PhD Talk

Today, we interview Christine Streeter, a fifth-year PhD candidate in the School of Social Work, with a specialization in Political Economy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. As a social worker committed to improving insecure working conditions for care workers in the social work and social services work sector, her research explores precarious work and safety at work. Christine shares her PhD journey through her blog and Instagram @ScholarCulture where she aims to create a space for grad students to push back on the culture of overwork in academia and bring more life to their academic lifestyle.

 We discuss her scholarly work as well her blog and Instagram profile, and how these have grown over the years. We then also discuss how PhD candidates can start a blog or become more visible on social media, and the benefits this may have for their PhD trajectory and career. Since Scholar Culture as a blog and Instagram account also focuses on putting the "life" back into the scholarly life, we also hear Christine's tips on incorporating life into graduate school. We round off with our typical questions on a day in the life, the impact of COVID-19, setting boundaries, and best advice.

References

• Blog Scholar Culture
• Instagram @ScholarCulture
• Affect theory
• Focus group interviews
• Mitacs accelerator grant
• Dr. Susan Braedley
• Dr. Pat Armstrong
• Episode with Christina Shenvi 

In today's episode, we interview Deborah Navarro Rosenblatt, who works at the Ministry of Health of Chile at the evidence informed health policy unit and is doing her PhD in public health at the University of Chile.

In this episode, our main topic is being an academic parent during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Deborah has a 4-year-old daughter. We also reflect on what has changed in being a PhD candidate who is a parent from before the pandemic.

Another topic that we touch upon is the PhD in Chile. We learn about some particularities of the system in Chile, and how Deborah combines her PhD research with her position in the Ministry.

Finally, we round off with Deborah's best advice, her "day in a life", and setting boundaries around work.

References

• Twitter handle
• Work life balance episode - Ep. 46
• Doctoral defense in Chile 
• Deborah's review article on maternity leave and breastfeeding
• Deborah's news article on breastfeeding as a human right
• Deborah's news article on the promotion of breastfeeding
• University of Chile
• Breastfeeding initiation and duration in Chile: understanding the social and health determinants
• Breastfeeding in the 21st century, discussion, and authors' reply
• Why invest, and what it will take to improve breastfeeding practices?
• Nurturing care: promoting early childhood development

We recorded a Q&A episode a while back in the middle of the Fall semester, but only got to publishing it now as we slowed down to one episode every other week. In this episode, we give a general update on how our Fall semester is going so far, as well as what we currently are working on. 

In the next part of the episode, we discuss a few questions that came in. The first question is about the social media platforms we use for our research, and why. We discuss ResearchGate, LinkedIn, and Twitter for research. The second question is about how we switch tasks after lecturing, as we all know and experienced that lecturing is quite intensive. We also discuss there the various tasks that are involved with preparing teaching, and some digital tools one can incorporate.

We then dive into a question that could be an episode in itself: strategies for selecting the right journal or conference for your PhD results. We share our best practices here, but of course, please always discuss with your supervisor. Finally, we discuss how to select a PhD program, and certain differences internationally.

References

• Edpuzzle
• Quizziz
• Padlet

In today's episode, we interview Dr. Cindy Harley, Associate Professor of Biology at Metropolitan State University in St Paul, MN. First of all, we learn about Cindy's career path, and how her career path is interwoven with the stage of life in which she had her son. We then dive deeper into her research, and learn about her research on leeches.

The main topic of today's episode is on being an academic parent. We discuss both how having a child changed some of Cindy's attitude towards work and towards learning, as well as the general fate of academic parents, and how the Academic Mama foundation, of which Cindy is the president, makes a positive impact in the lives of academic parents.

Finally, we round off with our standard questions on best advice, the impact of COVID-19, setting boundaries, and a day in the life.

References 

• Cindy Harley's website
• Cindy Harley's Twitter
• Academic Mamas website
• Histology 
• Academic mamas facebook
• 501c3 
• IAMAS maternal action scholarship 
• The enough list

We've been talking about open science and open access publishing in previous interviews, but today we wanted to evaluate if we practice what we preach.

We identify various parts of our research that we've made more open: publishing our databases or research data online, using available datasets. We also discuss how we are moving towards more open access publishing, the role of open peer review, the importance of preprints, and how Eva's attitudes towards open access have changed over time. Eva also makes a plug for ACI Avances en Ciencias e Ingenierias, the open access science and engineering journal which does not cover an article processing charge of which Eva is the editor in chief. Based on that, we also get into the role of universities as publishing houses in Latin America, and the indexing services Redalyc and Amelica.

Another topic we discuss is the role of funding agencies in their requests to make research more open, as well as open access goals set by universities to encourage more open access publication.

Finally, we discuss the parts of our research we have not made open yet, such as code and moving towards more open source software.

References:

• Episode 25: Open Science
• Episode 29: Open Access Publishing
• Zenodo
• Open Science MOOC organized by Jon Tennant
• Pacific earthquake engineering research center - structural performance database
• Preprints.org
• arXiv.org
• Plan S Europe
• Amelica
• Redalyc
• Postprints
• TRI agencies Canada - within 12 months of publication
• Inkscape
• Openfoam
• Opensees
• Elizabeth Jones’ DIC code in matlab
• ACI Avances en Ciencias e Ingenierias

In today's episode of the PhD Talk podcast, we interview Dr. Veronika Cheplygina, associate professor at IT University Copenhagen in Denmark, blogger, and cat lover. We learn about Veronika's career path, and how academia has been pushing her away as well as pulling her back, and how she found her current position. We also learn about her research in machine learning, and the applications to medical imaging, as well as some current criticisms on this field of research.

We then go into Veronika's work on failure in academia - through her series of interviews on "How I fail" on her blog, her own "failures", and what she learned from opening the conversation on failure in academia, and how the notion of failure has shifted from (paper) rejections to the larger notion of being not in line with our values. Finally, we discuss academic Twitter, and the benefits Veronika has enjoyed of academic Twitter. We then round off the interview with our standard questions on setting boundaries, best advice, a day in the life, and the impact of COVID-19.

References

• Website of Veronika Cheplygina
• Twitter profile
• PhD thesis Dissimilarity-based Multiple Instance Learning
• Seven things Veronika wished she'd done during her PhD
• Talk by Veronika on her career path
• Cal Newport - Deep Work
• Interview with Marissa Edwards on Mental Health in Academia

In this episode, we discuss the topic of work-life balance. First, we look at findings from the literature on this topic, which Eva has used to write an encyclopedia entry about (and since this entry is a tiny part of a large project, it will take time before it will see the light of publication).

We look at findings from the literature on work-life balance satisfaction in general, the history of the topic, and findings on work-life balance in higher education, with a special focus on the groups who report the lowest levels of work-life balance satisfaction and on the classed, racialized, and gendered dimensions of work-life balance and work-life satisfaction.

Finally, we discuss our experience of work-life balance, our successes and struggles, and how work-life balance in academia can be improved.

References

• Armstrong, J. 2006. "Beyond 'juggling' and 'flexibility': Classed and gendered experiences of combining employment and motherhood."  Sociological Research Online 11 (2):119-134. doi: 10.5153/sro.1277.
• Beigi, M., M. Shirmohammadi, and S. Kim. 2016. "Living the academic life: A model for work-family conflict."  Work 53 (3):459-468. doi: 10.3233/WOR-152173.
• Blazovich, J. L., K. T. Smith, and L. Murphy Smith. 2018. "Mother-friendly companies, work-life balance, and emotional well-being: Is there a relationship to financial performance and risk level?"  International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion 9 (4):303-321. doi: 10.1504/IJWOE.2018.097153.
• Dilmaghani, Maryam, and Vurain Tabvuma. 2019. "The gender gap in work–life balance satisfaction across occupations."  Gender in Management: An International Journal 34 (5):398-428. doi: 10.1108/GM-09-2018-0109.
• Johnston, E., and A. Johnson. 2017. "Balancing life and work by unbending gender: Early American women psychologists’ struggles and contributions."  Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 53 (3):246-264. doi: 10.1002/jhbs.21862.
• Kachchaf, R., A. Hodari, L. Ko, and M. Ong. 2015. "Career-Life Balance for Women of Color: Experiences in Science and Engineering Academia."  Journal of Diversity in Higher Education 8 (3):175-191. doi: 10.1037/a0039068.
• Keeney, Jessica, Elizabeth M. Boyd, Ruchi Sinha, Alyssa F. Westring, and Ann Marie Ryan. 2013. "From “work–family” to “work–life”: Broadening our conceptualization and measurement."  Journal of Vocational Behavior 82 (3):221-237. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2013.01.005.
• Kim, R. Y. 2020. "An unforeseen story of alpha-woman: breadwinner women are more likely to quit the job in work-family conflicts."  Applied Economics 52 (55):6009-6021. doi: 10.1080/00036846.2020.1781775.
• Moreau, Marie-Pierre, and Murray Robertson. 2019. "‘You Scratch My Back and I’ll Scratch Yours’? Support to Academics Who Are Carers in Higher Education."  Social Sciences 8 (6):164.
• Pasamar, S., K. Johnston, and J. Tanwar. 2020. "Anticipation of work–life conflict in higher education."  Employee Relations 42 (3):777-797. doi: 10.1108/ER-06-2019-0237.
• Powell, Gary N., Jeffrey H. Greenhaus, Tammy D. Allen, and Russell E. Johnson. 2019. "Introduction to Special Topic Forum: Advancing and Expanding Work-Life Theory from Multiple Perspectives."  Academy of Management Review 44 (1):54-71. doi: 10.5465/amr.2018.0310.
• Thun, C. 2020. "Excellent and gender equal? Academic motherhood and ‘gender blindness' in Norwegian academia."  Gender, Work and Organization 27 (2):166-180. doi: 10.1111/gwao.12368.

In today's episode, we interview Dr. Lena Karvovskaya. Lena did herPhD in theoretical linguistics at Leiden University. After her PhD, she took up a job as a data manager at Utrecht University Library and then went to the library of VU Amsterdam to become a community manager for research data management. 

We learn from Lena's research on endangered languages during her Master's studies and her work on possession in languages during her PhD. We also look at the role of a community manager within the modern university library, and the changing role of the library in the university. A third topic of the episode is data management: common pitfalls novice researchers should avoid, tips for current doctoral candidates, and tips for their advisors.

Finally, we round off with our standard questions on the impact of COVID-19 on the Lena's daily tasks, her best advice for PhD candidates, a day in the life, and how to set boundaries to work.

References

• Lena’s Twitter profile
• Endangered languages: Sorbian, Saami languages, Ishkashimi  
• Lena’s PhD Thesis: The typology and formal semantics of adnominal possession
• Podcast episode 29: Open access 
• Podcast episode 25: Open science 
• VU systematic reviews 
• Podcast episode 17: Systematic reviews
• VU Data Conversations
• Data steward at VU Amsterdam   
• More about Data stewards in the Netherlands, for example at TU Delft 
• Data management at VU Amsterdam   
• Data management at Utrecht University
• VU Data horror week
•  Data horror stories collected in 2020
• A blog post about Data Horror Escape Room
• Play the Data Horror Escape Room at your own pace

In today's episode, Rico interviews Eva on the research she did with a group of international colleagues on the impact of COVID-19 on academic parents.

We discuss the main findings of the research, that show that the negative impact on the research of academic parents is considerable, that most academic parents found more challenges than opportunities, and that associate professors are dealing with COVID-19 on top of the mid-career minefield. Another interesting finding is that both academic mothers and fathers have experienced negative impacts, even though academic mothers worked on average less hours but the gender differences related to time expenditure were larger before the pandemic than during. We also look into some regional differences, such as the larger fear to send children back to school in Central and South America than in other parts of the world.

Besides the findings, we also discuss the methodology: how Eva assembled the international research team, how the team held Zoom meetings across many time zones to discuss the findings, and the quantitative and qualitative analysis methods that we selected for this work.

Then, we turn in to Eva's personal experience as an academic parent during COVID-19, and see if her personal experience is in line with the findings in the paper, and what the main challenges were. We also look at the particular support measures Eva's two universities provided, and how she used these (or not). Then, we round off discussing how COVID-19 will affect academic parents in the future and if we can take positive lessons from this experience into the future.

References:

• Lantsoght EOL, Tse Crepaldi Y, Tavares SG, Leemans K and Paig-Tran EWM (2021) Challenges and Opportunities for Academic Parents During COVID-19. Front. Psychol. 12:645734. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.645734
• WonkHe: How to support academic parents to succeed 
• PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: The Challenges of Parenting and Academia

In today's episode, we interview Dr. Jennifer Polk, who has a PhD in history (2012) and has been working as a career coach and consultant since 2013. She is an expert on  the challenges PhDs face transitioning to employment.

We learn from Jen how she went from being a PhD in history to a career coach, and what her research back then has in common with the work she does nowadays. She explains us the different steps one should go through when starting to think about a career after the PhD (spoiler alert: self-reflection is incredibly important).

We also talk about what supervisors and universities can do to give more attention to life after the PhD during graduate school, and hear Jen's recommendations for books with career advice.

Finally, we talk about a day in the life, the impact of COVID-19 on Jen's work, how she sets boundaries to work, and her best advice for PhD candidates.

Where to find Jennifer Polk online

• Website
• Twitter
• Facebook Page
• LinkedIn
• University Affairs blog
• Newsletter (the PhD Career Clarity course will be announced through the newsletter) 
• Degrees of Success 

Reading recommendations

• What color is your parachute (updated by Katherine Brooks) 
• Karen Kelsky - The Professor is In 
• Hillary Hutchinson - Scaling the ivory tower 
• Leaving academia - Christopher Catherine 
• So what are you going to do with that? - Susan Basalla 
• Career advice blogs on Inside Higher Ed 
• Carpe Career column 
• Jennifer’s curated reading list

Other resources mentioned in this episode

• Lauren Easterling - list of jobs / career paths in biomedical sciences 
• Council of graduate schools 
• Canadian association of graduate studies 
•  CAGS' Upcoming conference: Care, Social justice, and Inclusion in Graduate Studies 
• Graduate career consortium 
• GPDN Graduate and Professional Development Network