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Month: July 2012

Nathan

Episode 5: Dr Ben Libberton

Episode, Podcast

In this episode I’m talking with Dr Ben Libberton, who runs the website Literature Review HQ. Ben completed his PhD in Microbial Ecology last year, and recently graduated from the University of Liverpool. As well as running his site, he holds a post-doc in Electrical Engineering.

It was great chatting with Ben, particularly because of his continuing interest in things relating to postgraduate researchers. His site has some great resources, so please go and check it out. He’s also on Twitter: @litreviewhq.

Viva Survivors will be back soon with another episode! I have several interviewees in the pipeline, including a couple which will make for slightly out of the ordinary podcasts. If you have ideas and thoughts for future episodes, even for doing something different (whatever that might be!) then please get in touch. As ever, follow me on Twitter at @VivaSurvivors.

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Nathan

Episode 4: Dr Julia Collins

Episode, Podcast

EDIT: I had the wrong link to Julia and Haggis’s blog in both the podcast and in this post! D’oh! Sorry about that everyone. I’ve corrected it now. Big thanks to Colin Wright for spotting it and letting me know.

Two podcasts in under a week! It’s almost like it’s your birthday!

In Episode 4 I have a chat with Dr Julia Collins, who had her viva in 2011. She got her PhD in maths (in the same field as me) from the University of Edinburgh. Since completing her PhD, Julia has had the position of Mathematics Engagement Officer at Edinburgh. Her stuffed sheep Haggis blogs about maths and science communication here and you can follow them both on Twitter: @haggismaths. It was great to talk to Julia about her PhD and viva; we met several years ago at various conferences, and were both doing research in the same branch of maths.

Note that there is a slight echo on the podcast audio; sorry about that! I forgot to plug in my headphones when we were recording, and it only became apparent towards the end. I’ll watch out for that more on future recordings!

Please share Viva Survivors with friends, family, colleagues, peers, anyone and everyone! If you have comments about the podcasts or questions about the viva then please get in touch, maybe they are things that I can explore in future podcasts. I’m always looking for more people to interview too.

And as ever, we’re on Twitter: @VivaSurvivors.

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Nathan

Episode 3: Dr Jennifer Cromwell

Episode, Podcast

After a delay of several weeks Viva Survivors is back!

In Episode 3 I talk with Dr Jennifer Cromwell, who earned her PhD in Egyptology from the University of Liverpool in 2008. Jenny is a Macquarie University Research Fellow at Macquarie University in Sydney, and we had our conversation with a nine hour time difference! Jenny had lots to say about her experience as a postgraduate researcher and a really interesting viva story.

I was really interested to hear about her experience as an early career researcher, and she shared some valuable insights from her career so far.

Keep checking back for details of the next episode of Viva Survivors, which will be up hopefully by the weekend! You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @VivaSurvivors – and please RT and share the podcast and site with others that you think will be interested.

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