From Artist to Scientist: Studying the Biology of Vision
Pursuing a Ph.D. in the Neurobiology & Behavior Graduate Program at the University of Washington, Felice Dunn belongs to a group of scientists undertaking one of the most important scientific challenges of the 21st century—understanding the exquisite complexity of the human brain's chemical, physical and electrical structure.
Like many students who decide to pursue this relatively new field of study, Felice's interest in neuroscience had unusual beginnings. As a trained artist who learned to draw and paint through direct observation, she became fascinated in the biology of vision during an undergraduate seminar her freshman year at Brown University. Having never considered herself a "scientist," Felice was completely surprised by her own interest and motivation in this area of study. For her, neuroscience is interesting because it "begins to decipher this thing we call consciousness. Other sciences can explain how our body functions to keep us alive, but neuroscience can explain what makes this life interesting, why and how we see things the way we do."
Combining her two passions, Felice graduated from Brown with a B.S. in neuroscience and a B.A. in visual arts. After considering eight different neuroscience graduate programs, Felice decided to continue her studies at the UW to satisfy her desire to study the retina and because this program hosts the highest number of researchers studying in this field. As a result, Felice has had the opportunity to either rotate or collaborate with several labs in order to experience a broad spectrum of neurobiology research.
After her first year in graduate school, she joined the lab of Fred Rieke and she speaks of her experience with enthusiasm. "It has been a great gift to have such a brilliant and kind mentor and to learn in a supportive lab environment. I remember thinking how fulfilling it felt to go home every day knowing that I had learned something new in lab and laughed at amusing interactions with my lab mates."
Currently, Felice is working on two retinal physiology projects in the Rieke lab. She and other scientists in the lab are trying to answer the question, "How can our eyes function on a moonless night as well as under the noonday sun?" They hope to better understand how the mechanistic workings of the retina are related to the behavioral sensitivity of vision and are studying this general problem in both rod and cone visual systems. The answer to their question involves the mechanisms of adaptation, the amazing phenomenon that allows our eyes to be sensitive enough to detect single photons, yet prevent saturation when there are thousands of photons striking the retina.
What are Felice's future goals other than understanding how our eyes adapt to light? After finishing her Ph.D. and completing one or two post-doctorates, Felice hopes to secure a faculty position. She says she "gets a thrill out of teaching," and would like to provide other students with the same enriching and stimulating educational experience as the one she benefited from at the UW.
- More information:
- "Artist-in-training had key role in eye cell breakthrough," by Scott Turner, George Street [Brown University] Journal, February 22, 2002.
- "The Interdisciplinarity of Neuroscience," [UW] Graduate eNews, Winter 2006.