On Friday 15th May 2015, the Department held its inaugural mini-conference – “Talk PhD to me!” – for graduate students and research staff. Students, post-docs, and research assistants from across Psychology met for a full day of panel discussions, talks, posters, and networking.
After tucking in to some tasty pastries and a cup of tea or coffee, the participants settled in for the first of two panel discussions. Drs Ngwenya Nothando and Nicole Horst took questions from PhD students about their experiences with working as postdoctoral researchers, with additional input from other postdocs in the audience. In the second panel discussion, Professor Tim Bussey (Psychology) and Dr Betsy Murray (Zangwill speaker; National Institutes of Health, USA) provided insight into what they look for when they hire PhD students or postdocs.
The audience was then treated to a series of excellent slide presentations from fellow participants on topics ranging from the functional implications of orbitofrontal cortex-amygdala interactions to the relationship between morality and obesity. Special congratulations go to Gabriela Pavarini for winning the first prize for her slide presentation “Synchrony modulates emotional experience” and the runner up Katharina Brecht for her presentation “Do Western scrub-jays employ cache-protection strategies when exposed to an observer simulated by video playback”.
A poster session over lunch provided everyone with another opportunity to discover the wide breadth of psychological research that goes on in the Department. Congratulations to Gu Li, for his prize-winning poster “Childhood sex-typed behaviour and adolescent sexual orientation: a longitudinal study” and our runner up Yin Wu for his poster on “Psychoneuroendocrinology of near-misses in social competition”.
Two key note addresses provided advice and guidance for participants wanting to pursue a career in academia. Dr Tristan Beckinschtein presented a talk entitled “Navigating academia, sailing and whaling and the endless search”. Dr Simone Schnall talked about “Life in Academia: Things I wish I had known as a graduate student”.
Throughout the day, participants met and mingled with their colleagues, both informally and by design. In the first of two networking activities, attendees competed to complete a “scavenger hunt” of people in the Department. In the second networking activity, group members described their research to each other then had to develop aims for a collaborative project, incorporating elements from each researcher’s work. Many new connections were made, strengthening the sense of community within the Department.
Feedback from participants indicates that this mini-conference was a great success. We hope that it will be the first of many!
This event would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Graduate School of Life Sciences’ Researcher Development Fund.
Dr Nicole Horst