Featured EyeWirer: @a5hm0r

A behind the scenes look at the EyeWire community.

Meet the EyeWirers who are mapping the retinal connectome. Up this week is Ashley (Ash) Morren, aka @a5hm0r, our new Top Scoring Player of All Time and the first player to ever break 2 MILLION points on EyeWire.

Ash currently lives in Belgium. She is a 21 year old college student studying to become a teacher in history and geography.

Why do you play EyeWire?

At first I was playing solely because of the competition aspect of the Games (go team Facebook ^^). I joined during the end of the competition & actually really sucked at that time. It became frustrating.  After the Games were over I decided to give it another go. I started to get some background information on why we are coloring in the neurons. I read the wiki, but what really made me play like I do know is Dr. Seung’s TEDTalk. How who we are could lie in the connections in our brain. I like to believe that, also with the whole nature/nurture in the back of my head. I wanna help to speed up rate in which we map these neurons & this way the rate in which discoveries can be made, discoveries that who knows maybe change science as we know it.

Like I said I was a member of team Facebook, so I discovered EyeWire through a popular facebook page which is very well known at HQ…. The IFLS page. I was during a break at college scrolling through my facebook and there is was an post about EyeWire, how there was a competition between social media and how we general citizen can help scientists.

A game helping science & being able to beat other social media, two words went through my mind: Game on!

Share a short story that helps the world get to know you.

I’m Ashley. In my spare time I like to read about psychology. I’m fascinated by why we people do what we do, when we do it, why we change or behavior during certain times, how we think.

I love to think in general and think about thinking. I do think it’s fitting to help in a project which is trying to map the human brain the par of our humans that make us think and act the way do. I also make origami models, It’s great to see how something as simple as a piece of paper can turn in almost everything or how 30 identical pieces can turn into a great model. I also have a few sisters, sadly they are not interested in EyeWire, but I will not give up in turning them to the dark side.

Anything else you’d like to add?