Earlier this year we were fortunate to be joined by several guest PhD students and graduates who kindly shared their personal PhD journey. You can find the complete PhD Profiles series here.
Now with the end of a very challenging year drawing to a close, I wanted to catch up with our guests and find out both their highlights for the year and what they’re looking forward to in 2021.
Note – If you’re reading this and would be interested in contributing a profile yourself, please get in touch!
Sara – Environmental Engineering PhD Student, Columbia University
You can read Sara’s PhD profile here.
What have you been up to since we published the PhD profile?
Thankfully, I was able to return to the lab in June, when restrictions in NYC became less strict and have been able to carry out experiments since, which I was really looking forward to after months of lockdown!
An undergrad student I work closely with was also able to return to campus, so it was refreshing to see her in the lab on a daily basis, as well as other fellow PhD students in the group, after months of meetings on Zoom.
I also participated in a Teaching Fellowship program at Columbia, attending several workshops related to teaching strategies and pedagogy, which broadened my horizons with regards to teaching and allowed me to interact with several students outside of my department – always fun to hear what other PhD students research!
Additionally, I participated in the virtual AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) annual conference, where I was able to present some of my research and interact with others in my field.
What has been a highlight of this year?
Overall, I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to continue my research despite the tremendous disruptions that the pandemic has caused worldwide. Welcoming new PhD students and Post Docs to the group has definitely been a highlight, as I love interacting with different students and researchers during my work, learning about new projects and bouncing off ideas with other group members.
On a personal note, being able to live with my sister during lockdown was a definite silver lining of all this. I also got a bike and have started cycling in NYC (lots of fun!) and rediscovered my love for reading fiction, which I had found hard to make time for since undergrad.
What are you looking forward to next year?
Alongside a few other PhD students, I am designing a syllabus for a new undergraduate course on Sustainable Cities that we are hoping to independently co-teach in the summer. Although I’ve had some experience as a Teaching Assistant during my PhD, I am really excited about the opportunity to potentially start teaching independently and develop a teaching pedagogy. Other than that, I am looking forward to continuing my research and hopefully attend some in-person conferences later in 2021!
Siddhartha – Applied Physics PhD Graduate, University of Groningen
You can read Siddhartha’s PhD profile here.
What have you been up to since we published the PhD profile?
Trying to sync in my job. It has a lot of new elements. So it keeps me occupied!
What has been a highlight of this year?
My last research work will be published soon. Hopefully, before the year ends. It goes along the same lines, how electronics evolved. Only for electron-spins (property of an electron that uses a magnetic field rather than relying on voltage). If you’re interested, please take a look: analog spintronics.
Second, I have learned Python for my personal interest, and used it to program some circuits on Raspberry Pi 🙂
What are you looking forward to next year?
First, hoping to be able to go out and work at my office if Covid is at ease. Then looking forward to enjoying the job.
Floor – Regenerative Medicine PhD Graduate, University of Nottingham
You can read Floor’s PhD profile here.
What have you been up to since we published the PhD profile?
We were able to go back to the lab, although in a shift system, so had to start at 6 am until 11 am. During the lockdown, we designed very nice new studies, so I have been working on this with some great results! I have been teaching two courses online (Basic Chemistry and Advances in Biomedical Science).
I also got a lot more books, board games (solo and group games) and jigsaw puzzles at home than a year ago! In addition, most importantly, I adopted a cat (Yoda), which was the best decision ever! (See image).
What has been a highlight of this year?
My highlights would be an interview with the Dutch kidney foundations magazine (Nierstichting, Wisselwerking) about my research, which will be public for members this December. Moreover, I have successfully obtained the University Teaching Qualification certificate.
What are you looking forward to next year?
I look forward to continue the research projects, as results are very promising. My contract is finishing in August 2021, so I am excited to see what will come next!
Ornob – Evolutionary Biology PhD Student, NYU
You can read Ornob’s PhD profile here.
What have you been up to since we published the PhD profile?
Since we last spoke, I’ve worked out the main research themes and steps of my dissertation with my PI.
I’ve spent the last few months exploring the introduction of rice in Taiwan and Island Southeast using
rice genomes from South, East, and Southeast Asia.
What has been a highlight of this year?
Joining my lab, I think.
What are you looking forward to next year?
I am looking forward to getting vaccinated and the world going back to normal. But I do hope that we
retain some of our “pandemic wisdom”. For instance, much of the work we used to physically go in for
can be more efficiently handled remotely, and we should continue to do that. I also hope to get a couple of papers out!
Vivienne – Materials Engineering PhD Student, McGill University
You can read Vivienne’s PhD profile here.
What have you been up to since we published the PhD profile?
Since August, I’ve been more active with Nurau, a Montreal-based startup that focuses on providing evidence-based mental health solutions, a cause I think has become even more pertinent with the mental health crisis we see ourselves heading towards. The past few months, I co-developed a survey to assess the landscape of mental health among graduate students in Montreal and delivered a workplace mental health training workshop to our first corporate client! That was very exciting.
I’ve been steadily writing on my blog – finished up the series I was doing on how my faith impacts the way I view friends, beauty, food and other seemingly mundane aspects of my life and most recently published my first science communication post on the science behind the vaccine.
I also have been ferociously knitting the cardigan I started at the beginning of the year, as I was determined to hit my New Years’ Resolution of completing the cardigan. Even though I severely under-estimated the amount of yarn I needed and discovered that the brand I had bought at one of the Christmas markets in Heidelberg does not ship outside of the E.U., the cardigan is almost completed, despite looking a bit odd with its two tones of green 😛
What has been a highlight of this year?
One of the biggest pieces of news this year was that I got engaged (in October)!
So I would say a highlight has been still being able to see my fiancé even through the pandemic and last-minute flight modifications/border restrictions. In June, he taught me how to fish and I caught a bass for the first time! Definitely a highlight.
Other highlights include having an undergraduate shadow me for the fall semester as part of her course, and learning that she enjoyed herself so much that she wants to stay on for another year. It’s much less lonely in the lab and as a bonus, she teaches me how to cook Nigerian food. A win-win all around, if you ask me.
What are you looking forward to next year?
Hmm, getting married is definitely up there. Along with finally getting the vaccine, which will allow normal life to hopefully resume. I’m also hoping to make it out to Cambridge/Oxford at some point, when travel is allowed, and always open to recommendations of where to visit!
And on a more personal note, I’m actually really looking forward to singing again with people. I know it’s strange, but that’s one of the things I’ve missed most in the pandemic – making music and singing in groups of people🙂
Jeff (me!) – Medical Engineering PhD Graduate, Imperial College London
You can read my PhD profile here.
What have you been up to since we published the PhD profile?
For starters, I finished the PhD! My viva took place remotely just as the virus was taking a hold in March, which meant that the completion of my PhD went a bit differently than anticipated.
Not being able to go away and travel as planned, I instead decided to at least take some time off of work. However I couldn’t help but spend some time writing papers and learning new skills. In hindsight I perhaps would have liked to have taken more of a proper break, but I’ve taken the opportunity over Christmas to do no work and not even publish anything on this website so can’t complain too much!
In August I decided to apply for my first job since finishing the PhD and was very fortunate to land it. Since September I’ve been working at the University of Bath, in partnership with NHS clinicians, to use machine learning and medical imaging to help solve some problems relating to cardio-vascular diseases. I’m absolutely loving it!
What has been a highlight of this year?
Thanks to building up some savings (2019 personal finances report) I’ve got some financial freedom. This has meant that this year I’ve not had to desperately scramble to get a job. Instead I’ve been able to spend time doing things I enjoy, learning loads of new skills, thinking more about my longterm plans, and taking on some volunteering whilst still supporting causes I care about. The job I’ve got now is also a pretty direct result of how I spent some time learning Python and machine learning since finishing the PhD.
I feel so fortunate to have been able to concentrate on things I’m interested in. You can read what I’ve been up to this year in my monthly Beyond the PhD series.
A few months ago I started learning Spanish on Duolingo which has been really enjoyable and certainly a highlight of the year for me.
No matter what I do with my career I’d like to ensure I always allocate time to non-career things which make life so much more interesting.
What are you looking forward to next year?
At the moment my current post-doc position is due to finish at the end of March. There is potential for it to be extended but this isn’t certain. And I find this so exciting! I’d love to carry on with the project but if this isn’t possible I’m really excited to explore other paths to creating a postive impact!
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the PhD profiles in 2020 as much as I’ve enjoyed interacting with PhD students and graduates around the world. If you’re interested in taking part yourself I’d love for you to get in touch with me, otherwise if you’re not already you can subscribe to stay up to date with future profiles and other content:
