
Athena Swan Debate
I’ve written before about how I’ve been lucky enough to have never felt held back by my gender at work, however the more I read, learn and understand about the leaky pipeline and the challenges women face in the higher ranks of science the more I know this may not always be the case. As […]
PhD admin
With the new academic year just around the corner I thought I’d write a little about what’s expected of PhD students as we transition from one year to the next. Obviously for us this is a very different process to Undergraduate students. We don’t sit exams (although we are assessed) and we don’t receive marks […]

He for She
Have you heard for the Gender Equality movement from the UN called HeforShe? It was originally kicked off by Emma Watson and just in case you haven’t heard about it I’ll provide a little background. It’s a campaign to promote and celebrate men (as well as women) supporting gender equality and involves a simple pledge […]

Code of a Killer
This week ITV’s 2 part drama Code of a Killer concluded, it’s airing was pretty exciting for us here in the Genetics department as the story line focused on the first ever murder enquiry to use Prof. Sir Alec Jeffery’s DNA fingerprinting technique to identify the murderer. This is a technique he developed here in the […]

While the Undergrads are away…
So today is the last day of term for the undergrads but University life goes on for the rest of us, admittedly much more quietly, but still we’re here working away. I’ll be here for another week and then I’ve booked off 2 weeks for Christmas. I’m only actually using 2 days of annual leave (of the 24/year […]
PhD Friend
So campus has been slowly gearing up for the return of the undergraduates. This week international students have been arriving and next week Fresher’s begins, so it’s starting to get busier again. A lot happens in the undergraduate summer break, building work goes on and the campus is generally spruced up (they’ve been painting the […]
The Probation Review
This post comes to you from the deep dark depths of the first year report. OK that’s mildly dramatic, the process isn’t actually too bad at all. I’m >5,000 words down (of ~8,000) and I’ve finished my methods, results and discussion and have made a dent on the introduction. I was originally planning quite an […]
Supervision: In my experience
After reading this THE article posted by the graduate school on their facebook page I thought this post should be about supervision and what you should expect from your supervisor. First of all I think it’s important for you to know every supervisor is different, I think that article highlights this. A supervisors style varies based on many different […]
“No I don’t have a Masters”
It’s pretty normal to be asked as a PhD student where you did your Masters degree. I however didn’t do one, and this seems to come as a shock to most people (probably because a lot of the people asking are Master’s students), but no I didn’t do one. So how am I here in […]
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