Research lives and cultures

Dr Cristiano Malossi left his beautiful Italy to do a PhD in Switzerland. He comes from an engineering background and gained a PhD in mathematics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. His stellar path led him to get a position at IBM after his PhD and he has stayed there ever since. I was interested in hearing about his collaboration experiences in the world of industry. List...

In this episode, I discuss with Natacha Wilson, who is like myself a research developer.  We are both French. We have both lived and worked in the UK for a very long time.  We both love our work supporting researchers. We are both fascinated by organisational work cultures. In French, there is an expression that says "refaire le monde" which would literally mean remaking the world. In th...

Briony is a senior lecturer in the Information School at The University of Sheffield. A commitment to doing research that contributes to giving voice to an area of public life often brushed aside, has fuelled her research motivation. Adapting her professional goals and work patterns to her family reality have been part of her academic resilience. It was her experience supporting researchers, when...

Dr Narine Hall is an Assistant Professor and Program Director in Data Science at Champlain College (USA) in Vermont. Her experience in industry and start-ups has been key in innovating tools for educators during the pandemic.  Experiencing the frustration of more limited interactions with her students during tutorials at the beginning of the pandemic, Narine put into action her entrepreneurial and...

Dr Marta Milo is a research scientist who has demonstrated her courage in different ways, by working in a male dominated discipline, by retraining as a biologist and by daring to leave the relative stability of an academic position to embrace a new career in industry. Her ethos in building her career is based on a deep sense of curiosity and a desire to build trusting collaborations. Her aspiratio...

Dr Katharina Jähn-Rickert discuss with Dr Sandrine Soubes about collaboration. Not many people can say that they have had one of their experiments taken into space. Whilst Katharina did not get onto the astronomer career track, it did not stop her from having some of her experiments on bone biology make it into space. I ask Katharina to reflect on her approaches to initiating and developing collab...

Dr Curtis Asante is Associate Director of Members' Programmes at the Microbiology Society.  He spent some time in the US as a Postdoc, before embarking in his post-research journey; this has taking him from working as an editor in a prestigious scientific journal to being a project manager for a research network (UKRMP),  a research funder (Research Cancer UK) and a learned society (Microbiol...

Dr Doris Tran is an engineer working in the biomedical field. After an industry-funded PhD, she quickly transitioned to working in industry. Like many PhD graduates, she also had a period of asking herself whether she should do a Postdoc or move into industry. When I asked her what PhD students should do to be able to move more easily into industry, she felt that PhDs are already doing quite enoug...

Many researchers ask themselves how they may know what the right time is to move into industry after a research career in academia. There is probably not a single right answer as it will completely depends on your experiences and context. Dr Nicolas Bonnet is someone who has recently made the jump and who is keen to create close connections between academic and industrial research. He shares with...

Dr Amy Lam is an intellectual property and commercialisation specialist for medical and life sciences, who made the leap from working as a neuroscience researcher. She has now extensive experience in her field. She reflects on the past, the choices she made and her transition into IP. Through listening to our discussion, you will be able to think about:   ·      Why asking the question “What are y...

Dr Robin Morton works as science communication manager at the University of Edinburgh at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine in the Institute for Regeneration and Repair. Robin started his research career as a scientist working in neuroscience for his PhD, then doing a Postdoc in learning and memory. Robin then “jumped into industry” for several years before returning to an academic environment,...

Grant writing is a pillar of any research life. Convincing funders to give you the cash to work on what interests you is a painful process. Building resilience in the process of grant writing is a must to thrive in research. In this interview, I ask Marysia what her own approach has been to get started with grant writing. Based on her extensive experience as a research leader, I ask her how she ad...

You would think that starting your 1st fellowship straight out of your PhD with a PI who has just left for a sabbatical could be quite challenging and frustrating. It turns out that for Ralph this perceived challenge became a massive learning opportunity.  He learned to build a team without the classical hierarchy observed in most labs. This influential experience shaped his perception of what it...

When Postdocs transition into lectureship positions, there is often an expectation about the pace at which one owe to build a research group. Having the confidence to hold on your fire and say- hang on a minute…I just need to follow a pace that we will work for me and the way I want to be able to support my students. Well, that’s exactly what my Podcast guest did when she started her lectureship p...

Dr Jill Shepherd is a stem cell scientist who lectures at the University of Kent. I met Jill when she was a PhD student at the University of Sheffield. Since then she has worked in Australia as a Postdoc, and back in the UK, she had a period as a consultant working on a bioinformatic project for stem cell science. A defining time in her professional life was the period she spent working in science...

Julianna Kayaga- Sseremba or Kaya is an organisational psychologist working as a consultant and  is also a Founding Partner at Strategic Engagement Limited. Kaya is planning to do a PhD very soon, but she is already involved in the NEMRA researcher network. She shares with her us some of her experiences working with businesses where she is tackling organisational practices that may hinder the part...

When Loice Natukunda decided to start a PhD at The University of Sheffield, she probably did not know that a few years down the line, her ambition would be to revolutionise researcher development in Uganda. Well that’s exactly what she is aspiring to do now. She has already started on her mission through her leadership role in developing an early career researcher network (NEMRA) which has been bu...

  Hadijah Yahyah is an Ugandan expert in Environmental & Natural Resources Law. She is part of a new breed of interdisciplinary law professionals with an interest in ecological issues. She has a Bachelor of Laws Degree (LLB) from Makerere University, and a Master of Laws in Natural Resources Law from Kampala International University.  She has working experience in legal and policy research in...

Professor Martina Rauner is a scientist working in Molecular Bone Biology at Technische Universität Dresden in Germany. She is the Scientific Director of Bone Lab working with a large team of PhD students, Postdocs, technicians and clinicians. She is part of the Fidelio ITN network (https://www.fidelio-project.eu/).   She shares her experience of being a research group leader.   https://www.bone-l...

Dr Toby Gould is an innovation and commercialisation expert with a background in tissue engineering, who is now working for Horizon Discovery. He started his research career working with stem cells during his PhD with the EPSRC Regenerative Medicine Doctoral Training Centre at the University of Nottingham.  His experience working closely with a surgeon was a catalyst in realising the criticality o...

Rachel Dwyer is Head of Faculty Research Support for Medicine, Dentistry and Health in Research Services at The University of Sheffield.   Who do you turn to in your institution when you are trying to figure out what types of research funding are available for you and how to go about applying for research funding? Universities are complex institutions so figuring out who is there to help you in na...

Asiimwe JoyTu is a lecturer at Uganda Christian University.  Doing a PhD in Uganda is not something you are likely to move into straight after your Bachelor degree or even a Master. It may take many years of professional practice before being in a context where your personal and professional situation make such undertaking a feasible step. In this interview, Assimwe JoyTu shares her story into doc...

In this interview, Dr Sandrine Soubes question Prof. Roger Barker about his approach to seeking research funding and what he has learned over the years as a reviewer of research grant and fellowships applications.   Bio Prof. Roger Barker is a clinician working as Professor of Clinical Neuroscience on Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at th...

Dr Yvonne Reinwald is a senior Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. Her research focuses on the evaluation of the performance of bioreactors for tissue engineering and clinical application. During our discussion, we did not talk about her research but about how she had navigated her research career. I was fascinated by how daring she had been throughout her...

Dr Sandrine Soubes from Tesselle Development interviews Dr Christine Mwebesa from Uganda who is part of the NEMRA network (The Network for education and multidisciplinary research Africa). More info here: https://www.nemraafrica.org/  Christine is a PhD graduate from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. NEMRA is an independent group of early career and senior academic researchers, prac...