Ph.D. student Kelly re-defines the meaning of being a “dreamy” dancer for the Boston Cannons
Kelly of the Boston Cannons Dance Team prior to a Major League Lacrosse game at Harvard Stadium
Many students dream of someday earning their Ph.D., but Kelly, in her second season with the Boston Cannons Dance Team, will earn her Ph.D. studying the science of dreams. And not just the “meaning” of some dream, but the functional MEANING of dreams. Kelly studies things such as brain activity and physiology while we dream, in order to get at the big question; why do we dream anyway? Like why would someone have recurring dreams throughout high school that they would show up at their locker and then suddenly realize that they are still in their jammies. Not that I had that kind of dream, all throughout high school, that would be silly (gulp). On with the interview!
Kelly is currently in the Psychology Ph.D. program at Boston College, specifically, studying cognitive and affective neuroscience. With bachelor’s from Middlebury College and a master’s at Harvard, Kelly’s life has been filled with travel, family, fun, academics, and, of course, dance. Kelly shared with UltimateCheerleaders her path from Arizona to New England to the Major League Lacrosse sidelines, her research into dreams and memory, and why being musically multi-talented lead to Kelly to be a quick change artist on high school football fields.
Kelly started life out a bit west of Boston. “I was born in Denver, Colorado, but moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, when I was only a few months old and lived there until I turned eighteen,” Kelly recalled. “I am an only child, but my mom runs a daycare out of our home, so there were always children running around for me to play with!”
Kelly’s mom was also instrumental in adding music to Kelly’s life. “Music and dance are probably the two things that most defined my adolescence,” Kelly says. “I played the violin for three years, the piano for five or so years, the oboe for seven years, and the flute for nine years. My mom sings professionally, so I grew up imitating her, and singing in church choir and musicals. I was also the drum major/conductor of my high school’s marching band, which was quite interesting since both the marching band and my dance team performed during half-time. Quick costume changes on the field always made for good stories!”
Dance was a key activity for Kelly, but she did not start as young as one might think. “My love of dance actually began later than most, as it wasn’t until I turned seven that my mom decided to put me into dance lessons,” explains Kelly. “Instantly, though, I was hooked; I soon went from taking two classes a week to fifteen, and I have yet to find something I love more than performing!”
Like her later academic career, Kelly took her interest in dance and devoted herself to find the best opportunities to gain experience and expertise. “Until I was twelve, I trained in several different styles of dance,” Kelly recalls, “But one of the best decisions I made was to transfer to Arizona Ballet School, where I trained strictly in ballet and pointe, and had the opportunity to dance with various professional companies. Since then, I’ve focused mainly on competitive, dance-team style dancing, for example, high school varsity pom, Middlebury College dance groups, Harvard Crimson Dance Team, coaching dance teams. But I feel like the technique I gained at Arizona Ballet School is absolutely invaluable.”
After high school’s completion, Kelly headed east to college. “When I was eighteen, I left home to go to Middlebury College in Vermont,” Kelly explains. “Despite the long distance, I still remained really close to my parents and continue to talk to them on the phone each day, which I absolutely love. I’ve been on the east coast since then, first in Vermont and now in Boston, where I expect to be until at least 2016 when I finish my Ph.D.!”
Lauren and Kelly
And the being part of the Boston Cannons Dance Team serves as, well, kind of continuing dance education for Kelly. “I really couldn’t imagine my last dance performances being on the small stages at Middlebury College,” explains Kelly, “and to be honest, I’ve been part of a dance team or company every year of my life since age eight; I just didn’t want it to stop! I’ve found that I prefer dancing in front of large audiences and getting the crowd pumped up, so I thought that dancing for the Cannons would be the perfect opportunity to get to know a great group of girls and also keep my performing up while in graduate school!”
Kelly has found plenty of reasons to want to be part of the Cannons Dance Team, returning for a second year despite the time pressures of graduate school. “I truly love everything about being a Cannons dancer,” Kelly describes. “I love going to promotional and charity events because brightening up people’s days is a way to make a small difference; I love going to practice and keeping up my technique; and I love performing at the games in front of thousands of people. Additionally, I really admire all of the girls on the Cannons because despite being full-time students or having full-time jobs, everyone devotes the time necessary to be dedicated members of this team and perform at a high level. Even though my Ph.D. program is quite demanding, no one can work all the time! Having such a great performing outlet makes me love my life in Boston even more than I would otherwise.”
Something tells me that Kelly would find joy any place she would live, but she has found lots to like about living in Boston. “One of the reasons I really love Boston is because so many people drop by to visit!” Kelly says. “I absolutely love showing my friends around Boston and taking the time to appreciate the city for its historical importance. I’ve probably walked the Freedom Trail close to twenty times (with different people), and I have yet to be bored by it.”
Another thing that will not leave you bored is attending a Major League Lacrosse game. “The first time I danced in a Cannons game was actually the first lacrosse game I had been to!” explains Kelly. “Since then, however, I have realized how great of a sport it is. It’s very exciting to watch because it fuses elements from several different sports that I grew up watching, and there’s always a lot going on! In fact, it’s really important to pay attention because it’s wild just how quickly the ball moves; and standing so close to the sidelines, we’re at risk of being hit!. Cheering for the Cannons has been a great experience because it’s really inspiring to see how passionate the team is about their sport and each individual play.”
Certainly, Kelly has the same passion and dedication for her academic studies of the human mind. Kelly’s dance even influenced this talented student’s direction toward her current research, but was especially influenced by a course early in Kelly’s undergrad days. “I first became interested in studying the human mind during my sophomore year Cognitive Psychology class,” Kelly recalls, “where I became fascinated with human memory. I had always been intrigued by memory, perhaps because my parents and others had asked me hundreds of times how I’m able to remember so many dance routines, but that course is what really piqued my interest. Since then, I’ve been lucky to work with several great mentors at Middlebury, Colorado State University, Harvard, Notre Dame, and now Boston College, who have all fostered my interest in the topic. Every research experience I’ve had has opened me up to new questions about memory and particularly how sleep influences what we remember.”
All of the schools are great institutions, but the one that stands out in any list, the big one, the cerebral home of the biggest cerebrums: Harvard. Kelly received her Master’s at Harvard, studying the brain at the brainiest place around; so what was the feeling of walking on campus for the first time as a real Harvard student? “To be honest,” Kelly replies, “the more time I spent at Harvard, the more I realized it is just an academic institution, like any other. I had some professors I thought were phenomenal, and others who were mediocre, and also some classes I thought were phenomenal, and others that were just mediocre. Harvard is certainly a fabulous institution, with better resources and stronger networking connections than nearly any school in the nation, but having studied at various universities, I feel strongly that the quality of education one receives is more or less proportional to the amount of effort one puts in.”
Kelly does have insight of making the most of one’s college experience, saying, “The one piece of advice that I have for anyone desiring to get a high-caliber education would be to get to know your professors. While it may seem that you’re paying for classes at an institution, the education you can receive from talking one-on-one to your professors about the subject they’re passionate about is worth far more than that.”
Kelly has presented her research findings at many scientific meetings over the past few years, and her current research, “Uses a combination of behavioral and fMRI methods to investigate the influence of sleep on emotional memory consolidation. Specifically, I am interested in how the emotional memory trade-off (individuals’ tendency to preferentially remember emotional information at the cost of memory for neutral details presented concurrently) develops over time. In my current project, I am using polysomnography to investigate the contribution of specific sleep stages to these emotional biases in memory.”
When asked what is particularly valuable and intriguing to study the biology of dreams, Kelly answers, “While I do think that studying the biology of dreams is quite valuable, I feel that as of now, there is so little known on dreams that it is hard for me to comment! One area I’m particularly interested in is the link between dreaming and memory. Erin Wamsley and others at Harvard have been doing great research on spatial memory and dreaming, such that if you learn how to navigate a maze and then take a nap, those who say they dreamed about the maze tend to do better on subsequent maze tasks than those who did not have dreams about the maze. Generally, I find it fascinating that sleep is a productive time; rather than simply being restorative, it also enhances physical performance and memory.”
Laura and Kelly
So Kelly, even though it has been a long time since grad school, I still have recurring dreams that it is finals week, and I forgot to drop a class that I stopped attending a long, long time ago. Does Kelly have any recurring dreams? “I do not have any recurring dreams,” responds Kelly. “However, if I ever begin having some, I certainly would be intrigued to figure out their meaning!”
Some might say Kelly’s scientific and dance endeavors would be categorized as unique in she uses both her left and right sides of the brain. Is this an outdated concept, or do people naturally gravitate to one side of the brain? “The idea that certain skills or actions are lateralized to one side of the brain or the other is rooted in truth,” Kelly explains, “but is an oversimplification of how the brain works. Research indeed has shown that one hemisphere or the other dominates some functions. For example, research with split-brain patients (patients whose corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres of the brain, has been severed) has shown that language is processed by the left half of the brain. However, it is important to remember that there is constant communication between hemispheres. There are definitely individual differences in how gifted people are at left-brain dominant tasks (for example, language, logic, critical thinking) vs. right-brain dominant tasks (for example, creativity, emotionality), but for any task, the two sides of the brain work together. As ’scientific‘ as my neuroscience Ph.D. is and as ’artsy‘ as my dancing is, language, logic, critical thinking, creativity, and emotionality certainly go into both!”
So Kelly pursues a path studying dreams, but what would be a “dream job” and “dream place to live” in her future? “My dream job is to be a college professor and advisor,” Kelly shares. “I’ve known I’ve wanted to become a teacher since I was about five years old, and while the age of students I want to teach has steadily increased as I’ve gotten older, I think I’m pretty set on teaching college psychology and neuroscience. I would love to be a positive role model for students, like my professors and advisors at Middlebury were for me, and I also want to advance the field of human memory research. That being said though, I very much also want to be a wife and mom, and devote as much love and attention to my family as both of my parents did. I truly think I could be happy anywhere, so I haven’t thought much about where I’ll end up. So far, the southwest and northeast have treated me well, so perhaps I’ll try another region once finishing my Ph.D.!”
And you can tell that Kelly’s love of travel gives her the geographical adventurousness to be open to living in new places. Travel experiences have been special memories since Kelly was young. “I had so many great experiences growing up that it’s difficult for me to choose a few,” Kelly ponders, “But if I must, one of my favorite recurring memories was the semi-annual vacation my parents and I would take to Las Vegas. I love watching the shows there, and because my parents have a timeshare, we usually spent a lot of the time just enjoying each other’s company, cooking, playing tennis, and watching “Law & Order!” Additionally, some of my favorite memories are the trips I’ve taken; I’ve competed around the country with the Academy Drum & Bugle Corps, been to London to dance in a parade, went to Australia with my family, Honduras with my church, and I lived in Costa Rica for two months teaching English!”
And getaways continue to be favorite Kelly activities, including this current summer. “One of my favorite things to do in my free time is actually to leave Boston and visit friends and family elsewhere. I feel that summer, when I’m not taking classes or serving as a teacher’s assistant, is a great time to travel. I’ve spent my weekends this summer at home in Scottsdale, hiking the Grand Canyon, in Las Vegas, in DC, in Michigan, and at my boyfriend’s cottage in Canada!”
Her fellow Boston Cannons Dance Team members love Kelly and find her off the field pursuits extremely interesting. Kelly’s childhood of musical expression and travel provided a foundation of an adventurous spirit and curious mind. Whether or not she ends up recalling them in dreams or not, Kelly is creating memories, be it in her research that reveres reverie or performing at Cannons games at Harvard Stadium, that are just the beginning of what will certainly be a very bountiful mental scrapbook. But best of all, among all of these talents, she is great person who enjoys family, friends, and fan interactions. Kelly is “dreamy” in every way.
Thanks SO much to Kelly for taking time out from her busy world of multiple endeavors to share yet another example of the incredibly talented people throughout pro cheerleading, all unified by a love of dance and performing. And special thanks to the Cannons and especially their gracious Dance Team Director/Choreographer, Ashley Wagner.
Saturday night is the last regular season game for the Cannons, so check out some lacrosse and enjoy the performances of the Boston Cannons Dance Team!
