I approach my research in an interdisciplinary manner because that is how my mind works. When I was growing up, I looked for patterns in my environment to help me make sense of my surroundings. When I was 2 years old, my parents took me on a car trip through Tasmania, an island state southeast of mainland Australia. I had not started speaking; yet, out of nowhere, I began singing “E-I-E-I-O” from the nursery rhyme Old MacDonald Had a Farm. This refrain turned into a reoccurring performance at random intervals, which caused my parents some confusion. Then they detected a pattern. Continue reading her award-winning essay
