Research, Resilience, and Community: Pursuing a Career in Neuroscience as a Neurodivergent and Queer Iranian Student
Interview led by Beverly Setzer
Edited by: Beverly Setzer, Brendan Williams, and Joseph Chen
Dr. Arshiya Sangchooli’s journey from medical school to a research degree in a new country has been one of perseverance and resilience. Despite facing difficulties as a neurodivergent person and queer person of color, he remains dedicated to research and passionate about his field. In his new lab, he uses innovative approaches to advance our understanding of visual processing in the human brain. Their story serves as a reminder of the importance of supporting diverse voices in academia and the potential for individuals to achieve great things when they have space to pursue their passions.
Interview with Dr. Arshiya Sangchooli (He/They):
What program are you in and what year are you?
I am in my first year of a Master of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne.
What are your career goals? Are you looking for a job currently? If so, what kind?
I will be applying for PhD programs later this year or by early 2024, and am mostly interested in computational neuroscience and neuroimaging methods development.
What are some of your hobbies?
I enjoy long walks, obscure video games, folk and chamber music, contemporary dance, and most recently discovering Melbourne's hidden bars one by one.
What is something you're proud of?
Within the last 12 months I graduated from medical school in Iran, was awarded a scholarship for a research degree by the University of Melbourne, and started a project completely outside my comfort zone. I had to work with diffusion MRI data and use quantitative streamlines tractography models, find my way around a multi-terabyte database of thousands of brain scans, and use a high-performance computing system- all for the first time and while adjusting to life in Melbourne and rebuilding a social network. I'm quite proud of how far I have come in a single year, and that I'm already working on developing an analysis workflow incorporating several innovations and contributing new algorithms to the open source software package I learned to use just months ago.
What led you to pursue research and/or medical school?
I went to medical school because the human body fascinated me, but I think I've always felt more at home in labs than clinics. I worked as a research assistant across a few centers during medical school and increasingly realized that I really enjoy research- I love the feeling of working at the cutting-edge of a field of knowledge, developing all sorts of new skills, being inspired by thought-provoking papers, and sharing the company of intelligent and creative colleagues. This assured me that I want to be in academia.
Tell us a bit about your research.
In medical school, my neuroscience research was mostly focused on using task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to probe the neural processes underlying addictive disorders and to develop biomarkers of addiction and recovery. Now at the University of Melbourne, I’m using diffusion MRI to reconstruct the neural pathways involved in processing emotionally salient visual stimuli. I also aim to model the development of these pathways and their network as a whole using data from a large longitudinal cohort.
What’s the big picture goal/broader impacts of your current research?
No previous studies have mapped-out these subcortical and cortical pathways together in a large longitudinal cohort, even though there is increasing evidence for the existence of subcortical visual pathways in humans and their role in processing emotionally salient stimuli and conditions such as blindsight. The developing structural connectivity of these pathways could be associated with psychopathology as well, because of the important role of cortical- and subcortical-amygdalar circuits in cognition and behavior during adolescence. I also hope that the workflows I am developing will be useful to other researchers interested in subcortical regions and brainstem nuclei in particular, since most quantitative tractography workflows are better suited for mapping cortical tracts.
What challenges have you overcome on your path to your current position?
I have had to learn to manage my personal life and academic work with ADHD, and to find safety and community as a queer person of color. Also, I entered neuroscience from a background in clinical medicine, and have had to self-teach most of the programming, mathematics and statistics that I know.
How has ADHD affected your academics?
I think I have come to see it as both a curse and a blessing, which has contributed to my ecological view of neurodiversity. It is hard to finish projects/assignments once I have solved their major puzzles, and navigating paperwork and admin procedures are always a challenge. It can also be difficult to prioritize multiple tasks which demand my attention. This made medical school and research challenging early-on, especially since I was not diagnosed with ADHD until just a few years ago. But at the same time, I function very well when I let myself wander, and I'm good at brainstorming and testing novel approaches. I have also realized that I can engage quite deeply with problems that excite me.
From what I know, Iran is not the safest place for LGBTQ people, how did this affect your community and career?
What you know is sadly correct. I was fortunate to have a supporting family and circle of friends, but never felt safe enough to be out in either my university or places of work. I had to very consciously separate my personal and public lives, which damaged my relationship with colleagues and was a chronic source of stress. I also regret not having had any queer role models and mentors growing up and never quite feeling a lasting sense of communal belonging. While I had many queer friends, I found Tehran's queer spaces too fragmented to feel a real sense of community and social participation. I think being queer where it is still widely criminalized instills a pervasive sense of precarity and terror- Tehran's queer community is beautiful but deeply traumatized.
How are you getting settled into Melbourne? Have you found a community yet?
I'm definitely settling in faster than I had hoped before arriving! My partner and his family and friends have been an incredible source of support and love, and Melbourne is a very diverse and welcoming city. There are both extensive migrant communities and a vibrant queer community, and most people I have come across have been more than happy to help a clueless international student with anything from navigating tram lines to finding vegan schnitzels in the supermarket. I could hardly ask for more help with getting settled in.
Is there any additional support that you wish you had or resources that have been helpful as a queer POC and international student?
The University of Melbourne is relatively supportive of international and queer students - the administration has helped implement a broadly promising anti-discrimination policy platform and there is good queer and queer POC representation in the student union. Overall, I have felt well-supported as an international student, with both reimbursement for relocation and a fairly generous "welcome grant". However, I do think there is room for more resources for queer international students, from financial aid and housing support to extended counseling services and social activities. My colleagues are some of the sweetest people I have worked with, so I have been fortunate in those regards.
What has kept you going throughout these challenges?
I would say my partner, family and friends, and the resilience I have had to develop as a queer person with ADHD in sometimes hostile spaces. It might sound a little cliché, but it has helped that I genuinely love science - many challenges feel much less severe when doing something I deeply enjoy. Reading an elegant study can brighten a gloomy day and give me weeks of food for thought. I could have an hours-long conversation with a colleague about an interesting idea or daunting problem, and every frustrating writing or programming task releases a nugget of pure reward when finally worked through.
What else are you looking forward to in the next year?
Most of all I look forward to finishing my Master of Philosophy and entering a PhD program. I have been searching quite broadly for supervisors who inspire me and have a list of almost a dozen exciting programs that I am interested in. I look forward to starting correspondence and am excited to see where I will end up! I also look forward to a couple of upcoming conferences, especially the 2023 OHBM conference which is the first OHBM conference I will try to attend in person.