Keira Shanahan
An Internship Adventure
A unique program exists at Haldane enabling all seniors to get hands-on career experience: ASPIRE (A Senior Program for Internships, Research, and Enrichment). At the end of the year, every senior spends their last weeks of school interning at a business or organization of their choosing, approved by the program coordinator and Haldane teacher Marilyn Granese.
For our senior internship, Louis Ferreira, Allie Cairns, and I interned with Allie’s mom at the Graduate Center’s Developmental Neurolinguistics Lab! From the development of language in children to the brain’s ability to differentiate frequencies, this lab is interested in exploring all things sound and communication.
Inside the lab’s three-room setup is a long table lined with chairs and covered in clutter; Dr. Valerie Shafer, head of the Developmental Neurolinguistics Lab, is in the middle of moving due to renovations. But underneath the boxes and papers, the lab is a welcoming and friendly space for scientific experimentation. There’s the main room, for presenting, and two side rooms: one filled with stuffed animals and children’s books, and the other with computers and electroencephalograms, or EEGs. Each of the side rooms is also equipped with soundproof boxes, which appear almost frightening with their thick walls and heavy metal doors. Stepping inside, however, the soundless solitude is almost peaceful. These rooms are where the experiments take place; the lab studies the brain’s responses to auditory stimuli, so naturally, sound is a controlled factor.
Sometimes, Lab Assistant Kevin Guzzo is waiting for us on the Graduate Center steps when we first arrive, crushing a cigarette under the toe of his Chuck Taylors and waving to us in welcome. He’ll be receiving his PhD this year, and while we wait for Shafer to organize herself, he gives us short lectures on linguistics and phonology, his areas of expertise. Along with him, Shafer has several other assistants, most of whom are working their way towards one degree or another; Kennedy Stomberg, Ebony Goldman, and Alahna Cogburn are the students we saw most often during our internship. And we can’t forget David Hilton, the lab technician! He’s not a student, but he knows his way around all of the technology and computer programs specific to their studies.
Each of the students is working on their own neurolinguistics-related projects, with Shafer to guide them. We help them set up their studies by attaching electrodes to gel nets, filling syringes, preparing solutions, and sometimes filling out consent forms if we want to be their participant! In one study, which recorded the brain’s differentiation of frequencies while distracted, I got to watch ¾ of Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas– muted with captions, of course.
Like most scientists in America, the Developmental Neurolinguistics Lab is struggling when it comes to grant applications for federal funding. The Trump administration has taken away billions of dollars from university research programs, making it incredibly hard for scientists to do their job and provide life-saving information to the public. “They’re withholding [grant money] when they decide a grant is focusing on so-called DEI issues,” Shafer stated. “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. Unfortunately, that means that they’ve decided that we’re not supposed to study anyone but white males.” As a lab that researches languages and bilingualism, Shafer expressed concern over the anti-DEI sentiments the White House is pushing. “I’m proposing to study children who are bilingually exposed to English and Spanish, and that’s not popular at the moment,” Shafer explained, talking of one study she hopes to receive funding for. The rollback in funds has forced her to change her emphasis when it comes to how she writes her grant applications. “There were places where I was very careful going through [my grant proposal] to make sure I didn’t explicitly use the word ‘diversity.’ I changed the title of the grant because it had originally commented that [my study] was going to be studying ‘diverse’ populations…” The rescinded funding, paired with the attack on DEI, makes it challenging for Shafer and other scientists to secure federal funding for studies like these, ultimately hindering scientific advancement. “They’re going to ruin science in the US,” Shafer stated. “They’re going to make us, instead of being the leader in science, we’re going to be a second-rate country.” Because of these rollbacks, Shafer says scientists are leaving the US to study elsewhere. “This is not ‘Make America Great Again.’ This is ‘Make America Dumb.’”
Despite these struggles, though, Shafer is persevering. It is clear, through their words and through their behavior around her, how much her lab assistants love and respect her. The Developmental Neurolinguistics Lab’s strength lies in how passionate and committed this team of people is; they have a drive, resilience, and care that form a formidable force against any challenge.
