Ashby Martin, a third-year doctoral student in the neuroscience program, didn’t always want to study the brain. Initially, he wanted to be a librarian. At a young age, he memorized his library card number and looked up to the librarians. “My favorite place to go was the library,” he said. “Librarians get to give people knowledge and resources all for free. They give everyone the same access.” 

Buried in books, Martin found himself wanting to investigate things that were unknown; things that hadn’t been written down yet or even discovered, especially about the brain.  

This inclination led Martin to pursue neuroscience. Martin received his bachelor’s in neuroscience and behavior at the University of Notre Dame before joining Iowa’s doctoral program. The faculty, the connection to the hospital, and the foundational research that originated on campus were driving factors in his decision to come here. Martin specifically recalled Iowa’s psychological studies on patient S.M. (“The Woman with No Fear”) and meeting program director Dr. Dan Tranel. 

“That’s the past. [Tranel] is part of the present, and I could be part of the future. My research could be part of that future,” he says. 

Third-year doctoral student Ashby Martin. Photo provided by Ashby Martin.

Connecting through language 

At Iowa, Martin studies developmental neurolinguistics, particularly in young children who are bilingual in Spanish and English. His focus is on “numbers as language”, and he examines the neurological impact and visual representation of shifting between the individual’s multiple linguistic repertories through neurological imaging.  

One in three children under the age of eight speaks two languages. In Iowa, there are robust multilingual communities including West Liberty, Columbus Junction, and Amish populations who speak Pennsylvanian Dutch. As part of his studies, Martin has been able to connect with some of these multilingual communities in addition to participants in the Iowa City area.  

“Visually you can see the learning happening,” he says. “You can connect with people and share something local Iowans actually have. You can share effects that you see in their brains.”  

As someone who grew up speaking two languages, Martin has been able to use his Spanish to further connect with children who are involved in his studies and their parents. He noted that language barriers can impact a parent's involvement with their children’s activities, but being able to listen and respond to their questions in Spanish has bridged that gap.  

Martin notes that connecting with the parents has been a positive byproduct of this research. “Now there’s a parent who is not only engaged in research but is engaged with their kid in a new way that they maybe didn’t have access to before,” he describes. 

Martin leads a psychology and neuroscience station at a STEM event with students from West Liberty High School. Photo provided by Ashby Martin.

Expanding access to science 

One of the largest components of Martin’s research is the community impact. He recalls a story from Tranel, who also graduated from Notre Dame, about the implications of a university-required swim test. Despite its positive intentions, the test drew lines between students who had financial access to a pool and those who didn’t, emphasizing several considerations for research.  

“What is a good purpose? What is good execution? What is the back end of something that you are doing now, and how does it affect the local community?” Martin asks.

 Martin hopes that his work will shift people’s perspectives on language learning, especially modifying the mindset that one needs to achieve proficiency at an early age to learn a new language. Instead, Martin’s research emphasizes that developing a dual representation in the brain requires practice.  

Although he is only in his third year of his PhD, Martin hopes to eventually also publish in Spanish. One of his favorite parts of his work is addressing the lack of Spanish language representation in science by providing something that is normally only in English in Spanish. For Martin, this allows more people to be involved. 

With such a large emphasis on community engagement in his work, it’s no surprise that Martin can strike up a conversation with anyone over something as simple as the colors on a booth. For him, language is a common ground for developing connections with complete strangers.  

In the long-term, Martin hopes to bring his work to other countries outside of the United States to see if this dual representation presents in the same way across international multilingual populations. He describes this as seeing if it’s not just an “Iowa effect, but a human effect.” 

 For now, his team is focusing on bringing their technology out of the lab and into homes where language flows freely.