Today we’re fortunate to be joined by Romana, a PhD graduate who is now also a postdoc at Bristol like myself. Romana has been very generous in sharing her PhD insights, so I’m excited to share the following discussion with you all!
Romana kindly volunteered to help with a PhD Profile after one of my pleas for volunteers. If you’re reading this and are either a current PhD student or graduate, and are interested in helping share your own PhD journey with the world, please do reach out to me. 🙂
You can find Romana on LinkedIn. Previous PhD Profiles are available here.
Please introduce yourself and your PhD topic
Hey, I’m Romana. My PhD was in Digital Health at the University of Bristol, I started in 2019 and finished in 2023.
My research used videos of interactions between parents and babies, taken using wearable headcams. The aim of the research was to explore novel techniques for analysing parental behaviours indicative of mental health issues from the videos. If you’re interested in reading more, two of the main papers about this work are:
- A quantitative evaluation of thin slice sampling for parent–infant interactions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 2023
- Quantifying the efficacy of an automated facial coding software using videos of parents. Frontiers in Psychology, 2023
I started a postdoc at the University of Bristol in October 2023, straight after the PhD finished. My postdoc is in the Digital Footprints Lab, and I investigate the use of shopping data from loyalty cards for exploring individual and population health.
PhD Applications
What is your background and why did you decide to do a PhD?
My undergraduate was in Maths! I did an integrated masters (MMath) at the University of Exeter, with a focus on climate and biomedical modelling.
After struggling with mental health issues at university, I wanted to use my mathematical background to explore prediction (and subsequent treatment) of mental health conditions. Health data science was the obvious route!
How did you decide on a project?
So I did the Digital Health and Care CDT, which meant that I had a taught year before starting my research. The taught year gave me foundational knowledge of health conditions, digital health technologies, ethical and privacy considerations, and the structure of the UK health services.
During the year, workshops were held to develop potential PhD projects with prospective supervisors; I chose my project from this list. The parent-infant interaction videos already existed, and the supervisor (Professor Rebecca Pearson) was looking for a data scientist to work on analysing the data. We contacted two other supervisors (Prof Ian Nabney, Dr Helen Bould) for further support and got them on board.
How was your application process?
I had an interview where I had to present a digital device used for treating depression (I chose a sleep related one), and discuss the device in context. I travelled up for the interview and had an offer by the end of the day! I was one of nine in my cohort.
How did you arrange funding?
Funding was covered by UKRI as part of the CDT stipend. This included an additional fund for technology, research costs, conferences and similar.
What do you think made your application stand out?
I think my background was interesting – most of my cohort had psychology or computer science backgrounds, but I was the only mathematician.
Life as a PhD Student
How was your PhD experience? Did it differ from your expectations?
I very much enjoyed my PhD from start to finish; I faced very little stress and very few setbacks, and I know that I’m very lucky for that. Especially so as the pandemic meant that I worked from home for the entire PhD, I never had any assigned office space.
This did mean that I worked very independently, which is not always ideal, and I probably missed out on connections and opportunities that I would otherwise have had.
But still, I was an efficient worker, I managed to attend two summer schools, an international conference, and I published multiple first author papers; all of which helped me to secure a job in academia post-PhD.
What were the highlights of your PhD?
I attended a data science summer school in Switzerland for 2 weeks! I learned new techniques and uses of health data, and made connections which lasted beyond the summer. I was subsequently employed to help organise the next year’s summer school, which gave me complementary skills in events management and website development which I have taken forward into my postdoc role (e.g., for organising academic conferences).
The moment that stands out most, however, is when I first pitched a research paper to my supervisors without their guidance. I posed some hypotheses and analyses, and pointed out a journal venue; once approved by my supervisors, I worked hard over a month to write up the work, and it was published! That was the first time I felt like an independent researcher.
How did you deal with failures during your research?
I found the support of colleagues and other early career researchers invaluable.
I was fortunate enough that my partner was working from home (during the covid lockdown, and afterwards) with me, and that he is a data scientist! So I was able to seek advice and support relatively quickly whenever I faced a technical challenge.
Broadly though, I’d say that speaking with others working on similar research is extremely useful for comparing methodologies, highlighting relevant research, or just bouncing ideas back and forth to work through issues.
Was the PhD stressful? If so, how did you handle the stress?
I didn’t find the research stressful at all, I enjoyed the feeling of independence and being left to my own devices to work things out. I had stresses in my personal life which bled over into my work, however, and I will be the first to admit I’m not very good at taking time off when I need it!
However, I have learned that supervisors and the university in general are very receptive to these things, and taking leave to restore balance in life is both a necessity and highly encouraged.
PhD Completion and Beyond
How was your viva experience?
My viva lasted much longer than I anticipated, around 4 hours in total. It took place online with a few technical difficulties which were of course unexpected. The overall process wasn’t stressful, just long! I had minor corrections, all of which were reasonable.
What have you been up to since finishing your PhD? Do you have a career path in mind?
I work as a postdoc in the Digital Footprints Lab at Bristol University.
I started about a month after I handed in my thesis (and before my viva). I work on using shopping data to unlock insights into population health, for example, tracking laxative use for weight loss, and looking at changes in alcohol intake during and after COVID-19.
I plan to stay in academia as long as I can!
How was the transition from being a PhD student to your current role?
The transition was interesting – I became very used to working independently during my PhD, and it was an adjustment to begin working collaboratively as part of a team again!
I love the growing sense of responsibility, however, and the range of projects and opportunities that are open to me.
Has your PhD helped in your current role?
Absolutely – I gained a lot of knowledge across a range of data science techniques, data cleaning, and management which I can quickly replicate in my new work (which is a different topic and data type completely!).
In hindsight, would you choose to do a PhD again?
I’d more than happily do it all again!
I found the whole PhD to be relatively stress free and I really enjoyed feeling the tangible transition to an independent researcher – developing my own projects and hypotheses by the end.
I also enjoyed the freedom to explore new techniques and methodologies, and to attend conferences and workshops to expand my network and knowledge.
Thank you so much to Romana for sharing her PhD story. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it together with Romana. As a reminder, you can find Romana on LinkedIn. If you’d like to share your own PhD story with our community please do reach out to me.
Previous PhD Profiles are available here and you can subscribe below to be notified of new posts and gain access to the Savvy Scientist resource library.
