The Martinos Center's Van Wedeen cropped up in a recent "Focus on Careers" feature.

In "Investments Boost Neurotechnology Career Prospects," writer Jeffrey M. Perkel looks at the skills budding neuroscientists may need in order to land a job. Chief among these, he says, is a sort of adaptability, a knack for picking up proficiencies as today's hot technologies become yesterday's news. But specific competencies also come into play. Not least: a facility with quantitative analysis, especially given the massive amounts of data the researchers will need to handle with ever more sophisticated neuroscience techniques.

Quantitative prowess can help in other ways, too. This is where Wedeen comes in. The availability of neuroscience resources like those provided by the Human Connectome Project, of which he is a PI, offer tremendous opportunities for those who may not have the funding to collect the data themselves but do have the knowhow and the capacity to work with it. The resources allow the investigators to explore radical new ideas and potentially shift focus to new areas of investigation. "They enable everyone, young and old alike, to pursue hypotheses that are not heavily driven by preceding work," Wedeen says.

The entire feature is worth a read. You can find it online here.