Wow, 2022 sure has been busy so far. Inadvertently ending up juggling two postdoc positions has started to take its toll on me. To complicate matters further, we’re starting a spin-out company with the research from the position I was expecting to leave!
However I’m pleased to say that I did get some time off in March, including extending a research trip to New York to include a week of holiday which my girlfriend came out for too.
So here’s my belated summary of a rather hectic first three months of the year!
For previous monthly updates see here: Beyond the PhD Series.
Academic work
Managing two postdoc positions
PostDoc at the University of Bath
Since December I’ve been part of the ICURe programme. This programme provides funding to help ideas developed at universities turn into businesses. It was the funding from this programme that provided me with the opportunity to visit Chicago last November.
The first stage of the programme (focussed on commercial viability) finished in mid-March and concluded with an options roundabout. During that session I pitched to investors and tech-transfer experts, recommending that we spin out and form a start-up.
Thankfully they agreed, which has given us another 2.5 months funding to get training for starting a company and then apply for a grant (up to £300k) to kick-start progress.
The University of Bath also published a piece about our research.
The ICURe programme was great.
They want to see potentially commercially valuable technologies get developed into businesses (or licensed out). Basically you aim to go out into the world and have over 100 conversations with people from different industries to try and find “product market fit” for your technology. Your salary gets paid for over 3-4 months, you get training oh and they give you £15k to travel the world and make contacts.
You don’t actually need a PhD to take part but if you’re finishing up your PhD it could be worth considering if your work could fall into this category and you want to push it forwards. I’m tempted to do a separate post about my ICURe experience, let me know if you’d find this interesting.
Grants
After the ICURe result I started spending time preparing for an Innovate UK application of which I’m PI. The only thing to mention from my previous post is that we’re still awaiting a response from NHS X (due Feb, then mid-March, then in mid-March got told by hopefully end of May), hopefully we’ll have an update by the next quarterly round up!
Senior PostDoc at the University of Bristol
In this quarter I continued doing 1 day a week at Bristol. This hasn’t been ideal for getting work done, but it’s a nice way to ease in and start meeting meeting people.
I also had the opportunity to do a trip to New York with my boss and one other postdoc. I was very grateful to have been invited along considering I was so new to the team (and not yet full time!) and enjoyed getting to know more about my new colleagues.
The trip to New York was a week after the end of my ICURe programme (with Bath) so it was a very natural time to take a break. Even so, there were a few unavoidable meetings which I ended up taking in New York:
Publications
There’s nothing of note to mention with regards to publications this quarter. With going forward to commercialise stuff at Bath it’s looking like we may not be able to publish anything soon while we figure out IP protection.
In my last update I said I wanted to spend a tiny bit of time on a paper from my PhD but you probably won’t be too surprised to hear that I haven’t had any spare time to work on this!
The Savvy Scientist website
New posts
Due to being exceptionally busy with work I only published one post in this quarter, Characteristics of a Researcher.
I’m really keen to get back into writing more regularly once the ICURe application is submitted.
Resource library
I may have not written many posts I am pleased to have launched the Savvy Scientist resource library. As of the time of writing there are now eight resources within it (including a 75 page eBook on Academic Publishing) and I’m continuing to add more each month.
I’d love to know if you’ve found it helpful and whether there’s anything else you’d like to see added. 🙂
Website traffic
Over the past three months there were 26,708 page views by 19,311 users, up 7% and 5% respectively compared to the previous three months (October – December).
Speaking opportunity
In February I gave a talk at the Institute of Cancer Research, having been contacted by a reader of this site. I was invited to give a talk on networking and it was perfect timing having just received training on networking through ICURe and having very recently attended a number of remote and in person conferences. The event ended up being a week before the end of my ICURe programme, and my spin-out pitch, so I probably shouldn’t have taken the work on but perhaps to my downfall I always like to try and help.
I always find presenting a bit of a nerve-wracking experience, especially having not done in it so long! But I was really pleased with how it went and hopefully the students found it useful.
Learning new skills
I don’t have any updates in terms of Duolingo or my chin-ups. I’m still working on both in the background.
Time off
Travel
As I mentioned above, through my Bristol role I was offered the opportunity to go to New York. I’m always keen to make the most of visiting new places (and not just seeing the inside of a conference room!) so I asked if it would be possible to get a flight back a few days later than everyone else.
There were no issues in doing so and my flight actually ended up working out cheaper so it was a win-win! My girlfriend arrived just as the Bristol group were leaving and we had a fantastic time exploring the city.
Among the highlights were walking over the Brooklyn Bridge, amazing hotel room views and ice-skating in Central Park. I must admit a few times I went from being vegan to vegetarian to get to try $1 pizza, it was good! We were also super lucky with the weather. It went from snowing at the start of the trip to 22 degrees sun by the end!
A note on the environment impact – I feel like everyone who flies should look into carbon offsetting. I paid about £25 to cover the flights for myself and my girlfriend and my conscience feels much better for having done so! I use Gold Standard for offsetting. I said this in the last Beyond the PhD post but while yes it is better to not need to offset, I don’t see much reason to not try to minimise our impact.
Baking
This quarter I ended up doing quite a bit of baking after receiving several kits for Christmas and my birthday. I made a tasty victoria sponge and some banana bread following vegan recipes online. I also made focaccia, brookies, sticky toffee cookies and cinnamon buns using kits from Baked In.
The cinnamon buns in particular were amazing!
Food growing
Microgreens
This quarter I had a go at growing microgreens off the back of a kit I received from my partner’s parents for Christmas. It was nice being able to grow something in the house over winter and they came up really fast. They’re also incredibly nutritious! Towards the end we started to notice a few flies around them, so have stopped for now, but we’ll grow more again later in the year and eat them more quickly next time!
Garden
We’ve been starting to think about what to grow in the garden this year. I spent some time moving all of our mini fruit trees into bigger pots. My girlfriend also bought me this Step-by Step Veg Patch book which has lots of good ideas for growing in containers and small spaces.
I’ve started using is alongside a garden planner to map out what to sow when. Hopefully it will help me stay on track with everything throughout the year.
We had some seeds left over from last year and also ended up buying a number of things from this website. Lots of the seeds are just 99p so it’s a great way to try growing lots of different things on a budget. Just bear in mind they come in clear pouches rather than traditional packets with pictures and instructions.
We also bought some more pots for our strawberry plants as they keep multiplying. I’m looking forward to lots of tasty strawberries in the coming months!
Home improvements
In January I finally bought myself a desk and properly set up my office, and a few weeks later I built an under desk shelf for my laptop
Prior to January I’d been working from an old dresser that was left in the house when we moved in. We ended up giving it away to the British Heart Foundation as they sell furniture in one of the local stores. It was very convenient to arrange and they came and collected it. Hopefully it will help to raise some money and also get a new lease of life in someone’s home.
I love finding small ways to make improvements to things. Our downstairs bathroom had a small towel hook and the hand towel never dried out well. So in January I cut a piece of wood to size, added some ribbon and ended up with a towel hanger. This allows the hand towel to fully stretch out and dry properly:
Meditation
After over a year of using Headspace, in January they sadly stopped offering a free option. I’ve therefore switched to using Balance as they were offering a free subscription for 12 months. I’ve had a few teething issues with the app shutting midway through on occasion – which is very confusing in the middle of a meditation! But I’m hoping that I’ll get back into it soon and experience fewer technical blips.
Media I’ve consumed
Books
January:
- Immune by Philipp Dettmer. If you’re to read one book from this set, make it this one. I’m a big fan of the Kurzgesagt channel on Youtube which explores science in very entertaining ways. This book covers the immune system in great detail but manages to make it entertaining at the same time. I felt a bit under the weather while I was reading it so it was fascinating understanding more about how my body was responding.
- Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. Another entertaining read off the back of reading The Da Vinci code at the end of last year. I enjoy how real historical facts are interwoven with the fictional story.
February:
- Lessons From the Edge by Aldo Kane. Alright but not my top pick.
- Fractured by Dani Atkins. This was an accidental read as I thought I was reading The Scarlet Letter on my girlfriend’s Kindle. Instead this was a romance involving a potential parallel universe. Ooops!
March:
Due to being in New York and having a lot going on with work I didn’t finish any books in March: my first time in several years!
Films
I enjoyed watching the Ocean Film Festival online.
Videos & Articles
- Why Design Should Include Everyone – Interesting TED talk which I’d recommend giving a listen to.
- Really Successful People Say No To Almost Everything – Great article about getting more done. When I’m working I try to avoid getting sucked into having too many meetings but it can be tough to turn things down.
- Learn to Speak or Teach Better in 30 Minutes – The importance of carrying out deliberate practice to improve your skills.
Monthly finances
As a general note there are a lot of bank switching offers about at the moment. I’d strongly suggest looking into these if you’ve been with your existing current account for a while. I typically change banks every 12 months and often get around £150 from switching!
If you’re interested I’d suggest checking Money Saving Expert’s guide to the best deals available currently.
Income
Postdocs +£2491.23 per month
Over this period I was on a full-time salary at Bath (£2027.13) and one day per week (20% FTE) at Bristol (£464.10). Don’t worry, both employers know about each other and the total workload is within the proper limits.
Savings
I’ve had a bit of a nightmare with my savings spreadsheet recently as my copy of Excel on Mac stopped being supported. Although I thought I’d safely backed up a copy, that later turned out to not be the case. Oops…
I’ve religiously updated my finances on a monthly basis for several years now so it was pretty gutting to lose all of the historic data. However I’m using this as an opportunity to start afresh and potentially add in some new charts. I really enjoy checking in on my finances once a month and strongly suggest everyone considers doing so. It’s also a great way to see how you’re progressing against any financial goals.
Side note: Always make sure to have backups of your PhD work. You never know when a computer related crisis could occur! I thought I was safe having everything backed up but still managed to run into an issue. Thankfully it wasn’t a more important file.
Investments
In February I invested in Carbon Plantations via Abundance.
Winter Summary & Spring Plan
I’m really pleased to have secured follow-on funding for ICURe after all of the work put in so far, but it does mean that I’m going to be very busy for a while longer. I’m going to be working a little over 6 days a week until mid June, at which point it will be a welcome relief to go back to 5 days!
Looking back over the past few months (which at times have seemed like a blur!) I’m actually quite amazed at how much I’ve done outside of work. I think it’s so easy to forget the little things when there’s a lot going on! Maybe there is a lesson there for more of us to keep a journal or track progress in other ways?
I’m really thankful to have had the opportunity to go to New York and extremely happy that I asked to get a later flight back. The extra days away provided a welcome break and opportunity to recharge.
Looking forward to Spring I’m excited to have the ICURe follow-on grant submitted. I’m also looking forward to the garden waking up and the seedlings starting to grow.
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