Academic partnerships often bring fresh perspectives to longstanding questions, and the recent collaboration between Mariane Bacelar, an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology, and Thaís Frois, a doctoral student from Brazil, is no exception.
Frois’ dissertation is focused on investigating the effect of mental fatigue in older adults—a topic gaining importance as populations worldwide continue to age. However, a critical piece was missing in her toolkit: expertise in electroencephalography (EEG), a cutting-edge technique used to directly measure brain activity.
The partnership started when Frois reached out to Bacelar, whose Skill Acquisition and Psychophysiology Lab (SAP Lab) combines behavioral and neurophysiological approaches such as an EEG to explore motor skill acquisition and physical activity behavior.
“Thais reached out to me early this year hoping to come to Boise State to train in my lab. I am familiar with her PhD mentor’s work and her university, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, has a strong reputation in research, so I of course got very excited about the opportunity to work with an emerging researcher from Brazil,” said Bacelar.
During the fall term, Frois immersed herself in the SAP Lab’s research environment, working alongside undergraduate and graduate research assistants on different EEG studies One of them looks into the neural mechanisms underlying depression in older adults and some possible links to physical activity, an underexplored area of investigation.
“What I really like about the opportunity to work with Thaís on this project is the fact that she has a lot of experience working with older adults, a demographic that my lab hadn’t previously studied,” shared Bacelar.
While Bacelar and her team got to learn from Frois’ expertise in working with this population, the visiting scholar got to see first-hand the process of implementing EEG in an experiment, which will be incredibly helpful when it’s her turn to add EEG to her own projects.
Beyond science, the partnership has also highlighted the cultural richness of academic exchange. For Frois, joining the Boise State community has meant more than just working in the lab—it’s been an opportunity to immerse herself in a new culture, share her own, and build connections with people from all over the world. “Being here has taught me so much beyond research,” shared Frois. “I’ve made friends from different countries, experienced traditions I’d never encountered before, and felt truly welcomed by this community.”
Now back in Brazil, Frois is getting ready to put her newly acquired skills to use, and both researchers remain excited about the future. Both Bacelar and Frois hope this partnership will continue to foster collaboration, lead to joint publications, and advance kinesiology research around the globe.