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Approximately 4,500 postgraduate research students are registered at King’s, drawn from all parts around the world and researching across all disciplines. Each year, hundreds of PGRs complete their degrees and graduate with a doctorate, going on to become leaders in academia, research, industry, and beyond.

The King’s Doctoral College introduced the Doctoral Researcher Support Excellence award in 2023 to recognise all the members of staff who make important contributions to doctoral student success but aren’t one of a doctoral student’s primary supervisors.

This year’s winners of the Doctoral Support award are; Dr Lucien Heurtier (NMES), Professor Helen Fisher (IoPPN) and Boma Campbell (FoLSM). This year’s winners represent the broad range of staff at King’s who support doctoral researchers’ success, with a member of research (Dr Heurtier), academic (Prof Fisher) and professional services staff (Boma Campbell) all being selected due to their significant impacts on supporting doctoral students.

The winners receive £1000 to use on their professional development and a certificate signed by the Vice-Chancellor of King’s College London, Professor Shitij Kapur.

Below are some highlights from their nominations and comments from the winners.

Dr Lucien Heurtier, Research Associate, Physics (NMES)

A short quote from Lucien’s nomination:

“Beyond the realm of academic supervision, Dr Heurtier has demonstrated exceptional care to PhDs. His enthusiasm for the personal and professional development of PhDs is truly appreciable. His proactive engagement includes providing invaluable advice during job searches and teaching all PhDs in the group to build personal websites that enhance their professional profiles. His empathy and availability during challenging times ensure that PhDs feel valued and supported, contributing to a positive and nurturing academic environment.”

From Lucien about winning the award:

“As a postgraduate student and even as an early career researcher, I often lacked support from professors and colleagues when facing the many obstacles one encounters in academia. It always struck me that more experienced professionals usually forget how hard it was when they were younger and I promised myself to never forget, and to always help younger peers and share my experience with them as much as I can.  Beyond a simple academic distinction, this award thus means a lot to me: it is a token that I managed to never forget.”

Professor Helen Fisher, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology in the SGDP Centre and ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health IoPPN)

Some short quotes from Helen’s nomination:

“She is incredibly generous with her time and is proactive in her approach to supporting PGRs (those who she doesn’t supervise directly). This includes, for example, feedback on draft chapters, fellowship applications, job applications, and papers; a monthly ‘ask me anything’ initiative; signposting to development and other opportunities; SO many mocks (vivas, upgrade vivas, job/fellowship interviews); and a training programme that spans a wide range of topics – from impact and media engagement to grant writing and research governance – that’s freely 
available for all Centre-affiliated PGRs to attend.

Helen is a spectacular human being and team player. She is always looking out for opportunities for capacity building and to showcase students’ work and strengths to make them shine…Helen is key to creating a safe and supported learning environment for our PGRs at the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health. I cannot think of anyone more deserving of this award.'”

And a short comment from Helen: “The absolute favourite part of my job is supporting junior researchers at King’s to thrive! Therefore, I’m extremely honoured to receive this particular award.”

Boma Campbell, Faculty Operations Officer (Research & Impact) (FoLSM)

Here is a short quote from Boma’s nomination:

“…Boma has been instrumental to bringing together support for PGR students within a very large and complex faculty that is FoLSM. She works very independently and reaches out to all the relevant teams across KCL to build relationships and get things done. Boma works with a continuous improvement mindset, consistently reviewing the processes for both students and staff – trying to streamline the processes to minimise the stress for both.

Boma makes a huge impact on the support we can offer to PGR students in FoLSM , from taking on safeguarding , managing support for study meetings and holding their hands during the induction process. She also heavily supports our clinical PGR with research passports and makes sure that PGR who need occupational health and/or DBS checks are supported in getting access to these facilities. This kind of activity makes a huge difference to individuals as they join the Kings PGR community.”

and a comment from Boma about winning:

“I was pleased to have been nominated for Doctoral Researcher Support Excellence award. To win has been a pleasant surprise and very encouraging. Thank you! I hope to continue to develop postgraduate research support across the Faculty and to work with central University teams to increase the profile of doctoral research.”

For staff and students at King’s you can find more details about the award on the King’s Doctoral College hub SharePoint: Doctoral Support Award

Congratulations to the first round of winners of the 23/24 King’s Outstanding Thesis Prize!

Each year a limited number of awards are given to celebrate truly outstanding research and theses completed by King’s doctoral students. The prizes are nominated by the external examiners and are judged by a panel consisting of the College’s Director of Research Talent and the Chair of the Research Degrees Examinations Board. There are two rounds, in January and June, and these are the winners from the first round in January 2024.

Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine

Dr Alice Beardmore-Gray

My journey in research began with my passion for improving women’s health, particularly in regions of the world where the maternal mortality rate remains unacceptably high (800 women die every day due to pregnancy related causes, and 95% of these deaths occur in low and middle income countries). Specialising in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, I realised that research is one of the most powerful tools we have to improve our clinical practice, and ultimately save lives. I was lucky enough to meet my brilliant supervisors (Prof Andrew Shennan and Prof Lucy Chappell) during the early stages of my clinical training, and this led to my PhD which evaluated the best time to offer birth to women with late preterm pre-eclampsia living in India and Zambia. Our trial, The CRADLE-4 Trial, found that planned early delivery significantly reduced the risk of stillbirth in this population, and was published in The Lancet (https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00688-8). We have produced a short film about the trial (https://vimeo.com/879385985), which has also recently been featured in The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/early-births-between-34-and-37-weeks-for-moms-with-pre-eclampsia-can-reduce-baby-and-mother-deaths-210301). I was awarded the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Harold Malkin Prize in 2023 in recognition of this work, and I’m excited to continue my journey in clinical academia, as I embark upon a King’s Health Partners Post-Doctoral Fellowship, aiming to better understand pre-eclampsia associated acute kidney injury in low income countries. I’m incredibly grateful for the support and encouragement I have received along the way, and very proud to be a member of the KCL community.

If you would like to find out more about Alice’s continuing research then you can find her on Twitter: @alicebgray

 

Dr Michelle Gibbs

I am honoured and grateful to have been awarded an Outstanding Thesis Prize for my PhD in Nutritional Sciences. With the rollercoaster journey that my PhD was, with multiple maternity breaks and the COVID-19 pandemic interruptions, I am incredibly proud of what I was able to achieve. I am eternally grateful for the guidance and unwavering support of my PhD supervisors. I also offer my heartfelt gratitude to the patients, dietitians and key stakeholders, who participated in this research to make it such a success. Thanks also to my funder – without the financial support of The Dunhill Medical Trust via their Research Training Fellowship scheme, my PhD would not have been possible. To my husband and our three children, thank you for being an oasis of unconditional love, support and inspiration throughout my PhD journey.

After completing my BSc, MSc, PGDip, and MRes, I knew I wanted to pursue a PhD and developed my research ideas while I was working as a Dietitian in clinical practice in the NHS. My professional interests in malnutrition and oral nutritional support led me to ask key questions about how, why, for whom, and to what extent dietetic consultations worked, how they were experienced by nutritionally vulnerable older adults and other key stakeholders and how their value was perceived. These questions led me to use a convergent parallel mixed method approach to develop a novel programme theory for dietetic consultations that explained their underlying causal mechanisms, contextual influences and how they worked to generate outcomes, as well as understand how oral nutritional support consultations were experienced by older adult patients, their carers and the consulting dietitians, in various clinical contexts.

Since finishing my PhD, I’ve been putting my research knowledge and skills to good use in my current NHS role. I also continue to support student dietitian training at KCL. I am grateful for the opportunity to advance my clinical academic career in dietetics, with exciting post-doctoral plans to advance the body of work I began during my PhD. Further to this, I am engaged in various forms of dissemination at both local and international levels. Overall, I am grateful to be able to do purposeful work, both within and beyond academia, that contributes to improving the lives of others.

If you’d like to see more about Michelle’s current research you can follow her on Twitter here: @drmichellegibbs 

Dr Mathieu Ruthven

I am delighted and honoured to receive a King’s Outstanding Thesis Prize. I am grateful to my PhD thesis examiners Prof António Teixeira and Dr Chris Carignan for the award nomination, my supervisors Dr Andy King and Dr Marc Miquel for their guidance and support throughout my time at King’s, and Health Education England (HEE) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) for funding my PhD.

Prior to starting a PhD, I worked as a medical physicist specialised in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging at Barts Health NHS Trust. As a health and care professional, I was eligible to apply for a HEE-NIHR Doctoral Clinical and Practitioner Academic Fellowship which enabled me to undertake a PhD while continuing my professional practice and development. My PhD was clinically focused and multidisciplinary, at the interface of MR imaging, artificial intelligence (AI) and clinical assessment of speech. Its ultimate goal was to improve the clinical management and treatment of patients with velopharyngeal insufficiency. The main contributions of my PhD towards this goal were the development of AI-based methods to automatically extract clinically relevant information from MR images of the vocal tract, and creating and making publicly available a dataset to enable others to develop similar methods. More information about the methods and dataset is available in the following journal articles: Ruthven et al. (2021), Ruthven et al. (2023a), Ruthven et al. (2023b).

The outputs of my PhD laid some of the foundations for a successful research funding grant application to Barts Charity. This funding has enabled further research to refine and extend the techniques and bring them closer to clinical translation.

If you would like to find out more about Mathieu’s research you can find him on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthieu-ruthven/

Dr Maria Ibrahim

I am honoured to have received this Outstanding Thesis Prize from King’s. My PhD looked at deceased donor kidney transplantation in the UK. I examined how organs from deceased donors with perceived higher risk characteristics were utilised by UK transplant clinicians, and subsequent patient outcomes using UK transplant registry data. Globally, this is an important issue, as deceased donors become older, with more co-morbidities, thus posing a risk of poor long-term outcomes to potential recipients.

I am a nephrologist by training, and though this gave me an insight into the clinical application of my work, I learnt statistical skills and coding in order to analyse data from the NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) registry.

My thesis has resulted in three first author publications (PMID 31758833, 32690721, and 36706063) and I was able to contribute to a further five papers (PMID 36066902, 35185366, 33870619, 33756062, and 34514110).

During the course of my PhD, I was able to identify that many perceptions around ‘higher risk’ organs are inaccurate, thus encouraging the broadening of the deceased donor pool and better outcomes for patients awaiting a transplant. I helped develop transplant outcome prediction tools, used extensively by UK transplant clinicians to support patient decision-making.

I have received the support of many individuals throughout the course of my thesis and am especially grateful to my examiners for their nomination, to the statistics and clinical studies team at NHSBT for their continual guidance, and to my supervisors Chris Callaghan, John Forsythe and Rachel Johnson for their unwavering faith in me.

Following my research time I am back to full time clinical work but hope to use the skills I have developed to pursue dual clinical and academic roles in the future.

 

Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience

Dr Johanna Keeler

I am thrilled to have been awarded a King’s Outstanding Thesis Prize and would like to thank my brilliant examiners for the nomination and for their thoughtful engagement with the thesis, my supervisors Dr Hubertus Himmerich and Professor Janet Treasure for their endless support and guidance, and the Medical Research Council for funding my research.

Prior to my time at KCL, I studied Psychology (Bsc, University of Exeter). Prior to that, my first job as an 18-year-old was working as a support worker in neurosurgical theatres, which sparked my interest in the workings of the brain and particularly in neuropsychology. My interests in neurobiology were further cemented during my undergraduate studies where I was fortunate to undertake some fantastic research placements that utilised methods and study designs including MRI, neuropsychology, and service evaluation/improvement work. Here I also co-founded an eating disorders peer support group for students. The experiences I had progressed my interests in the mind-body interface, translational research, and lived/living experience involvement, which had a huge influence on my PhD project.

My PhD thesis integrated several methodologies such as structural MRI, neuropsychology, investigations of inflammatory markers and growth factors, and qualitative methods, to examine brain changes in anorexia nervosa. A highlight of my research was translating basic research findings to the lived experience using qualitative methodology. I have disseminated these findings through delivering NHS training to a wide range of clinicians and am hoping to develop some psychoeducational resources for service users, clinicians and carers of people with eating disorders.

Several of the studies I conducted throughout my PhD were part of the groundwork that supported a grant application for a randomised controlled trial looking at the potential of oral ketamine to alleviate depressive symptoms in people with AN and treatment-resistant depression. We recently received funding for this project from the Medical Research Council, and I am currently employed as a postdoc at KCL to prepare the study which is scheduled to start in 2025.

You can find more about Johanna’s current research via her Twitter (@jhnnklr) or that of her team (@kingsedresearch) or via her research gate (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Johanna-Keeler) or Pure profiles (https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/johanna-keeler).

 

Dr Laura Sichlinger

I am honoured to have received the Outstanding Thesis Prize for my PhD research. My thesis, “A developmental perspective on ZNF804A gene function,” delved into the mechanisms of schizophrenia susceptibility and gene function in neurodevelopment. Under the guidance of Prof Deepak Srivastava and Prof Anthony Vernon, I explored the fascinating world of human-induced pluripotent stem cells and CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing, shedding light on ZNF804A’s contribution to synaptogenesis and local protein translation in neurodevelopment. I am immensely grateful for their mentorship and support throughout my doctoral journey.

Prior to pursuing my PhD, I completed an MSc in Neuroscience at KCL and a BA in Phonetics and Speech Processing at the University of Munich. These experiences laid the groundwork for my passion for neuroscience and brain disorders.

Currently, I am privileged to be a member of the Heller lab (lead by Prof Elizabeth Heller) at the University of Pennsylvania and the ENDD team at the Children’s hospital of Philadelphia, where we are dedicated to advancing gene-targeted therapies for rare neurodevelopmental disorders such as STXBP1 and SYNGAP1-related intellectual disability.

Beyond my research, I am committed to fostering inclusivity and equality in STEM. During my PhD I had the honour to be co-president of Women of the Wohl, a student-led equality network, advocating for the rights of womxn and marginalised groups in the scientific community. I believe that diversity is not only essential for scientific progress but also enriches the fabric of our society.

If you want to see more about Laura’s current research then you can find her on Twitter via @LSichlinger

Faculty of Law

Dr Farnush Ghadery

I’d like to thank the committee for awarding my PhD project the KCL Outstanding Thesis Prize. My research rests on the intellectual labour and commitment of feminist scholars and activists who paved the way and continue to struggle for freedom and equality across the world. In my thesis, I developed ‘transnational legal feminism’ as a methodology that argues for the contextualisation of international feminist legal praxis by being informed by local communities and forms of knowledge, which are often excluded from international fora. Focusing on Afghanistan, I attempted to demonstrate the important work that Afghan women’s rights activist have undertaken on the ground following the 2001 military invasion and how international legal and feminist practice should interact more with these actors and their practices. Completing the Transnational Law LLM at KCL before my PhD was instrumental in equipping me with the critical skills needed to undertake this work. The PhD was further made possible through the generous Dickson Poon Postgraduate Research Scholarship. I now work as a Senior Lecturer in Law at London South Bank University where I continue my research highlighting and challenging colonial, racialised, and gendered hierarchies in international law. I am currently working on my monograph based on the thesis. Most recently, I co-founded the Feminist Third World Approaches to International Collective which seeks to amplify scholarship and practice at the intersection of critical feminisms and international law as well as create a space of solidarity and support for those working in this field. I remain committed to the struggle for gender equality and have been active in the ongoing Woman, Life, Freedom movement for equality and freedom in Iran.

If you’d like to find out more about Farnush’s current research then please check out her LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/farnush-ghadery/

 

Faculty of Natural, Mechanical and Engineering Sciences

Dr Gergely Bodo

I feel honoured to have received the King’s Outstanding Thesis Prize for my research on Stochastic Analysis for Cylindrical Lévy Processes. This accomplishment would not have been possible without the exceptional guidance and support from my supervisor, Markus Riedle (Department of Mathematics).

Moreover, I am immensely grateful to my thesis examiners, Rama Cont (University of Oxford) and Stefan Geiss (University of Jyväskylä), not only for nominating me for this award, but also for showing a genuine interest in my research by providing insightful suggestions on possible directions for future work. Their mathematical expertise and careful reading of my thesis led to a rather stimulating discussion during my defence.

In my thesis, together with Professor Riedle, we laid down the theoretical foundations necessary for the successful application of cylindrical Lévy processes as models of random perturbations of infinite-dimensional systems. By developing a comprehensive theory of stochastic integration with respect to cylindrical Lévy processes, our work allowed for the generalisation of fundamental tools in stochastic analysis such as Itô’s formula or the stochastic dominated convergence theorem. These results paved the way for the consideration of stochastic evolution equations driven by cylindrical Lévy processes.

During my time as a PhD student at King’s, I was presented with numerous opportunities to explore the mathematical landscape by giving talks at international conferences, attending summer schools and going on research visits. I would like to thank the Department of Mathematics for making all of these financially feasible.

After finishing my PhD, I joined the stochastics group of the Korteweg-de Vries Instituut of the University of Amsterdam, where I am currently a postdoctoral researcher under the guidance of Sonja Cox.

Dr Yannic Rath

I feel very honored, and I am immensely grateful to be receiving the 2023/2024 King’s outstanding thesis award, which I very much see as a recognition of all the great work done in the group of my PhD supervisor Dr George Booth. I explicitly want to thank him, but also all other past and present collaborators, for providing outstanding support and a stimulating research platform to pursue highly interesting research questions. I also want to extend my gratitude to Prof. Andrew Green and Dr Stephen Clark for the examination of my thesis and nominating me for this award. 

My PhD at King’s College allowed me to build upon my great interest in studying scientific phenomena with computational approaches, which I developed in previous Physics and Computer Science courses at the Leibniz University Hannover and at Imperial College London. My PhD research focused on the development of novel computational tools to simulate the intricate interplay of particles on the quantum scale underpinning the characteristics of various types of matter. The sheer complexity of the quantum physical laws of nature limits accurate computational simulations, making suitable approximations necessary for tractable applications. Complementing a broad variety of algorithms tackling this long-standing task on various levels of abstraction, we were able to introduce a novel numerical toolbox expanding the predictive abilities of numerical simulations by bridging physical intuition with modern machine learning techniques. 

Building on the wonderful experience of my time at King’s College, I continue to follow my research interests as a computational scientist. I recently joined the National Physical Laboratory, where my focus remains the development of algorithms for the description, study, and utilization of quantum physical principles. I am looking forward to continuing studying interesting scientific questions, developing practical computational tools, and communicating research highlights to a broader community. 

 Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care

Dr Lesley Williamson

I am delighted and honoured to have been awarded one of the 2023/24 King’s Outstanding Thesis Prizes. I am hugely grateful to my examiners, Professor Susan Shenkin and Professor Bridget Johnston for their nomination, and my PhD supervisors, Professor Katherine Sleeman and Professor Catherine Evans for their support, guidance, and patience.

My thesis was generously funded by the Alzheimer’s Society, Cicley Saunders International, NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, and The Atlantic Philanthropies. It focuses on the determinants of emergency department (ED) attendance among people with dementia approaching the end of life. Mapped against the phases of a health programme planning model, I conducted a cohort study of routinely collected hospital and mortality data, a qualitative interview study with people living with dementia and current and bereaved caregivers, and a mixed methods integration to develop a conceptual model and key components of an intervention programme aiming to safely reduce ED attendance among people with dementia.

My PhD was informed by my longstanding commitment to improve dementia care, influenced by my background in psychology, medicine and clinical leadership, and my work as a psychiatry trainee, former National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow, and more recently, King’s Parliamentary Research intern. My thesis was greatly enriched by the valuable contributions of members of an expert panel of public representatives affected by dementia and the support of Alzheimer’s Society Research Network Monitors.

After submitting my thesis, I led the development and Parliamentary launch of a policy brief calling for better palliative and end-of-life care for people affected by dementia. I continue to promote the brief, which includes successfully submitting it to the World Health Organisation’s Global Dementia Observatory Knowledge Exchange Platform (GDO KEP).

I continue to research dementia and end-of-life care as a Research Associate at the Cicely Saunders Institute and NIHR Health and Social Care Workforce Research Unit. As a Dem-Comm fellow, I am also one of the Dementia Community Research Network (DCRN) coordinators, working with public, community and research partners to reduce inequalities in research involvement among people from minoritised ethnic communities.

 

Far and away the most important relationship during your PhD is with your primary supervisor.

 

Many successful academics were launched into their careers by a fantastic supervisor. However, it’s not a given that everything runs smoothly.

We know how important good supervision is and are part of a UK-wide project to develop the very best continuing professional development for research supervisors.

Having worked with numerous PhD students and supervisors in various guises since I finished my own PhD in 2003/4, here are my top 10 tips for getting the best from your supervisory relationship.

1. Discuss expectations and agree ways of working early on

It’s not a given that a student and supervisor’s expectations of how to work effectively together will match. You might be fortunate, but don’t make assumptions. Ideally in your first few supervisory meetings you should discuss how you’re going to work together and what you can expect of each other.

Your faculty should have a template document to guide you and your supervisor in this conversation. You can also download our template to get you started.  If you didn’t have that conversation at the start, don’t worry, have it now!

2. Review ways of working regularly

It’s also important to revisit the expectations conversation every now and then. As you progress in your PhD, your needs will change and the support your supervisor provides will likely change too. So revisit that conversation.

3. Remember your supervisor isn’t perfect!

It sounds obvious, but some students definitely have an unrealistic view of their supervisor. Remember they are human and likely have many other draws on their time, whether other students or other responsibilities, at work and at home. Be careful of slipping into bad habits – submitting work at the last minute and expecting a speedy response, for example.

4. Ask for help when you need it

Most PhD students are highly successful, hard-working people, used to getting top grades. Seriously! That’s you! As such, a PhD can be a challenge. You’re (suddenly) expected to be self-directed and you may come up against all sorts of issues. Your ideas are critiqued and pulled apart. Seemingly fruitful avenues of enquiry turn out to be dead ends. Experiments don’t work, archives don’t yield the information and insights you hoped for, fieldwork takes twice as long to plan as you’d imagined! Something happens in your personal life. You’ll need help. It’s normal.

5. If there are problems then raise them, don’t let them fester

Just ask for help sooner rather than later! There’s no shame in it. You’ll probably address the problems more quickly if you nip them in the bud. We’ve all been there, I can assure you.

There are lots of routes you can go depending on the issue:

• Is there a PGR officer in your dept? Someone in Professional Services who can help with practice things.
• Maybe you need to speak to your academic PGR Coordinator.
• There may be confidential advisors or personal tutors, depending on your faculty.
• There is also the Associate Dean for Doctoral Studies, your faculty PGR lead.
• And there is lots of support through Student Services – for mental health and wellbeing, counselling, money & housing advice and more
• Our PGR Wellbeing Hub has all the links and information com/pgrwh
  

6. Make use of your second supervisor

I hope you know who your second supervisor is! There’s no one shape for what a second supervisor can offer. Just make use of them. Have regular meetings even if they’re not that frequent. They might be a sounding board for new ideas. They might have a specific skill/interest/expertise that will enrich your research/thesis. They might be very experienced and therefore be a fount of knowledge or provide access to networks. Like I say, there’s no one type.

7. Manage upwards

If you’re not getting what you need from your supervisor then you may need to be more assertive. We can help you with that… book for our workshop

Getting the Best from your Supervisor (PGR324)

This course will help you to understand your supervisor’s perspective and expectations and will highlight areas for autonomy and supervision throughout a doctoral journey. Learn how to be assertive and persuasive in the way that you communicate with your supervisors to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

8. Celebrate your supervisor if they’re doing a good job!

A lot of supervisors put a lot of time and energy into supervision. If that’s your supervisor then I can assure you that a kind word of thanks goes a long way.

If your supervisor really is excellent then you might like to nominate them for one of our Supervisory Excellence Awards.

9. Remember it’s your PhD!

I’m probably speaking more to scientists and lab-based researchers here but fundamentally the PhD is yours! In some disciplines your supervisor may play a very close guiding role, especially the start, but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of dependence. You will have to defend your thesis in the final exam. So don’t be afraid to try things you think are important and to discuss options robustly with your supervisor(s). As you progress in your research you should be becoming an expert, so don’t give way to critique too quickly.

In other disciplines, you may be only too aware that it’s your PhD! So…

10. Draw on as many sources of wisdom and support as you can

It can be easy to get stuck in a rut. So don’t!

Seek out other sources of support, find a mentor or two. Attend seminars in other related departments. Approach other researchers and academics. Make the most of being at a comprehensive research-intensive institution. Time spent thinking about bigger issues, the broader research context is rarely wasted and may yield information, stimulate new ideas and help you move forward.

I wish you all the very best in your doctoral research.

Nigel Eady
Director of Research Talent

Who are the people who are helping you to be successful? Are you making the most of that support? Is there more support you could draw on?

 

 

I’ve been watching a lot of the Athletics recently. My father loved running and whilst he wasn’t ever close to being national standard, he had friends who were pretty close to it. When I was young, the TV would always be on if there was a big event happening, especially the Olympics or European Championships.

I think athletics is a pretty good analogy for the journey of the PhD.

We tend to think of athletics as an individual sport, but it struck me how many of the athletes talked about all the other people who had enabled them to be successful – family, friends, coaches, other current athletes, former athletes, the list went on.

When it comes down to it, like the athlete in the championship on the race track, there’s only one person who writes the thesis and goes through the oral exam.

Yet also like the athlete, to be really successful, you need a whole host of people supporting you and cheering you on.

Thirty or more years ago, a PhD was a solitary pursuit. You did everything on your own, with just the guidance of your solitary supervisor. However those days should be long gone. It’s well recognised that effective training of inexperienced researchers requires much more than one person! So who is on your team? Every athlete draws on a slightly different group of people, or perhaps draws on some people more than others.

Here is a Top 10 of people whom you might draw on. There’s no ‘one size fits all’. However, I’d dare to suggest if you’re not making use of most of these possible supporters, then you’re giving yourself an unnecessary handicap!

1. Supervisor

Certainly the most crucial person in your team. How well are you working together? When I’m discussing challenges with doctoral researchers, it’s often the case that there are mismatches in expectations between student and supervisor. Maybe you discussed expectations when you started your research degree but things change. If you’re in the final phases of the PhD and writing up, you’re likely entering new territory in your relationship. What can you expect from your supervisor then? What do you think you need? Have you had a proper conversation about writing the thesis or is it all based on assumption, what you’ve heard from others? Use your time effectively by having a clear discussion with your supervisor about what you think you need and what they can offer you. And this is true throughout the PhD.

2. Second supervisor

Hopefully you know who your second supervisor is! How often do you meet them? What do you discuss? Every second supervisor will be a bit different. Maybe yours brings a particular interest or skill to the table. Maybe their research interests are related but in a somewhat different area. What do you need from them? Maybe it’s just general discussions about how to tackle the PhD. Do you know their strengths? What can you learn from them? How can they add either to your research or your skills?

3. Other academic colleagues, researchers/staff at different levels

Sometimes you just need someone who gets the academic and research environment but isn’t connected to your project. Someone else in your department or even in another School or Faculty. Maybe you share an interest outside your research. Maybe you’ve had an interesting conversation in a dept seminar and they seemed like someone you’d get on with. It’s great to have a few people around you who understand your world and can offer advice, contacts or experience.

4. Mentors

Do you have a mentor? There are many ways to get a mentor – formal schemes and informal approaches. A mentor can be invaluable for navigating complex environments or for considering what next. Having run mentoring schemes in the past, I think you get the most value from a mentor when you, as a mentee, are in the driving seat, making sure the mentoring is providing what you need.

5. Peers

I hope you have a few people around you who know exactly what you’re going through now. You may be fortunate and have lab colleagues or peers in your dept who share an office with you. Downloading your woes to someone who understands can definitely be cathartic (as long as you promise to be that person for them when they need you!)

6. Staff who support doctoral students – academics and professional services

You should have a PGR Coordinator or equivalent in your department, whose role is to support and advise doctoral researchers. You may also have PS staff who support PhDs. They may be the people you ask very basic questions about the PhD and the process, they may be the ones who can guide you if problems arise, whether complex ones or very simple ones.

7. One-to-one expert support

Did you know you can meet one-to-one with a careers consultant to discuss any career related issue or question? You might have no idea what to do next or what you want to do? They’ll help you to start working that out. You might need advice on a job application or an interview. You can also meet one-to-one with a professional writer to help you with your writing. Maybe you’re struggling to get words on paper. Maybe you’ve got the words down but you’re struggling for clarity or to communicate your argument.

8. Support services

In a similar vein, there is lots of support at King’s – start with Student Services (housing, money and more), who will point you to the relevant team. Ask for help before it all gets too much.

9. Friends

Sometimes you just need someone to tell you to forget your research for a few hours or a weekend and do something completely different. As a friend of mine says, “Have breaks, make breakthroughs!”

10. Family

I know not everyone is close to their family, but if you are, they are clearly a great resource. Perhaps your family are far away? If so, why not plan ahead – put a home visit in the diary, something to look forward to.

Like I say, different people need different help at different times. Just don’t suffer in silence!

Nigel Eady
Director of Research Talent

The winners of the 2021 Tadion Rideal Prize have been confirmed. Two winners of the award were selected for 2021 as there had been no award in 2020 due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

About the award

This award was instituted in 1983 by a gift of £10,000 from Dr J. Tadion to commemorate his association with the late Sir Eric Rideal FRS and King’s College London.

The prize of £1,000 is awarded annually and is open to doctoral students of King’s College London who have carried out research for a PhD degree in Molecular Science. ‘Molecular Science’ is defined broadly and inclusively as: Research that involves studies at the molecular level.

Students are nominated by their supervisors; an expert panel of academics in the relevant fields assesses the nominations and provide a shortlist to the Director of Research Talent who selects the winner based on their recommendations.

The 2021 Winners

The two winners were Dr Geraldine Jowett (FoLSM) and Dr Thomas Tull (FoLSM). They’ve written some short statements about being selected for the prize.

 

Dr Thomas Tull

Winning the Tadion Rideal prize is a great honour and is a reflection of the first class supervision I had from Professors Jo spencer and David D’Cruz along and members of my thesis committee Dr Monica Agromayor, Professor Sophia Karagiannis and Professor Anthony Dorling. Completing a PhD within KCL was a fantastic experience and I hope to use the skills I have learned for my future clinical academic career.

 

 

 

Dr Geraldine Jowett

I am immensely grateful to receive the Tadion-Rideal prize, which has prompted me to reflect on the permissive circumstances that made my dissertation eligible for an award. Naturally, I am thankful for my wonderful mentors, for the collaborative environment nurtured by King’s College London, and for my friends and family. However, in this blogpost I would like to take the opportunity to specifically acknowledge my Wellcome Trust PhD studentship. This program has been discontinued, yet it had unique elements of support it provided and I hope that these might be reinstated or emulated for future generations.