The SOFI Sessions: Recent Episodes
SOFI Sessions
SOFI Sessions brings you The Softcast! SOFI cohorts 5 and 6 have just completed science communication training at Edinburgh University, which included a trip to BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay to record a mock radio show. Group 1's programme is hosted by Joe Bradley and Burhan Hussein and features contributions from Laura Confalonieri, Reece Macdiarmid, and Jack Hocking.
Seth is joined by special guest Professor Tom McLeish of the University of York to discuss science, theology, and creativity - if you've never heard a professor of physics recite science poetry before you'll want to listen to the end...!
(Link to Tom's article on Rev Prof John Polkinghorne https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040571X211043170)
Do PhD students make good businesspeople? What is a 'spin-out business' anyway? Join Charlotte, Seth, and business strategy expert Peter Allen as they discuss the SOFI CDT mini-MBA, strategic thinking in a PhD context, and what it means to spin out a company from scientific research.
Follow us on social media: we are @SOFI_Sessions on Twitter and sofi_sessions on instagram. You can also email any questions to sofi.sessions@gmail.com.
Merin hosts today's podcast and is joined by Burhan, Adele, and Seth to discuss ideas and tentative plans for the future. Are all PhD students aiming for lives in academia? What other options are there? How will our plans be affected by the pandemic?
Follow us on social media: we are @SOFI_Sessions on Twitter and sofi_sessions on instagram. You can also email any questions to sofi.sessions@gmail.com.
We're back! And our motivation for PhD work, teaching, and podcasting has never been lower! A combination of dark winter days, a flat Christmas holiday and a national lockdown has inspired Ruth, Merin, and Seth to start a conversation about the so-called 'January Blues'. What can we do to get through this dreary drizzly month? (Yes, we are aware this episode is coming out in February...)
Follow us on social media: we are @SOFI_Sessions on Twitter and sofi_sessions on instagram. You can also email any questions to sofi.sessions@gmail.com.
James, Veronica, Merin and Seth share some personal anecdotes about the intersection of science and Christmas in their lives. have you ever wondered about the best ways of packing your decorations away? How about counting all the gifts given in the Twelve Days of Christmas? Or how Father Christmas manages to achieve so much in one night? Join us as we have some fun with these questions!
Follow us on social media: we are @SOFI_Sessions on Twitter and sofi_sessions on instagram. You can also email any questions to sofi.sessions@gmail.com.
The Other Side is back, this time with a panel of PhD students from around the world! Merin, Veronica and Marie share their own journeys into academia and the reasons for and difficulties about applying to study in the UK. What are the differences between studying in Britain and the US? Why did Merin choose to apply abroad rather than in India? Why was Marie's application process so stressful? Find out in this week's episode!
Follow us on social media: we are @SOFI_Sessions on Twitter and sofi_sessions on instagram. You can also email any questions to sofi.sessions@gmail.com.
This week Seth, Veronica and Ruth are joined by two special guests as we discuss SOFI CDT, the SOFI Sessions project and the future of our podcast...
Follow us on social media: we are @SOFI_Sessions on Twitter and sofi_sessions on instagram. You can also email any questions to sofi.sessions@gmail.com.
Burhan hosts as Ruth and Veronica each perform their own Halloween tales of science gone wrong...
Veronica and Ruth are your Ghost Hosts in this very scary Halloween episode of SOFI Sessions! Be afraid, be very afraid; working in the lab isn't for the faint hearted (that's why some of our PhD students are theorists). Keep listening if you dare! From fireballs and flooding to forgetting the labels, this Halloween members of the SOFI network share with you their most hair-raising lab stories in the spookiest SOFI Session yet...
Follow us on social media: we are @SOFI_Sessions on Twitter and sofi_sessions on instagram. You can also email any questions to sofi.sessions@gmail.com.
This week we're back on the topic of Mental Health; Merin, Charlotte and Ruth discuss personal and systemic challenges concerning mental well-being in academia and the PhD life. Their conversation is based on their own experiences and refers to the following resources:
https://amhcollective.com/2017/12/06/i-can-and-i-will-rebuilding-an-anxious-mind-in-time-for-orals/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-emotional-toll-of-graduate-school/
https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2018/04/graduate-students-take-charge-mental-health-care
External Well-Being resources for PhD students: PhD Balance https://www.phdbalance.com/
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/internal/doctoralschool/wellbeing/mentalhealth
Twitter handle by Dr Zoë Ayres @ZJAyres
Disclaimer: We are not professionals in this field; please do not take anything discussed in the podcast as specific advice. Seek a health professional if you experience mental health problems, it is highly likely that your academic institution has one of these.
Seth is joined by Ruth, James and Burhan in the first episode of a new series on PhDs and faith. Do PhD students believe in God? How does faith fit into their lives? How important are faith communities? And how does faith relate to studying science?
Follow us on social media: we are @SOFI_Sessions on Twitter and sofi_sessions on instagram. You can also email any questions to sofi.sessions@gmail.com.
Burhan is joined by Jack and Veronica to challenge some of the assumptions about the monotonous life of the PhD student. This is the first episode of a new series in which PhD students get the chance to talk about what they love most in the world - other than their study!
In our second episode in the Other Side series, Burhan, Merin, and Charlotte return to share more of their experiences as people who belong to minority groups in academic science. They recount stories that contributed in bringing them to science, discuss some of the merits and pitfalls of so-called ‘positive discrimination’, and finally talk about the apparent inequalities brought to light by the A-Level grading algorithm.
In our third plot episode, Jordan, Jack and Seth discuss the recent UK lockdown - how will this impact the lives of PhD students in the future? This episode was recorded near the beginning of the lockdown and, due to the very current nature of the topic, much has changed since then. Nonetheless, we hope that our discussion is helpful to those continuing their studies and those intending to start a PhD in a post-COVID-19 world.
In this second pilot episode, Ruth, Adele, and Lucas discuss issues of mental health while studying a PhD. They talk about their own experiences of societal pressure, the structure of the UK education system and imposter syndrome.
Academia in STEM has been a main driving force pushing the frontier of science and technology. However, the other side of the coin of STEM reveals problems within it. Issues of underrepresentation, diversity (or lack thereof) and gender equality has lead science to fall behind in modern times. In episode 1, Burhan, Charlotte, and Merin discuss personal experience as students in science in terms of diversity, equality and inclusion; they also review Tomas Hudlicky's recent controversial paper on 'the current state of affairs' in organic chemistry.