Enriching the PhD and Postdoc experience - Annual Report 2016

11 August, 2017

Training PhD and Postdoctoral students is a big part of our work and in 2016 we initiated an annual ‘Spring Development Programme’, a multi-day student workshop. 

Deputy Director Justin Hodgkiss explains. 

“Our students were ending up with great science credentials but lacking key skills that would influence their success post-study. We’ve initiated an annual workshop, rotating the themes of Science Communication, Commercialisation and Leadership (including science in policy) over three years.”

The first day was led by MacDiarmid Principal Investigator and Victoria University of Wellington Associate Professor Justin Hodgkiss and MacDiarmid Postdoctoral researchers Dr Baptiste Auguie and Dr Nick Monahan, and covered the fundamentals of effective technical science writing, effective oral presentations, graphics and posters.

The second day was led by the Science Media Centre’s Dacia Herbulock and included talks by Siouxsie Wiles on social media, Damien Christie on video and ‘real-life’ interviews with Ara New Zealand Broadcasting School journalism students.

The session by Dr Nick Monahan on oral presentations was so inspiring that I went and redid my entire talk - I ended up with the prize for best student talk at the conference.

Felicia UllstadPhD student