PhD Talk

In today's episode, we talk about finding time for reading and writing throughout the PhD, and as a faculty member. We look at how we can stay up to date with the literature after finishing the literature review, and how to write regularly.

We share the strategies we use, and how these strategies may evolve over time.

References:
- Ep. 54: Interview with Dr. Anna Clemens

In today's episode, we interview Dr. Rasheda Weaver, who turned her dissertation into a business. Rasheda is one of the world’s leading experts on social and commercial entrepreneurship. She conducted the first large-scale empirical study on the social, economic, and legal activities of social enterprises in the United States and is the Founder of Weaver's Social Enterprise Directory, Inc. As a Professor, she has taught entrepreneurship to over 1,000 students globally. 

She served as the first Assistant Professor for the Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation that was established with a $15 million donation at Iona College in 2017, helping to build its teaching, research, and service foundation. We learn in the interview how she transitioned from her faculty position to her business, as well as how the skills she learned during her PhD helped her start a business. We also hear from her about the skills she acquired as an entrepreneur which she had not developed in academia. 

Dr. Weaver’s forthcoming textbook is entitled “Social Entrepreneurship: A Practical Introduction.” It is being considered a seminal work in the field of social entrepreneurship and will be published in January 2023. We talk about the book itself, her research and writing process, as well as finding a publishing deal.

Rasheda is also an academic parent, and we talk about when her children were born during her research career and how she balance research and motherhood. We round off with her best advice for PhD candidates, setting boundaries to work, the impact of COVID-19, and what a day in the life looks like for her.

References

• Weaver's Social Enterprise Directory
• Rasheda's website
• 5-day online bootcamp
•  Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
• Social Entrepreneurship: A Practical Introduction.
• Raul Pacheco-Vega
• Get a life, PhD
• The most powerful weapon on earth is a human soul on fire
• Business instagram
• Personal instagram
• Winter always comes: Social enterprises in times of crisis. 
• Introduction: Social entrepreneurship education special issue. 
• Putting the commercial in social enterprise education: Employing the for-profit to nonprofit business model in the classroom. 
• Facilitating business online: The utilization, benefits, and challenges of online social enterprise directories. 
• The impact of COVID-19 on the social enterprise sector. 

In today's episode, we do a Q&A. We start with discussing what we currently are working on, what is going well, and what we are struggling with. 
Then, we address the following questions from readers:
- How can I select the right journal for my article?
- How do you handle recommendation letters, and what if the student is not good?
- Postdoctoral research
- How to develop technical writing?
- Will you start a podcast for MSc students in civil engineering?
We round off by discussing books we've enjoyed reading this year, as well as our love of the moment.

References

• Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi 
• Sunken red _ Jeroen Brouwers
• A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life - George Saunders 
• Crying in H-mart - Michelle Zauner
• A visit from the goon squad - Jennifer Egan

In today's episode, Eva interviews Dr. Gayannée Kedia. Gaya is a researcher and teacher in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Graz, Austria. She owns degrees in biology and psychology and has worked for several universities in France, the UK, Germany, and Austria. Parallel to her academic activity, she works as a writing coach and scientific trainer. She is also the founder of abrilliantmind.blog, a blog aimed at helping scientists be more productive and happier at work.

We talk about Gaya's career trajectory and research path, and how she came to teach workshops on academic writing as well as blogging. We then zoom in on the common difficulties PhD candidates encounter with academic writing and productivity in general, and what supervisors can do to better support their candidates. We also hear from Gaya about her best tips for academic writing and productivity, as well as her best tip for PhD candidates.

Finally, we hear about how she integrates work and life, how COVID-19 impacted her work, and what a typical day in the life looks like for her (even though she does not have typical days).

References

• Gaya's blog
• Gaya's portal at the University of Graz
• Gaya's Facebook
• Gaya's Twitter
• Gaya's Instagram
• Gaya's YouTube
• Gaya's LinkedIn
• Tranquillity by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters - Laura Vanderkam
• 168 hours: You have more time than you think - Laura Vanderkam
• Focusmate

In today's episode, we look at Sarah's expectations for the second year of her PhD, and what her main points of action and milestones will be. We look a bit further at the process of getting ethics approval at her university, and her plans for data collection. We also get an update on her proposal, and what getting this funding would mean for her for the rest of her PhD years.

We then look at the second year from a bit of a broader perspective: how is it different from the first year, and what are some of the common struggles in the second year of the PhD. We also talk about the famous two-year dip, and how COVID-19 has disrupted this (or not).

Finally, we look at what Eva remembers from her second year (which was 12 years ago). As she started to use a simple planning system in MS Word (with things she wanted to achieve on a monthly and weekly basis, as well as a log of what she did), she was able to browse these files and refresh her memories of what she did during the second year.

References

• Data collection - Ep. 72
• Data management, as part of the interview with Dr. Lena Karvovskaya - Ep. 45
• Defending a proposal - Ep. 84
• The valley of shit, or the dips of the PhD

In this week's episode, we interview Malwina Gudowska.  Malwina is a Polish-Canadian writer and linguist based in London, UK. Her academic background includes a BA in International Relations, a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism and the Columbia Publishing Course. In 2018, she completed an MA in Linguistics at University College London and is now pursuing a PhD in Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research focuses on the emotionality and emotional communication of mothers raising multilingual children.

We talk about her career path, and how she moved from journalism to linguistics, and how this change was intertwined with her parenting journey. We also learn more about how she combines her work as a journalist and her part-time PhD studies, while also parenting. We dive deeper into multilingual parenting, and our own experiences with this topic, as well as the institutional and emotional support Malwina observed (or not) when her children were born.

References

•  Malwina's website
• Malwina's instagram
• Malwina on LinkedIn
• Malwina on Twitter
• Birkbeck, University of London
• One parent one language
• A Mother's tongue: The complexity of raising multilingual children

In today's episode, we talk about doctoral defenses. We start by looking at the differences between defenses in the Netherlands and Belgium, and then we zoom into the defenses we have attended (and, in Eva's case, her own defense experience). We look at the various functions defenses in their different formats have.

Then, we look at some findings from the research on effective methods to prepare for the defense, how Eva prepares to be a committee member, and what has changed as a result of COVID-19.

References

• How to prepare for a doctoral defense
• Planning and passing for your defense: a global toolbox for success

In today's episode, we interview Dr. Nathan Henton. He completed his PhD in Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication at the University of Memphis in the U.S. state of Tennessee in 2019 while teaching full-time at a small, private university in the state of Arkansas.  Nathan's teaching emphasis was first-year writing and linguistics, and his research focused on writing pedagogy and writing program evaluation. W  We learn about his career path and what it was like to combine teaching and doing a PhD. We also zoom in on the field of Writing Studies, and the research Nathan carried out for his PhD.

He raised two young children during his PhD years. We learn about his experience as an academic parent (or should we say: academic family), and what he has learned from juggling these various roles.

He has worked outside academia for the last year, currently as a paralegal at a small immigration law firm. We talk about the shift from academia to industry, and what helped Nathan find a position in industry.

Finally, we talk about what a day in the life looks life, the impact of COVID-19 on his work and daily life, his best advice for PhD candidates, and how to set boundaries.

References

• Nathan Henton on LinkedIn
• Nathan Henton on Twitter
• South Mississippi writing project
• The History of English as a Tool for Teaching Grammar
• The development of writing studies in the US

In today's episode, Eva catches up with Sarah as she is preparing to defend her proposal for funding for her research. We start with a recap of the proposed project and the steps in the process of obtaining the funding.

Then we look at how Sarah is preparing to defend her proposal: how she is preparing for her presentation and how she is preparing to answer questions. We learn about the practice defenses she has been using to practice.

Finally, we look at some of the practical aspects that can go wrong (such as national strikes with the trains), which led to Sarah traveling a day in advance to Brussels.

References

• Writing a research proposal  - Ep. 56

In today's episode, we interview Dr. Heather Walker. She is a senior people scientist at Culture Amp, who recently switched from academia to industry. She has a PhD in disability studies from the university of Illinois at Chicago.

We learn about Heather's career path - from the PhD in Chicago via being an instructor at the University of Utah and a social scientist at the health system to her current position at Culture Amp. We talk about how she is using her research skills in her current job, and how she navigated the transition from academia to the industry.

Next, we talk about Heather's experience as a person with diabetes - how she experienced her studies, her PhD, and her work (as an academic and currently). We also talk about how universities can welcome their disabled and chronically ill students and faculty.

Then, we learn about Heather's parenting journey and how it was interwoven with her academic career, and the COVID-19 pandemic. We learn about the support she received from her university, and how she worked for a long period of time without childcare.

Finally, we round off with her best advice for PhD candidates, how she sets boundaries to work, the impact of COVID-19, and what a day in the life looks like for her.

References

• The Chronic Scholar blog
• Heather’s Linkedin
• University of Utah
• University of Illinois at Chicago
• SaaS Software as a Service
• Culture Amp
• Ungrading - Susan Blum
• Creating accessible teaching materials