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Nathan

Episode 61: Dr Tom Mitchell

Episode

Hello!

In this episode I’m talking to Dr Tom Mitchell, who had his viva in February this year. Tom’s research is in sport psychology, and he looked at the concept of identity in English professional football. He did his PhD part time at Liverpool John Moores University, and is now a Senior Lecturer in Sport Coaching at Leeds Beckett University.

Get in touch if you’d like to join me on a future episode, it’s always great to hear from people who want to share their PhD and viva experiences. If you have any questions or ideas then email me, tweet at me or comment on this post. And check out my ebooks and books on viva preparation, like The Viva Prep Handbook which came out last month!

Thanks for reading!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Nathan

Episode 33: Dr Helen Kara

Episode

In the first episode of 2015, I’m very happy to be interviewing Dr Helen Kara, who is an independent researcher and director of We Research It Ltd. Helen completed her PhD on the emotion work of managers of Sure Start Children’s Centre, and it was great to talk to her about this – and of course her viva – but also her experience of starting a PhD following several years of being a researcher.

Helen has written a book on research methods, as well as several short guides on aspects of doing research. You can find her Amazon author page here. Feel free to leave comments or ask questions on this post, or you can get in touch by tweeting @VivaSurvivors or emailing me! I’m looking for more interviewees to share their PhD and viva stories this year, as well as people happy to talk about academic life or being an examiner. Please get in touch!

Thanks for listening! (and reading!)

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Nathan

Episode 28: Dr Anthony Whittaker

Podcast

In this episode I talk to Dr Anthony Whittaker, whose PhD research produced a portfolio of original music compositions along with a commentary on the work. It was really interesting talking to Tony – fascinating because his experience of research was so different to my own. As with all of the other episodes of the Viva Survivors Podcast, we talked about the viva as well, how Tony prepared for it and what happened on the day.

Please leave comments about this episode on this post, or if you have questions then email me or tweet @VivaSurvivors. There are now quite a few more episodes lined up between now and the end of the year – including another Academic Jobs Special which will be the next episode. There may be other interesting news about the podcast in the near future, so follow me on Twitter to keep up to date.

Thanks for listening!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Nathan

Episode 24: Dr Pooky Knightsmith

Episode

In this episode I’m talking with Dr Pooky Knightsmith, who recently completed her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London. Pooky was working in child and adolescent mental health for several years before her PhD, and continued to work in that area during the seven years that she did her research. It was really interesting to hear about Pooky’s journey, and to hear about what she has planned next. She is a speaker, trainer and author in her field, and you can find out more about what she does at In Our Hands. She’s also on Twitter as @PookyH.

The next episode is scheduled to be up on May 1st! As it is Episode 25 there will be something a little different… If you have any questions or comments then please get in touch, either via the site, by email or by tweeting at me. It would be really great to hear from people who are interested in coming on the podcast: if we’ve corresponded before and for one reason or another not arranged something then please get in touch again and we’ll set something up!

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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