PhD Talk

I'm back with a quick bonus episode on the small university journals that are publish open access without any article processing charge.Please check out AmeliCARedalycOpen Journal SystemsACI Avances en Ciencias e IngenieriasLatindex

A few grumblings on why it does not make sense to try to speed up our literature review using ChatGPT - a little nugget of Opinions while we prepare for the next season of the podcast.

In today's episode we do a Q&A. We start with a general update on what we are working on, what is going well, and what is not going well. Then, we address the following questions that came in through the PhD Talk blog:What does your work setup look like? What does your setup look like at home and in the office, and how do you divide your time between bothHow do you take care of your mental health in academiaAdvice for transitioning in and out of academia (between academia and industr...

In today's episode, we interview Dr. Kalin Kiesling. She is a nuclear engineer at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Lab where she develops the software that other engineers use to design and analyze new nuclear reactor concepts. She earned her PhD in Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2022, from which she also holds a bachelors and masters in nuclear engineering. We learn about her background and career path, and how she choose to...

In today's episode, we talk about special issues: what are they, what is the value of special issue, and why should you consider editing a special issue. We also discuss the caveats and increasing bad reputation on special issues related to the business model of some publishers. We look at the difference of special issues for journals directly, and those associated with events (mini symposia, session, etc). We also look at the joys and pitfalls of co-editing special issues. Next, we look...

In today's episode, we interview Emily Hoppe. Emily is a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner and PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland. Before starting her PhD, Emily practiced as a staff nurse and psychiatric nurse practitioner at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland for eight years. Her clinical practice focused on the mental health of young children with behavioral and emotional concerns, supporting parents, and diagno...

In today's episode, Phil interviews Eva about grant writing. We learn about Eva's various sources of funding, the funding she has applied for in the past, and what has worked and what not. We also look at how helpful the feedback and grading of a proposal can be.Then, we get into our best practices for grant writing. In summary, these are:Try various different funding sourcesTry both personal and consortium grantsThink national and internationalEU funding is not impossible (although it is als...

In today's episode, we interview Jacqueline Shaia. She is a second year PhD student at Case Western Reserve University in the Clinical Translational Science PhD program. We learn about how she decided between going into the career path of a practicing physician and researcher, and how her background shaped her choices in her research and methods.Her current work focuses on ocular disorders, especially the rare idiopathic intracranial hypertension, a vision threatening disease that mainly affe...

In today's episode, we talk about presenting at conferences. We look at what's the point of conferences in the first place, and how digital conferences can recreate the opportunities for networking (or not), and for whom.We also look at conferences as a genre, what the difference between writing a conference paper and presenting this conference paper is all about. This topic leads us into our best tips for presenting at conferences, and the use of visual information during presentations. We w...

In today's episode, we talk about starting as a new faculty member. Phil interviews Eva about when she started as a faculty member at USFQ and TU Delft, and what her advice would be for new incoming faculty.We talk about how Eva found her faculty position, and how her teaching load at USFQ has changed over time. We also talk about the way in which professors are evaluated at various universities and how that reflects on how we prepare our tasks for the upcoming period of time and how we perio...