The PhD Life Raft Podcast

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang was one of my first guests on the podcast.  His book Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less is one that I regularly recommend to PhD researchers.   Alex is a visiting scholar in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at Stanford University.  He is also the founder of Strategy and Rest , a consultancy advising companies on how to implement 4-day weeks. It's t...

Usman Sikander is originally from Pakistan and moved to the UK to do a PhD in Advanced Composites (aerospace engineering) at the University of Bristol. He is currently writing up his thesis and working as a Teaching Assistant (TA) and a Chief Resident (C/SR) within the university.     In this episode Usman shares his top tips for surviving your PhD - particularly as an international student but th...

Dr Petra Boynton is an Agony Aunt and Social Psychologist.  She specialises in International Health Research from a Critical Perspective.  Her books include The Research Companion and Being Well in Academia. In this episode Petra begins by reflecting on her journey through her self-funded PhD.   We then address the issue of bullying in academia.   We talk about Petra's own experience of witnessing...

A 2021 survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education found that almost 70% of US faculty members were experiencing a level of burnout.  Stress and burnout are certainly very common in the academy and the pandemic has only made that worse.  In this episode Nicole Janz, writer, scholar and coach, discusses her own experience of burnout within the university and what she learnt from it.   We talk about...

After a life changing event with breast cancer, Annie French enrolled onto an Art foundation course and has never looked back.  She discovered a passion for creativity and a love of research that is leading her into a PhD. Parallel to this, Annie's yoga practice has sustained her and help her deal with the stresses and challenges that has come her way. In this episode we talk about the particular...

This week's episode is a little bit different…   As I look forward to welcoming you to The PhD Life Raft Summit (25th-29th April) I wanted to share a little bit about my story and why I do what I do…   I talk about the passion to explore my subject which brought me back into academia and the challenges to my mental health that I experienced through my 5 years as a PhD student.   I also stress the...

It's the final episode of the season!!   This episode focuses on Robert Romanyshyn's book The Wounded Researcher: Research with Soul in Mind.  This text looks at the subconscious processes at play in the research  process - from how research is a vocation to dreams as a route to revelation.  It opens up an alternative approach to the PhD journey and offers a range of strategies for engaging with r...

Jessamy Gleeson currently works as a Senior Lecturer within the National Indigenous Knowledges Education Research Innovation (NIKERI) Institute at Deakin University. She has also worked at Monash University within the Art, Design, and Architecture department, and at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne. Her PhD, from Swinburne University, was focused on contemporary forms of feminist acti...

I know that many people can relate to thinking "I'm not smart enough to finish this PhD" .  This inner critical voice can, in itself, be paralysing and feed into a downward spiral where lack of progress feeds self-doubt which leads to lack of progress which feeds self doubt and so on and so painful…   This week's episode is a positivity pep-talk from Kaylie Zapanta a current doctoral candidate at...

Ires Ghelien is a health care psychologist from Holland who draws on her own experience as a PhD researcher to help others navigate the PhD journey.  In this episode we dive into her story of burnout and what she discovered through recovery about doing the PhD her own way!   Ires talks about the importance of mindset and of approaching things as an experiment.   She also shares some thoughts about...

Kaelyn Grace Apple is a second year combined PhD student in the Department of History and African American Studies at Yale.  One of her passions is demystifying academia and providing access routes to higher education and, as part of this work, she launched her own You Tube channel TheRedHeadAcademic.   In this episode we Kaelyn shares her story - from not wanting to go to college at all to wantin...

We all have that inner critical voice and this week's guest is going to help us deal with it!   Amy Boyd was a K-12 educational leader who wrote her dissertation part-time while working.  The challenges she experienced on her own journey led to her working to support other women in their doctoral studies.   In this episode we talk about perfectionist tendencies and how to overcome them.   We explo...

Sajni Haria is a research fellow scientist and entrepreneurial lead in a Chemistry research group at the University of Birmingham. She recently completed her PhD, where she designed and developed luminescent materials beneficial for targeted cancer therapy and enhanced diagnosis. Taking on multiple workstreams, with the added pressures of a PhD she found herself experiencing a rollercoaster of emo...

Dr Rachel Marsh has a PhD in satire and teaches in the Humanities with the Open University. She is also the lead academic for the Online Pre-PhD Programme with Oxford International. Rachel has previously worked at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Dundee, and the University of St Andrews, helping international students at all levels develop critical skill sets.   In this episode we di...

This week's guest is David Vincent , Emeritus Professor of Social History at the Open University where he was Pro Vice Chancellor from 2003 to 2010. He obtained an undergraduate degree in History and Politics from the University of York, and a PhD from Cambridge University.  In this episode we talk about David's experience of the PhD and his decision to fire his original PhD supervisor!   David ha...

This week's episode is both inspirational and a cautionary tale.  Catherine Pope was awarded her PhD by the University of Sussex in 2014. She talks about her own PhD experience both in terms of how she utilised her professional project-management skills within her doctoral journey but also how her own health was compromised as she undertook studying alongside full-time work.   Catherine went strai...

Welcome to Season Five!!    What better way to start than with ABBA?!   This week's guest Shanika Ranasinghe is a fourth-year part-time ethnomusicology PhD student in the Department of Music – Royal Holloway, University of London.  Her thesis constitutes an ethnographic study of twenty-first century ABBA fandom.     In this episode we discuss how ABBA's recent reform led Shanika to re-think her Ph...

In the great tradition of British TV we are re-running our Christmas special ! This episode has not one, but two guests!   Chloé Bradwell is a Drama practitioner and SWW DTP funded PhD candidate at the University of Exeter and Aberystwyth University and Rachel Hopkin is a full-time, TECHNE funded PhD in the Media Arts department at Royal Holloway.  Like Chloé she has returned to study after experi...

This week we are welcoming back the marvellous Allan Kilner-Johnson!  Allan is mindfulness meditation teacher alongside his work as a Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Associate Dean of Postgraduate Research at the University of Surrey.   Allan talks us through the importance of the process of review within his own academic life.  We talk about how academia can be very forward-focused and...

This week's episode focuses on 'finding your voice' - both in terms of having confidence to speak about your work but also the process of discovering a way of writing about your research ideas.     Our guest is Rebecca McCutcheon, a director and practice-led researcher, working across site-based practice, feminist performance and feminist theatre history.      Becs talks about her own journey into...

This week's guest is Alison Miller AKA The Dissertation Coach.  Alison created 'The Academic Writers' Space' to provide structure and support doctoral students and academics and then, in 2000, she developed this work through The Dissertation Coach which provides programmes and specialist coaching for researchers.     In this episode Alison talks about her own experience of imposter syndrome during...

This week we are talking to Lisa Munro who specialises in helping academic writers through writing retreats, workshops, coaching, and editing.    Lisa talks about her journey into and through her PhD .  She also discusses how this led to her current work and business.   We discuss how to avoid the shame and fear that writing can bring up and to look to cultivate joyful writing practices instead.  ...

This week's guest is the fabulous Tara Brabazon.  Tara is the dean of graduate research and professor of cultural studies at Flinders University , Australia; a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce ; and director of the Popular Culture Collective .    Tara has a fabulous YouTube channel with a wealth of advice for postgraduate researchers covering a who...

Dr Sarita Robinson (aka Dr Survival®) has spent the last 20 years researching how people respond to life-threatening situations. Using a psychobiological approach, Sarita has explored human behaviour in relation to preparedness, cognitive and physiological responses during stressful events, and recovery from trauma.    In this episode Sarita applies what she has learnt from her survival research t...

This week's guest is Dr Juliane Borchert, an experimental physicist, occasional poet, and gardening enthusiast! She studied in Berlin, Halle (Saale), Groningen, and Oxford. She was awarded a DPhil in Condensed Matter Physics from the University of Oxford and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge and AMOLF institute in Amsterdam. Her research focuses on novel materials for...