Member Spotlight: Cornelia Laule

When I started university, I had grand ambitions of becoming a neurosurgeon. Then I took first year biology. It turned out I didn’t like memorizing a bunch of stuff and I had to dissect a fish, which was super gross. (One thing that most people may not know about me is that I can’t touch raw meat of any kind. I’m perfectly happy touching human brain and cord tissue samples, but ever since I was a child, watching my mom mix up ground beef for burgers with her bare hands gave me shivers. I fully recognize this aversion goes against my German upbringing and DNA!) I had always loved using math to solve problems, so I decided physics was a much better fit and left my dreams of medicine behind. Then in 1996, I took an undergraduate introduction to biophysics course, where I learned that you could use math and physics to help solve medical problems. This is when I first heard about MRI, and my mind was blown! It was magical to me that you could look inside people’s bodies using giant magnets, and it was safe! MRI was the perfect bridge between physics and medicine.

For my graduate research, I worked in the cutting-edge and incredibly supportive lab of Dr. Alex MacKay, who pioneered the field of human in vivo myelin water imaging using quantitative measurement of T2 relaxation. I started in the lab near the very beginning of myelin water imaging’s development—everything excited me, and I had a chance to explore the many aspects of MRI: from pulse programming, image analysis, histology validation studies, to clinical applications largely focused on multiple sclerosis. After finishing my Ph.D., I worked as a research associate for a few years and then did a post-doc in neuropathology where I learned about brain and spinal cord tissue from a completely different perspective. I started as faculty in 2013, and our lab’s research focuses on how tissue microstructure influences MR signal changes in the central nervous system, both in vivo and post-mortem. We conduct our research on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

It’s amazing to be in a field where the technology is advancing so rapidly. 20 years ago, it took me over 25 minutes to collect a single slice of brain myelin water imaging data and days to analyze it (if the program didn’t crash!). Now we can collect whole brain data in less than 5 minutes and run analysis in seconds—that’s amazing. And there are examples like this in every field. Every year at ISMRM, there are so many new and cool ideas that our creative community has come up with. I also love working with so many wonderful people with interdisciplinary expertise and different viewpoints. Our clinical team members are not only fantastic but also crucial for people like me who may be inclined to oversimplify biological systems (remember physicists approximate a cow to be a sphere!) and don’t have the medical knowledge to interpret the MR signal changes we see.

A typical day in my life starts by being woken up by our rabbit, Muffin, either by her hopping on the bed, or chewing on something under it. (If anyone is keen to see pictures of Muffin, they can search #DailyMuffin on Twitter.) After making sure Muffin has her giant plate of vegetables for breakfast, I get myself organized for work, which most days seems to be filled with emails and meetings. I try to have one day a week with no meetings so that I can focus on writing and editing, which I really love. I do miss analyzing data and making graphs; every now and then I’ll ask a student or staff member to send me some numbers that I can play with, which is always lots of fun. In the evening, I might go for a run, do Pilates/yoga or spend time in our garden fighting the weeds that seem to grow faster than anything we purposely plant. My husband and I would usually cook dinner together where we like to try new vegan and vegetarian meals, and Muffin gets another giant plate of vegetables for dinner! I have dreams of one day returning to hobbies I had much earlier in life like painting, pottery, and woodworking. And I’d love to learn how to weld so I can make cool metal art for our garden.

I joined the Society in 1999 to attend the annual meeting in Philadelphia and have been part of the ISMRM family ever since. The Society and the many events it holds (both in-person and virtual) are great resources for meeting people and learning about the latest MR advances and applications happening around the world.

My favourite study group is the White Matter Study Group (WMSG). I love this group because the membership is so technically diverse, with people using many different MR methods (and even nuclei), all with the common goal of answering questions about white matter. I actually wanted to join the WMSG Board while I was still a Ph.D. student but couldn’t because I was a trainee member. Shortly after finishing grad school, I became a full ISMRM member and was elected to the WMSG Board, where I initiated the formation of the “trainee representative,” a position that other study groups have now adopted. I have also been involved in organizing a number of WMSG workshops, been an annual meeting abstract reviewer for many years, and was recently a member of the Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC), where I was co-chair for the neuro table for two years. Being part of the AMPC was amazing—I met so many wonderful new friends there! I would love to see more veterinary medicine-related content included in ISMRM’s activities; maybe one day there could be a Veterinary MRI Study Group.

I love the friendly and community-minded spirit of ISMRM’s membership. I feel like people are genuinely here to help each other and to help science and medicine move forward. I’m so happy there’s a whole society filled with people who love MRI as much as I do—ISMRM people are my people!