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Nathan

Episode 25: Dr Nathan Ryder

Episode

No, that’s not a mistake in the title! For this episode I asked my good friend Dr David McGrogan (who you might remember from Episode 16) to interview me about my PhD and viva. I’ve mentioned bits and pieces about my doctoral experiences over the previous twenty-four episodes, but thought it might be interesting to talk about the viva as a whole. In the autumn it will be ten years since I started my PhD at the University of Liverpool, and so it seemed like a good sort of time to look back and reflect. I hope you find it interesting!

Just in case you don’t know, when I’m not doing the podcast I work freelance as a skills trainer in Higher Education, working primarily with postgraduate researchers all over the UK (and soon, the world!). In the last few years I’ve met close to a thousand PGRs on a workshop that I deliver called Viva Survivor, which was the inspiration for this podcast. In turn, that workshop inspired me to write Fail Your Viva, a book about viva preparation (despite the title!).

So that’s what I do in a nutshell! If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode then please get in touch: comment on a post, email me or tweet away!

Thanks for listening,

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Nathan

Episode 23: Dr Peter Rowlett

Podcast

In this episode I’m talking to Dr Peter Rowlett, who recently completed his PhD at Nottingham Trent University.  Peter’s research was multidisciplinary and was in the areas of computing and maths education; he did his PhD part time as well, and so we had a lot to talk about for this episode! You can find Peter on Twitter at @peterrowlett.

We’re heading towards twenty-five episodes… I wonder if we’ll have something a bit different to mark the 25th? Maybe!

At the time of writing my research into the viva experiences of PhD graduates in the UK is ongoing, and if you’re able to share your experiences (by answering seven quick questions) or if you’re able to share the survey with others you would be helping me a lot. The survey is here: tinyurl.com/VivaSurvivorsSurvey. Thanks!

As ever, if you have questions or comments then please get in touch, it would be great to hear from you. Leave a comment on any of the posts, email me or tweet me.

More posts coming soon!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Nathan

Episode 7: Dr Andy Hoyle and Dr Louise Hoyle

Episode, Podcast

In this episode I talk to some married friends of mine, the Drs Hoyle! Dr Andy Hoyle graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2006 with a PhD in Mathematical Biology; Dr Louise Hoyle finished her postgraduate research this year, completing her PhD in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Stirling.

We’ve been trying to arrange an interview time for a while now; I thought it would be really interesting to chat with them about their research and also about their experience of having a partner who was doing postgraduate research. It was lots of fun talking to Andy and Louise, I hope you enjoy listening to it. They had lots of good advice for both the PhD and the viva.

Episode 8 should be along in the next few weeks; I’m still looking for interesting ideas for future podcasts and interviewees. Drop me an email, leave comments on the episodes and make sure you’re following the Twitter feed for announcements: @VivaSurvivors.

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Nathan

Episode 6: Dr Helena Mihaljevic-Brandt

Episode, Podcast

In this episode I’m talking with Dr Helena Mihaljevic-Brandt, a PhD maths graduate who did her research at the University of Liverpool and now lives in Berlin. She works as an editor for Zentralblatt MATH, an online reviewing database of mathematics papers. Helena’s research area was holomorphic dynamics – I know a little about that because she used to sit at the next desk to mine at Liverpool!

It has been a few years since I last caught up properly with Helena, and it was great to do so for Viva Survivors. I was really interested to hear her perspective and her PhD journey; I was curious about what it was like for her to do her postgraduate research in a foreign country, and what it was like to then return home to take up a research post.

I hope you enjoy Helena’s podcast as much as I did recording it with her! Check back soon on Viva Survivors for more podcasts and maybe a couple of surprises; as always, please feel free to leave comments or drop me an email, and make sure you’re following the site’s Twitter feed for updates and announcements: @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 1: Dr Shaine Bushell

Episode, Podcast

In the first episode of Viva Survivors I’m talking with Dr Shaine Bushell, PhD maths graduate of the University of Liverpool and now the Mathematics Enhancement Course Leader at the University of Chester.

Shaine and I were officemates during my PhD, and we’ve remained close friends ever since. It was great to interview him for Viva Survivors, and really interesting to hear the story of how he came to be a researcher, how he prepared for his viva, what happened and what he has been doing since then.

Episode 2 of Viva Survivors is up right now! For details of future episodes, be sure to follow us on Twitter: @VivaSurvivors.

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