Author: PhD Career Stories

A Podcast for people interested in career possibilities after a PhD with Tina Persson, Michele Manzo, Maria Sjögren and Paulius Mikulskis.

#081: Fabian Taube tips and tricks

This is the second episode of Fabian Taube, in which he will share five tips on how to survive outside of academia after an academic career.

In his first podcast Fabian shared his story transforming from academia to a specialist in preventive medicine at the Swedish Armed Forces Center for Defense Medicine. So if you have not listen to his first podcast, don’t hesitate to do so.

Bellow you find the title of these tips:

1-Sort out the pros and cons before accepting a certain position. 

2-Let the organization know your big advantage. 

3-Make contact and collaborate.

4-Make yourself and your coworkers satisfied.

5- If you aim at becoming a leader you should first question your purpose of wanting to become a leader.

Let the organization know that the big advantage with you it’s not your skills in a specific scientific area. It is your skills in being able to take off on any kind of problems with the critical and analytical view.

Dr. Fabian Taube

To learn more about Fabian’s tips, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening! 

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#080: We celebrate the three years anniversary and talk about resilience

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PhD Career Stories podcast marks its third anniversary!

We can hardly believe it ourselves, but we are extremely proud that for three years we managed to bring you every two weeks a new inspiring story from our speakers and share with you our thoughts about PhD life and – importantly – the life after it. 

We are also happy to say that we are not going to stop – our team is continuously growing and new exciting projects and ideas are waiting to be realized. So stay tuned and keep us in your podcast subscriptions!

To celebrate, one lovely summer evening a part of our team sat at the virtual round table to discuss one of the hardest topics in career development – how to stay resilient during the career transition? 

Tina Persson offered for this discussion the questions that helped to unfold the concept of “resilience” and brought interesting notions and personal tips from the team members Michele Manzo, Jo Havemann, Subu Surendran, and Natalia Stolyarchuk:

1. Why do so many PhDs stress out at the end of their PhD?

2. What is an academic “bubble” and how does it prevent PhDs from looking beyond their thesis?

3. What could help PhDs to be more confident and resilient in the process?

4. How – and why – shall we talk about failures? 

5. Why digital platforms such as FB and LinkedIn are still so unpopular among PhDs? 
6. Why is it so hard for many PhDs to just stay between jobs?

Listen to the episode to know what came out of it!

#079: Presenting the team: Nika and Alice Stories

In this episode two member of PhD Career Stories team, Alice and Nika, talk about their experience during PhD, earned skills and their career after PhD. They also talk about how they joined PhD Career Stories podcast. 

Alice is currently working in the healthcare organization in Sweden and She believes her PhD skills like “science communication” helped her to get to her job. 

Alice also shares what she has learned during coaching seasons by Tina Persson:

“It helped me not to be stuck at some point and think a bit forward to see that one experience doesn’t build all your personality…”. 

Nika is going to start her new career path as postdoc at Columbia University in New York City. She believes one of the major skills that she learned during her PhD is scheduling meetings from all over the world with a time difference.

In this episode you can also listen to Alice and Nika ‘s tips regarding job interview as both have gone through many job interviews before getting their dream jobs.

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#078: Michalina Lewicka-Yammine Story

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Michalina Lewicka-Yammine‘s passion for Neuroscience evolved during her master degree at the Jagiellonian University and her exchange studies at Uppsala University which led her to a PhD degree at Karolinska Institute in Developmental Neuroscience. 

After graduation, her passion for marketing got her engaged with three startups and establishing her own consultancy firm. At Karolinska Institute she worked as a course leader and later as a project manager at the Alumni Office. 

Throughout that journey Michalina gained many new experiences as well as gave birth to two children, and found her way to balance between being a mother and delivering and performing at work. 

Nowadays, Michalina is raising two kids, running a freelance consultancy and has a full-time job as a product manager at Spiber Biomaterial – all powered by the stamina and resilience gained from motherhood.

Connect with Michalina on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

 

I’m still having my own company and doing some small projects. On the side I’m working fifty percent for a biotech company and fifty percent on maternity leave. As I said, don’t give up! Try it! And see if it’s for you and if you don’t like it, try something else and try from a different angle – try to find your balance and what suits you the most.

Dr. Michalina Lewicka-Yammine, mother, freelancer and product manager at Spiber Biomaterial.

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#077: Anne Schreiter Story


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Anne-Portrait-20-01.pngAnne Schreiter advocates for researchers and scientists. At the German Scholars Organization she and her team offer guidance and programs to help PhDs on their career path – in academia and beyond. In this episode Anne talks about why she believes in planned coincidences and what question turned out to be the tipping point for her career.

Anne holds a PhD in Organization Studies and Cultural Theory from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Berkeley. She studied Communication in Social and Business Contexts and Sociology in Berlin before embarking on a year long adventure in China.

Today she lives and works in Berlin again.

You can connect with Anne on LinkedIn and Twitter. She shares posts on science policy, leadership topics, and occasionally also on the odd and curious.

 

Whether you want to become a professor or do something else, it helps to make yourself visible and heard. And after a while you won’t have to chase opportunities, but instead they will present themselves to you.

Dr. Anne Schreiter, Executive Director at German Scholars Organization e.V.

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#076: Deborah Rupert Story


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picture Deborah_RupertDr. Déborah Rupert was born and raised in France where she did her undergraduate studies in physics. Her passion for blending physics and biology brought her to Sweden where she did her PhD in Biological Physics. During her PhD, she reached very close to burnout and informed her supervisor she wanted to quit science. After few months of recovery, she started the PhD again with a very different mindset and a wish to use her personal story to prevent other scientists from burning out.

Déborah decided to become a professional coach and designed a career switch strategy where she worked 80% as an application scientist in a tech company while training herself as a coach. Today, Deborah is a professional coach certified by the international coaching federation, ICF. She supports science innovators with knowledge and tools designed to take care of their mind and protect them from burnout. She is an active member of the international coaching federation where she acts as a coordinator of the west Sweden chapter and is part of the Swedish ICF research forum.

Personal website: deborahrupert.com
Linkedin Profile: linkedin.com/in/deborahrupertphd
Instagram: deborahrupert.phd
International coaching federation: coachfederation.org

So this is my mission now, I’m trying to convey this message of personal self-care within academia, which is a closed bubble world where burnout is still a taboo and seen as a sign of academic failure. We have to learn to see beyond the cliché of the non-stop working and stressed researcher and realize that creativity arises from a place of peace of mind.

Dr. Deborah Rupert, Coach for Mindfulness in Research 

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#075: Fabian Taube Story


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fabiantaube.jpeg

Fabian Taube studied Environmental and Health Protection, Chemistry and Education during his Bachelor and Master study at the Umeå University in Sweden.

In 2003 he received a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry. After that, he continued experimenting with different subjects and had two postdocs – one at the Department of Chemistry, Environmental and Biogeochemistry and another at the Department of Teacher Education in Mathematics, Technology and Natural Sciences.

He also worked as an occupational hygienist at Sahlgrenska University Hospital and from 2012 he is employed as a specialist in preventive medicine at the Swedish Armed Forces Centre for Defense Medicine (SWE CDM). 

At the same time, the struggle for research results and money made me to a person I did not actually wanted to be; one that is a bit too ambitious and narrow-minded. Today I realize just how much negative impact such a person can have on colleagues and on team building.

Dr. Fabian Taube, Specialist in Preventive Medicine, Swedish Armed Forces Centre for Defense Medicine

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