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I realized that there's a lot fewer of us who are kind of more interested in tool development
and method development. How well can we know about this information when we're extracting
from these artworks? Do we really know what we're looking at? That kind of questions.
I think that's one of the reasons why people really liked my talk, because I was one of the
few people who was proposing new methods, new techniques. And while the vast majority of the
talk was centering around, you know, hey, we looked at this painting by this artist,
and here's the results. I'm like, great. But like, so what?
I see what you're saying. Yeah, well, okay. Yeah, you were hitting on the so what,
in the essence of like, here it is, but you've already sort of expressed some of the so what,
the so what being, we're interested in sort of unraveling things about the artist or the artwork,
but your so what is like, but have we pushed forwards the bounds of being able to do this,
right? Have we done something that pushes us in a way that this becomes even more effective,
more precise, more something in that angle, right? So, okay, I'm seeing the differences.
Exactly. Yeah, you summarized that nicely over there. But I'm not jet lagged. So that's,
I am happy to be here as the help in this space. So I'm enjoying this.
That was the that was sort of one of the biggest takeaways from this conference,
like realizing that I am one of the smaller camp people in this field. And
that's both exciting and terrifying, because exciting, because what I could potentially
offer to the field might be valuable, just because fewer people are interested in I have less
competition, and whatnot. On the other hand, I'm like, am I gonna have a hard time finding my
friends here? Basically, you know, I need a community of mentors, people who are interested
in similar kind of questions, because science is a community effort. And, you know, if the number
of ideas almost always roughly correlates to the size of the community, right? And I'm worried
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slightly that maybe my camp is too small.
Okay, I hear that worry. That is, it's a reasonable concern when you're sitting there going,
this is a smaller cohort than I thought. And I wish that there were more around me.
That means less resources, that means less mentorship. Or at least I need to be very
careful picking who are my mentors going to be? Because, you know, there's only going to be so
many available to me. Right? Yes. Yes. So that was like, a slightly terrifying thoughts.
I can tell that you've gone sort of through a really immense, sort of eye opening experience
at a conference, which is not how I experienced most of my conferences that I've been to. So that
is, I was not expecting this either. Oh, wow. Well, I mean, congrats on seeing all of it. And
also, it sounds like it really did go very well. It has given you quite a bit to think about,
though, as well. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. But it's not the type of questions that
I've ever really had to deal with in grad school, for instance, because, yes, my, you know,
ultrafast molecular dynamics niche was a niche. But there was a whole legacy and history of the
field. And people were there who clearly identified as like, I am here as an ultrafast molecular
dynamics person. And, you know, it was relatively easy to identify and find where they are.
But here, it's already a very small sliver of the field. And it's a very highly interdisciplinary
one. So people come from all sorts of background. And, you know, some come more from information
theory, like signal processing backgrounds, some come from more biology, like PCR, they're more
interested in biological materials. Some come from like myself, more optics, some are from
more sort of organic chemistry point of view, some from like microfluidics, so many different,
which is what makes this interesting, and very interesting field to be in for me. But boy,
is translation so hard. And also, like, finding the right person to talk to about your project.
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So hard. Yeah, I think it sounds like you just really nailed it, too. And because I was having
a hard time distinguishing, like, well, it's niche, and it's smaller, but there's got to still
be like sort of that legacy, right? People have always been working. But then, then you pointed
out the sort of variety of backgrounds that people come from. And so the sourcing of this information
is coming through many, many different lenses. It's very interdisciplinary, which is great,
but can be difficult to get that, you know, maybe not just one, but that semi direct line
of guidance coming sort of your way. Oh, yeah. Like, that's what I'm kind of
realizing after this conference that, oh, like, it's gonna be like, I'm gonna have to do a lot
of digging around to find who has the kind of thought process, kind of ideas that I will be
interested in sharing or bouncing around with, because there's a chance that I could be talking
complete gibberish to someone else, who is not even interested in what I'm interested in,
even though we, on paper, belong to the same field. That is so wild.
Pretty wild, right? And, and it was a lot easier in grad school for this purposes,
because, you know, my PI was pretty in the center of this very niche field. And, you know,
it was not that hard to connect from there. People seemed to know who he was, and like,
you know, and familiar with the work that he does, and our lab has been doing. So they didn't
have to do a whole lot of explaining, explaining, you know, our thoughts, our like, past works.
But here, it's like, every person I meet, I need to start from like, page one of like,
who I am, what I have been doing, what I know, and what I completely don't know.
You're gonna get a lot of practice with elevator pitches.
Oh, oh, God, yeah.
Yeah, that's, I mean, yeah, it is, you're gonna have to come in with that. This is, this is
definitely a topic for another time, because I'm not ready to have this chat. But there,
there's been discussions I've had recently about, you know, the relationships between
people, and how, when you get to know somebody well enough, you can skip all of those, like,
sort of opening steps, right? You can get to the, the interesting stuff. A very short paraphrase of
what I'm referencing here. But like, what you're describing is basically having to sit at the first
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steps of those relationships for a good little while to figure out, yeah, like, who you can talk
to. Until I become like a big shot in a field, and people already know what I'm doing or something
like, until then, it's like, which is going to take me what 2030 years. So if it happens at all,
you know, it is to reach the point at which one Yeah, you as like one person are known throughout
the sort of global community is certainly a huge feat, right? Maybe you just need to design
like the best graphical abstract, and then get it like printed on your t shirts. You know,
so that way, you just walk up and they just look and they're like, this is what this person does.
Right? Yeah, I would be like a walking meme. And that's exactly what everyone would come to associate
me with that particular meme. And not with your actual work, it would just be Yeah, I mean, I mean,
that way, I can skip the whole introductory part and just get to the meaty part of it. Yeah, yeah.
I don't know. But yeah, it was an interesting experience in that sense. For sure. It sounds
like and there's another good conference. Yeah, it was good. Um, but there's so so that's one sort
of major takeaway. Got it. One takeaway. Oh, there. Yeah. I'm not done yet. Yeah.
That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening and find us on x at ego de science. That is e i g o
d e s c i e n c. See you next time.
