain health. Brian has worked for over 30 years on developing services and delivering care to people with dementia. His research interests range from early detection and prevention to evaluating new treatments for dementia.
Websites:
https://www.understandtogether.ie
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/brian-lawlor
Social Media:
10.00 - 11.00am
Brain FM
BrainFM is an educational tool that uses dance to learn about the brain. It utilises a novel approach alternating multisensory didactic learning with embodied co-creative experience to support understanding of neuroscience. As a result, BrainFM serves as a vehicle to stimulate community engagement while simultaneously reinforcing the concept into action.
As part of Brain Awareness Week, we offered four BrainFM events (two on-line and two in-person) to spread awareness about the modifiable risk factors for dementia, specifically physical activity, social connection, and hearing, in a diverse intergenerational population in Ireland and around the world. The main theme was conveyed through an exploration of how these three modifiable risk factors can impact activity and connectivity in the brain culminating as a creative story through dance. In so doing, we simultaneously reinforced the science while building community engagement in a fun and interactive way. The programme was therefore not only key to empowering individuals to be active and informed agents in their own brain health but is also an advocate for the alliance between arts and science as a powerful tool for expanding brain health literacy.
Sessions were as follows:
Sat 12th March – 4.00-5.00 pm (In-person) at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College Dublin – for professionals in culture sector, health care and researchers
Sun 13th March – 3.00-4.00pm (Online) 13 March event: 3.00-4.00pm (Online) for people living with dementia and carers – by invitation only. If you are a care partner or if you serve communities of people living with dementia and would like your community to be invited to the event, please email us on BrainFM.TuneIn (at) gmail.com
Mon 14th March – 10.00-11.00am 14 March event: 10.00-11.00am (Online) for primary schools by invitation only – teachers were requested to register for this event as 1 ticket per class or class group. If you are a primary school teacher and would like your class to be invited for this BrainFM event, please email us on BrainFM.TuneIn (at) gmail.com
Wed 16th March – 6.00- 7.00pm (In-person) at Unit 18 – open to the community
Due to the nature of the events we did not record these sessions.
Contributors
Magda Kaczmarska, MFA (she/her, they/them) is a dance artist and creative aging thought leader who uses co-creative community dance as a vehicle for belonging and wellbeing. Magda leverages a dual background in neuropharmacology research and dance to build bridges and empower individuals and communities to be active agents in their creativity and brain health. As an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, Magda works collaboratively with interdisciplinary leaders around the globe to advance access to creative aging programs that support brain health, belonging and artistic expression across the lifespan. She founded DanceStream Projects, a creative collective based in New York City, that cultivates transdisciplinary partnerships to provide direct ally-ship and empowerment to communities by bridging arts and health and centering dance as a catalyst for systems change. Along with Dr. Anusha Yasoda-Mohan, she leads BrainFM, a co-creative educational tool that unites dance and storytelling to learn about the brain.
Magda mentors future leaders in the creative and health sector through regular partnership at the Fordham Ailey School of Dance in New York City and the Arts in Medicine Fellowship in Lagos, Nigeria. She serves as a representative to the UN with Generations United and is on the executive committee of the UN NGO Committee on Ageing.
Websites:
https://dancestreamprojects.org/
Social Media:
https://www.instagram.com/magdakacz2013/
https://twitter.com/MagdaKaczmarsk4
Dr. Anusha Yasoda-Mohan is a Global Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health and a Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and School of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin. She is also a trained classical Bharathanatyam and Bollywood dancer. In addition to studying phantom auditory perception using experimental psychology, neuromodulation and neuroimaging, Anusha is immensely passionate about the performing arts which enables her to resonate and collaborate with both artists and scientists. Her diverse and multicultural experience through her national and international travels as both a performing artiste and researcher shapes her persona and inspires her ongoing work of marrying the two seemingly different worlds. She is Director of the International Tinnitus Research Initiative Foundation’s dissertation and communication wing (TRI Academy), which strives to take tinnitus research and clinical practices to the wider tinnitus research community. She is also the co-developer of BrainFM – an education and awareness tool aimed at making complex concepts about the brain accessible through dance while also building community. Additionally, Anusha leads a community for people living with tinnitus in Ireland called Tinnitus Eire (www.tinnituseire.ie) through which she strives to bring a sense of community and belonging for tinnitus sufferers. These tie together with her vision to leverage the arts as a medium to both comprehend and communicate the working of the brain.
Google Scholar:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=GxPjtv4AAAAJ&hl=en
Social:
Instagram: @nushmo90
Facebook: @Anusha.mohan.39
LinkedIn: @AnushaYasoda-Mohan
10.30–12.00
babyGROOVE by Anna Newell
A chilled out 70’s-inspired adventure for babies under 12 months, full of gorgeous harmony singing and immersive video created by Anna Newell Theatre Adventures, one of Ireland’s leading theatremakers for young audiences whose work for early years has been seen on six continents.
Monday to Wednesday – 2 shows at 10.30 and 11.30. Each show lasts 20 minutes approximately.
For more information on the show and this artist’s work please click here
babyGROOVE is part of the 2022 programme from The Network For Extraordinary Audiences, is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and is a co-production with The Civic, Tallaght.
Due to rights issues and the nature of the event, this show was not recorded.
Contributors
One of Ireland’s leading theatre makers for young audiences, creating unique theatre adventures for babies, early years and children/young people with complex needs.
Anna created the world’s first BabyDay, introduced theatre for children and young people with PMLD (Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties) into Ireland and helped start babytheatre in South Africa.
The work for early years audiences has been seen on six continents.
The shows are informed and inspired by their audiences at every stage of their creation and have human connection at their very heart.
Anna is based in Bray, Ireland.
Website: www.annanewell.ie
Social Media: https://twitter.com/annanewell
11.30–1.00pm
Neuroscience of Creativity
Darya Zabelina Director Mechanisms of Creative Cognition and Attention (MoCCA) Lab at the University of Arkansas on Imagination, Roger Beaty of Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Laboratory (Beaty Lab) at Penn State on the neural pathways of creation, Lorina Naci on how consciousness is understood in neuroscience and Rhodri Cusack of Trinity/Cusack Lab on early years development.
Please see below for video of the session. Please note, as the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Dr. Darya L. Zabelina, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Arkansas. She obtained her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Northwestern University in 2015, and was a Research Associate at the University of Colorado Boulder 2015-2017. Dr. Zabelina’s work focuses on understanding creative cognition, imagination, and other related processes, and now these processes are linked with more traditional subfields of cognitive psychology, such as attention and executive functions. In her work, she uses a variety of approaches, including behavioral, electrophysiological (EEG and ERP), and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) techniques. She has also done work on mind-wandering, mindfulness, problem solving, and the influence of mobile technology on creativity. Dr. Zabelina is the director of the Mechanisms of Creative Cognition and Attention (MoCCA) laboratory, where the long-term objective is to create a theoretical foundation upon which to develop methods to enhance creative thinking and problem-solving abilities.
The fruits of Dr. Zabelina’s work have appeared in Psychological Science, Current Opinion in Neurobiology, NeuroImage, Translational Issues in Psychological Science, and Memory in Cognition (2016 Best Paper of the Year Award), among others. Dr. Zabelina’s work has been recognized with grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation (including the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship), National Institute of Health, American Psychological Association, Office of Naval Research, Mind & Life Institute, and the Australian Government (Endeavour Research Fellowship). She serves on editorial review boards for the journal of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, and the Creativity Research Journal. In 2019 Dr. Zabelina was named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science. She is the 2021 recipient of the APA Division 10 Daniel E. Berlyne Award for outstanding research by a junior scholar, and the Mesa Education and Research Foundation Award for Excellence in Research, given internationally for outstanding research on intelligence, intellectual giftedness, and related fields.
Website: https://mocca.uark.edu
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/darya_zabelina
https://www.linkedin.com/in/darya-l-zabelina-ph-d-bb11b625/
Roger Beaty is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Lab at Penn State University. Roger completed his doctoral degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and his postdoctoral training at Harvard University. His lab uses psychometric, neuroimaging, and neuromodulatory approaches to study cognitive and neural mechanisms of creativity across various contexts and domains, from general creative problem solving to creative performance in the arts and sciences. Roger received the Berlyne Award for early career contributions to creativity research from the American Psychological Association. His research on creativity neuroscience and measurement has received grant support from the National Science Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.
Website: https://beatylab.la.psu.edu
Social Media: https://twitter.com/roger_beaty
Rhodri Cusack is Thomas Mitchell Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director, Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience. The Cusack Lab studies the development of infants in their first year of life. They are based at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, and collaborate with maternity hospitals in Dublin and other centres across Ireland. Their expertise and backgrounds range from physics to psychology and neonatology to neuroscience. They use many methods to study infant development, including online tasks and MRI.
Website:
Social:
Lorina Naci is Associate Professor and leader of the Cognition and Consciousness Group at the School of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin. Her work focuses on developing novel biomarkers of healthy and disordered cognition in brain-injured and aging populations. Her work has made ground-breaking contributions to the understanding of cognition and consciousness for individuals with severely limited motoric output, such as severely brain-injured, anaesthetised or advanced Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. Concurrently, she explores the medico–ethical and societal implications of these applications. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge as a Cooke Fellow in 2011. In 2017, she received the L’Oréal – UNESCO International Rising Talent Award. Professor Naci serves as a member of the Governing Board of the Global Brain Health Institute, at Trinity College Dublin and University of California San Francisco, USA. She is funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Irish Research Council, and Enterprise Ireland.
Website:
Social:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorina-naci-04a4a037/
1.15-1.45pm
Keynote Presentation: Dana Walrath - Aliceheimers The Opera
Illustrated presentation by Dana Walrath with extracts from a new work in development. Hosted by Dominic Campbell (Creative Aging International).
As this presentation included work from the opera still in development the recording is not available.
Contributors
Dana Walrath practices a border crossing blend of creative writing, comics, art, and anthropology. Her award-winning works include Aliceheimer’s, a graphic memoir about her mother’s dementia journey, Like Water on Stone, a verse novel about the Armenian genocide, and The Book of Genocides, an interactive art installation that uses artists books to counter dehumanization and genocide. Her comics, poetry, and essays have appeared in places such as The Lancet, Irish Times, Slate, Foreign Policy, and on Public Radio. She has shared her work on the healing power of story throughout North America and Eurasia including two TEDx talks. A Fulbright Scholar and Atlantic Fellow with work spanning the entire life cycle, other recent projects include the libretto for the Aliceheimer’schamber opera, the picture book I Am a Bird, and a contribution to the anthology Menopause: A Comic Treatment a double Eisner Award winner and New York Times Best Graphic Novel of 2020.
Website:
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/danawalrath
Instagram @dana_walrath
Dominic Campbell is leading the Creative Brain Week initiative. As Bealtaine Festival Director he steered its celebration of creativity and aging’s development over eight years. Formerly an Artistic Director of Ireland’s national celebration he transformed St Patrick’s Festival’s three shows into ninety growing production, managerial teams, financial support, engagement and impact.
Dominic went on to design and produce national celebrations marking the expansion of European Union in 2004 and Centenary celebrations for James Joyce. For “The Day Of Welcomes” delivering 12 simultaneous festivals pairing EU expansion countries with Irish towns and cities engaging 2,500 artists from 32 countries.
He mentored “celebration of ageing” festivals in Wales (Gwanwynn), Scotland (Luminate), and developed projects with partners in Australia and The Netherlands. In 2012 he established the first global conference on Creativity In Older Age opened by Irish President Michael D Higgins, replicating it in San Francisco (2018) and Kentucky (2019).
Recognized as a key cultural influencer in Ireland by The Irish Times and by First Avenue as a Key Influencer in Aging in the US, in 2016 he became an inaugural Atlantic Fellow for Equity and Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute a project between Trinity College Dublin and University of California San Francisco an ambitious worldwide program seeking social and public health solutions to reduce the scale and adverse impact of dementia. Currently developing an arts programme for the Irish Hospice Foundation as response to the pandemic and the Ageing Voices programme with Sing Ireland.
Website:
www.creativeaginginternational.com
www.gbhi.org/profiles/dominic-campbell
Social:
X: @CreativeAgeIntl and @CreativeBrainWk and @IrelandChorus
2.00 -3.00pm
Interdisciplinary Creativity
Live-streamed presentations and discussions with Anna Abraham, Director of the Torrence Centre for Creativity and Talent Development and Tasha Golden, Director of Research International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Chaired by Ruth Byrne (Trinity College Dublin).
Please see below for video of the session. Please note, as the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Anna Abraham’s educational and professional training has been within the disciplines of Psychology and Neuroscience, and she has worked across a diverse range of academic institutions and departments the world over, all of which have informed her multidisciplinary focus. She investigates the psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying creativity and other aspects of the human imagination, including the reality-fiction distinction, mental time travel, social and self-referential cognition, and mental state reasoning. Her wide-ranging contributions to the field of creativity include theoretical, methodological and empirical advances in the context of basic and applied research. She has penned numerous publications including the sole authored book, The Neuroscience of Creativity (2018, Cambridge University Press), and the multidisciplinary edited volume, The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination (2020). She is the Founding Editor of The Cambridge Elements Series in Creativity and the Imagination.
Tasha Golden studies impacts of arts and culture, music, aesthetics, and social norms on well-being, health research, and professional practice. Holding a PhD in Public Health Sciences, Dr. Golden has served as an advisor on several national health initiatives, and is adjunct faculty for the University of Florida’s Center for Arts in Medicine. She is currently leading the pilot evaluation of CultureRx in Massachusetts: the first arts-on-prescription model in the US.
Golden is also a career artist and entrepreneur. As singer-songwriter for the critically acclaimed band Ellery, she toured full-time in the US and abroad, and her songs appear in feature films and TV dramas (ABC, SHOWTIME, FOX, NETFLIX, etc). She is a published poet and the founder of Project Uncaged: an arts-based health intervention for incarcerated teen women that amplifies their voices in community and political discourses.
Golden’s diverse background drives her success as an international speaker and thought leader. She gives talks and facilitates workshops for artists, businesses, researchers, and health practitioners—helping audiences enhance and reimagine their work. As founder of Idiom Insights, she consults with leaders and organizations to help them draw upon the science of arts+health to further their goals.
Website: https://www.tashagolden.com
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/goldenthis
https://www/instagram.com/tasha.golden
Ruth Byrne is the Professor of Cognitive Science at Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, in the School of Psychology and the Institute of Neuroscience. Her research expertise is in the cognitive science of human thinking, including experimental and computational investigations of reasoning and imaginative thought. Her books include ‘The rational imagination: how people create alternatives to reality’ (2005, MIT press), ‘Deduction’, co-authored with Phil Johnson-Laird (1991, Erlbaum Associates), and most recently, a co-edited volume with Kinga Morsanyi on ‘Thinking, reasoning, and decision-making in autism’ (2019, Routledge). She has published over 100 scientific articles in leading journals, and is currently Senior Editor for Cognitive Science, journal of the US Cognitive Science Society. She is the former Vice Provost of Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin. She was awarded her BA degree from University College Dublin and her PhD from Trinity College Dublin. Prior to her appointment at Trinity, she worked at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, the University of Wales at Cardiff, and University College Dublin. She is a member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Senior Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, and a Fellow of the US Association for Psychological Science.
Website: https://reasoningandimagination.com
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/ruthmjbyrne
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruth-byrne-13816578/
3.30-4.45pm
Creating Knowledge
This session reflects on how brain health knowledge is made and practiced.
Nicky Taylor (Leeds Beckett University) in discussion with Rosa Peterson, Mah Rana (Lived Experience Network), and Kirti Ranchod (African Brain Health Network).
This session was followed by the Irish Premiere of dancer and choreographer Paul Modjadji’s film which, for rights reasons, is not included here.
Hosts Lorraine Leeson (Trinity College Dublin) and Dominic Campbell (Creative Aging International)
Please see below for video of the session. Please note, as the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Nicky is a specialist in theatre and dementia, leading ground-breaking creative practice with older people and people living with dementia. Her study of creative co-production processes with people with dementia formed the basis of her PhD at Leeds Beckett University’s Centre for Dementia Research, where she is a Research Fellow. She is currently researching how person-centred hospital care can be improved for people with dementia in a multi-site study.
Nicky is Research Associate at Leeds Playhouse, where she created the world’s first specifically adapted dementia friendly theatre performance in 2014. She subsequently authored a best-practice guide to staging dementia friendly productions, adopted industry-wide.
She initiated and directed Every Third Minute (2018), a pioneering theatre festival curated by people living with dementia, and facilitated the co-authorship of three plays by people with dementia and professional writing partners. She supports the theatre industry, nationally and internationally, to involve and value people with dementia as creative equals.
Website: https://www.nickytaylor.uk
Social Media: https://twitter.com/_nickytaylor
Mah is a PhD student at Birkbeck College – her study focuses on the lived experience of daughters crafting with mothers as a psychosocial intervention within a dementia-care context. She is a member of the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Research Group (IPARG).
She is also a researcher, artist and maker, filmmaker, writer, and curator based in London, with over 20 years experience lecturing in areas covering art, design, craft, and psychology on UG and PG courses in the UK and internationally. She has over 30 years exhibiting her cross-disciplinary practice that crosses art, craft, design, film, photography, and public participation. She regularly speaks at conferences covering issues across art, craft, design, creative health and wellbeing, and public participation.
Mah is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of the Critical Dementia Network, a member of Dementia, Narrative and Culture Network, sits on the Carers Advisory Panel for Dementia Carers Count, and is a co-editor of the Well-making Special Issue for the Journal of Applied Arts and Health.
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2181-6629
Lived experience blog post: https://www.culturehealthandwellbeing.org.uk/news/blog/mah-rana-well-making-spaces
Recent publication:
Rana, M. & Smith, J. A. (2020), ‘Knitting with my mother: Using interpretative phenomenological analysis and video to investigate the lived experience of dyadic crafting in dementia care’, Journal of Arts & Communities, 11:1&2, pp. 51–62 https://doi.org/10.1386/jaac_00014_1
https://vimeo.com/180566371 short film: One Day When We Were Young
Social Media:
Kirti Ranchod is a neurologist and brain health consultant based in Johannesburg, South Africa with an interest in the field of neuroaesthetics including the impact of art on brain health. She is the founder of Memorability.co offering practical, neuroscience-based mental health solutions that includes art and creativity, the co-founder of the African Brain Health Network, and an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health. Her appreciation for art started with Friday evening lessons from her very patient father as an eight-year-old. She used drawing and creativity to help with her medical studies and uses art and creativity in her work as a neurologist to support better brain health. Influenced by her culture, the cultures she is surrounded by, and her professional and personal experiences, her work explores the points at which neuroscience, art, yogic science, and other knowledge systems intersect or diverge. Related to this, she hosts a series of talks on Investing in our Cultural Capital for Better Brain Health at the Origins Centre (Wits).
Website:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/kirti-ranchod
Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirti-ranchod-8806327a
Paul is a dancer, choreographer, writer and creative director who’s career began in Denmark on a dance scholarship. Since returning home to Africa he has choreographed and produced stage, film, and community projects and founded the non-for profit organization Leaders Who Dare To Dream Foundation. His work as an artist and activist has taken him to many parts of Africa and the world.
Website:
https://breakingdownbordersafrica.com
Social Media:
In addition to being Professor in Deaf Studies at the Centre for Deaf Studies, Lorraine Leeson is Associate Vice Provost for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (2021-). She previously served as Associate Dean of Research (2018-2021).
Her research work is multidisciplinary in nature, influenced by her background in Deaf Studies, Gender Studies and Linguistics. She has published widely on aspects of the linguistics and applied linguistics of signed languages with a specific interest in Irish Sign Language and the area of sign language interpreting.
Her doctoral work was the first to examine aspects of the morphosyntax of Irish Sign Language, and subsequent to this, she has published and lectured widely on aspects of the grammar of Irish Sign Language, and in the area of signed language/spoken language interpreting. Lorraine was a member of the first cohort of professionally trained Irish Sign Language/English interpreters in Ireland, and she continues to interpret occasionally.
She has engaged in pan-European research work with academic institutions, Deaf communities and interpreting organisations for over two decades. Recent projects include:
– Promoting Excellence in Sign Language Instruction (funded by the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) 2015-18. See: http://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2016-2019/SignLanguageInstruction/tabid/1856/language/en-GB/Default.aspx,
– the DESIGNS project, which focused on Deaf peoples’ access to employment (Erasmus+). See: http://designsproject.eu
– the European Commission funded Justisigns Project (access to justice across several EU member states) (completed 2016), which examined deaf peoples’ access to police services, and which was awarded a European Language Label Award in 2017.
Lorraine also led the PRO-Signs (funded by the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML)) which looked at the teaching, learning and assessment of signed languages for professional purposes with collaboration from over 30 countries across Europe. See: http://www.ecml.at/F5/tabid/867/Default.aspx (Completed 2015).
She is currently working on a number of projects including: * Justisigns 2, a European Commission funded project that seeks to improve access to services for deaf, migrant and refugee women who experience gender based violence. (2020-2022)
* SignON, a Horizon 2020 funded project that seeks to develop the quality of machine translation for sign language (MTSL), driven by a co-creation methodology that places deaf community engagement as central to the project’s goals. As part of this project, Rachel Moiselle is working on a PhD project on depiction in Irish Sign Language. This project work is managed via the ADAPT SFI Centre. (2021-2024)
* TORCH – Towards Open Responsible Research and Innovation through CHARM-EU is a Horizon 2020 SwafS support action funded project that seeks to develop the research framework for the CHARM-EU European University Alliance. Cross cutting focal points of this project are Open Science (Open Scholarship), Research Integrity, and the fostering of transdisciplinary and intercultural work.(2021-2024)
Recent publications include “Sign Language in Action” with Jemina Napier (2016), “Interpreting and the Politics of Recognition”, co-edited with Christopher Stone (2018), and, most recently, a special issue of the journal, Teanga, on Irish Sign Language (2020).
Website:
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/TCDEquality
Rosa spent her working life supporting young people with learning disabilities and volunteering as a housing visitor. She was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2015 and has become a passionate campaigner for improving access to dementia friendly housing options. She co-founded the Leeds Dementia Engagement and Empowerment project (DEEP) group and she was a Curator for Every Third Minute: a festival of theatre, dementia and hope, at Leeds Playhouse in 2018. Her first play A Horse Called Freedom was staged during the festival.
5.15-6.00pm
The Creative Brain and Aging: Networks, Plasticity, Empathy, Legacy
Bruce Miller (University of California, San Francisco and Global Brain Health Institute) presentation and discussion with Dominic Campbell (Creative Aging International).
Please see below for video of the session. Please see below for video of the session. Please note, as the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Bruce L. Miller, MD, holds the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professorship in Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, directs the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and is co-director of the Global Brain Health Institute. He is the principal investigator of the NIH-sponsored Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and program project grant on frontotemporal dementia. In addition, he helps lead the Tau Consortium and The Bluefield Foundation, precision medicine collaborations focused on developing treatments for tauopathies and progranulin-mediated forms of frontotemporal dementia.
Miller is a behavioral neurologist who studies the underlying mechanisms of neurocognitive disorders and is a world-renowned expert in the diagnosis and management of dementia. Until recently, most cases of dementia were classified as Alzheimer’s disease with little awareness of the importance of non-Alzheimer dementias. Miller’s description of changes in behavior, language and emotion in the setting of aging have improved the separation of various neurodegenerative diseases from one another, in particular Alzheimer’s disease from frontotemporal dementia. To support people after diagnosis, Miller has pioneered groundbreaking changes in the provision of care coordination for patients with dementia and their caregivers. His ongoing work includes overseeing a healthy aging program and an artist in residence program, both of which emphasize positive aspects of aging.
Miller has been featured in Fortune Magazine, The New York Times, 60 Minutes and the PBS Newshour. He has authored more than 1000 publications and written The Human Frontal Lobes, The Behavioral Neurology of Dementia and Frontotemporal Dementia. Finding the Right Words, a book on Alzheimer’s disease from the perspective of a daughter (Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health Cynthia Weinstein, PhD) and neuroscientist (Miller), was published in the fall of 2021. He has received many awards including the Potamkin Award from the American Academy of Neurology, the Elliot Royer Award from the San Francisco Neurological community, the Robert A. Fishman Award and Lecture, and the UCSF Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Miller’s extensive knowledge in clinical diagnosis, disease pathology, and brain-behavior relationships make him a widely sought-after teacher and mentor. He founded the Behavioral Neurology Fellowship at UCSF, oversees visits of more than 50 foreign scholars every year, and co-directs the Global Brain Health Institute, a training program for global leaders in brain health to reduce the scale and impact of dementia around the world. These international collaborations have fostered the development of new prevention and therapeutic approaches and have pushed researchers worldwide toward a more precise understanding of frontotemporal dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Website:
Social Media:
Dominic Campbell is leading the Creative Brain Week initiative. As Bealtaine Festival Director he steered its celebration of creativity and aging’s development over eight years. Formerly an Artistic Director of Ireland’s national celebration he transformed St Patrick’s Festival’s three shows into ninety growing production, managerial teams, financial support, engagement and impact.
Dominic went on to design and produce national celebrations marking the expansion of European Union in 2004 and Centenary celebrations for James Joyce. For “The Day Of Welcomes” delivering 12 simultaneous festivals pairing EU expansion countries with Irish towns and cities engaging 2,500 artists from 32 countries.
He mentored “celebration of ageing” festivals in Wales (Gwanwynn), Scotland (Luminate), and developed projects with partners in Australia and The Netherlands. In 2012 he established the first global conference on Creativity In Older Age opened by Irish President Michael D Higgins, replicating it in San Francisco (2018) and Kentucky (2019).
Recognized as a key cultural influencer in Ireland by The Irish Times and by First Avenue as a Key Influencer in Aging in the US, in 2016 he became an inaugural Atlantic Fellow for Equity and Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute a project between Trinity College Dublin and University of California San Francisco an ambitious worldwide program seeking social and public health solutions to reduce the scale and adverse impact of dementia. Currently developing an arts programme for the Irish Hospice Foundation as response to the pandemic and the Ageing Voices programme with Sing Ireland.
Website:
www.creativeaginginternational.com
www.gbhi.org/profiles/dominic-campbell
Social:
X: @CreativeAgeIntl and @CreativeBrainWk and @IrelandChorus
7.00-8.00pm
Literature and the Creative Brain: A Panel Discussion with the School of English, Trinity College Dublin
A panel discussion organised by the School of English, TCD as part of Creative Brain Week, a Global Brain Health Institute initiative (GBHI) supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub.
Speakers:
‘ “That awful fire, which once did burn in thy clear brain”: John Donne and the creative brain.’
Dr Mark Sweetnam
‘ “Timor Mortis” to “The Old Fools”: On ageing, fear of dementia, and the creative brain in in poetry, medieval and modern.’
Dr Margaret Robson
‘ “++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start”: Minds Without Brains in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.’
Dr Jane Carroll (online)
The discussion was be chaired by Professor Eve Patten, School of English and Director, Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.
Contributors
Eve Patten has been Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub since July 2020. A Professor in the School of English and a Fellow of Trinity, she has previously served as Head of the School of English and Director of the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre. A scholar in nineteenth and twentieth-century British and Irish literature, she has lectured and written widely in this field: recently, she is editor of Irish Literature in Transition, 1940-1980 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and author of Ireland, Revolution, and the English Modernist Imagination (Oxford University Press, 2022). Eve has been a frequent contributor to the Irish Times, RTÉ and the BBC, and is series editor for Liverpool University Press’s Studies in Irish Literature. She has also served on various boards for the Irish Arts Council, the Irish Research Council and the Royal Irish Academy, and was a member of the inaugural committee of the Trinity Long Room Hub. As Director, she remains a keen advocate for Arts and Humanities research both within Trinity and across the Long Room Hub’s national and international networks.
Websites:
https://www.tcd.ie/English/staff/academic-staff/eve-patten.php
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/
Social Media:
Jane Carroll’s research and teaching interests centre on children’s literature, material culture, and role of landscape and place in fiction. She is a first generation academic and completed her undergraduate and doctoral studies at Trinity College Dublin.
Her second monograph Material Culture and British Children’s Literature: Commodities and Consumption 1850-1914 was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2021. Her first book, Landscape in Children’s Literature (Routledge, 2012), explored the intersections between landscape and narrative in children’s fantasy. She has also published on L.M. Montgomery, Susan Cooper, Jules Verne, J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, ghost stories, children’s fantasy, and nature in children’s literature.
Before joining the School of English, as an Ussher Assistant Professor in Children’s Literature, she taught with the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at the University of Roehampton and worked at the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy at the University of Chichester.
Social Media: https://twitter.com/Jane_S_Carroll
Mark Sweetnam read English Literature and Mathematical Science at Trinity College Dublin, before completing a Higher Diploma in Education, and a Ph.D, which focused on the issue of religious authority in the thought of John Donne. He is currently the Director of the M. Phil. in Digital Humanities and Culture.
Website:
https://www.tcd.ie/English/staff/academic-staff/mark-sweetnam.php
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/marksweetnam
Dr Margaret Robson is a Teaching Fellow in the School of English at TCD.
She has a PhD in Medieval English Literature from the University of York and has lived in Ireland since 1995.
She has taught at third level in many institutions, including UCD, NUI Maynooth, DCU and TCD.
While she is principally a Medievalist with specialist knowledge on legends of King Arthur, she has also developed an interest in the works of Don DeLillo, whose work she has taught on courses at TCD and DCU.
