Le Malaga Faigatā: Misadventures of An Accidental Academic

The University ◽

Youth Resilience

E lele le toloa, ae maˈau i le vai The toloa will fly far and wide, but will always return to the water—Samoan proverb In my doctoral thesis, I examined the barriers to and enablers of academic success for Pacific tertiary health students at the University of Auckland. Ten years on, now back at the University of Auckland, I find myself again reflecting on the barriers to and enablers of academic success for Pacific academics. This reflection piece stems from a seminar I gave for the University of Auckland’s Pacific Research Hub, entitled “Constructing Resilience: Lessons from An Accidental Pacific Academic.” Initially, I was only going to speak to my current research project on Pacific youth resilience. But I was encouraged to share my experiences as a Samoan researcher and academic, especially for early career researchers. I therefore decided to use the seminar as a talanoa to share my experiences and have an honest discussion about some of the challenges that we, as Pacific researchers, experience within the academy. Rather than trying to sell a fairy tale, I decided to use the opportunity for real talk, sharing some of the things I wish someone had told me before I went down the academic path.

First person – Fanny Jaudon and Martina Albini

10.1242/jcs.259251 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 134 (16) ◽

Keyword(s):

Neurotrophic Factor ◽

Neurological Disorders ◽

Molecular Mechanisms ◽

Neurological Diseases ◽

Early Career ◽

First Person ◽

And Function ◽

The University ◽

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Fanny Jaudon and Martina Albini are co-first authors on ‘ A developmental stage- and Kidins220-dependent switch in astrocyte responsiveness to brain-derived neurotrophic factor’, published in JCS. Fanny is a postdoc at the University of Trieste in the lab of Lorenzo A. Cingolani at Center for Synaptic Neuroscience and Technology, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy, investigating the molecular mechanisms controlling development and function of neuronal circuits and implementing genome-editing approaches for the treatment of neurological disorders. Martina is a PhD student at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in the lab of Fabio Benfenati and Fabrizia Cesca investigating neurotrophin biology and its involvement in neurological diseases.

What do Master's students' structured reflections say about the learning processes involved in commencing a research project?

Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice ◽

10.53761/1.17.1.7 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 92-107

Author(s):

Richard Warner ◽

◽

Michelle Picard ◽

Keyword(s):

Reflective Practice ◽

Learning Processes ◽

Early Career ◽

Multidisciplinary Research ◽

Project Proposal ◽

Research Project ◽

Master's Students ◽

Multidisciplinary Perspective ◽

Learning Ecology

This study aims to unpack the reflective learning processes involved in developing a Masters’ research project proposal as part of a multidisciplinary Research Design course. Using inductive analysis, we explored students’ reflective blogs written over a period of a semester and defined the reflections according to an adaptation of Hatton and Smith’s (1995) framework. Our findings are that the nature of each individual blog topic affected the quality and level of reflection, which in turn is affected by the ‘learning ecology’ (Harvey, Coulson, & McMaugh, 2016 p. 12). More highly scaffolded blogs showed greater evidence of reflective practice. Likewise the nature of the practice (starting research) influenced reflection, since many processes are internal rather than requiring explicit practice to reflect on. In addition, as nascent practitioner researchers, the students are also involved in reflexivity rather than reflection and therefore some topics encouraged this form of reflection more than others did. This study is significant in that it explores reflection in research and practitioner contexts, focuses on early career researchers/practitioners and brings a multidisciplinary perspective.

First person – Alessandra da Silva Dantas

10.1242/jcs.259654 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 134 (24) ◽

Keyword(s):

Fungal Pathogens ◽

Research Council ◽

Medical Research Council ◽

Early Career ◽

Medical Mycology ◽

First Person ◽

Postdoctoral Fellow ◽

The University ◽

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Alessandra da Silva Dantas is first author on ‘ Crosstalk between the calcineurin and cell wall integrity pathways prevents chitin overexpression in Candida albicans’, published in JCS. Alessandra is a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. Neil Gow at the Medical Research Council Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Exeter, UK, and is interested in the mechanisms controlling cell division and death in human fungal pathogens.

First person – Andreia Nunes

Disease Models & Mechanisms ◽

10.1242/dmm.049244 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (8) ◽

Keyword(s):

Muscular Dystrophy ◽

Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy ◽

Early Career ◽

Disease Models ◽

First Person ◽

School Of Medicine ◽

Disease Mechanisms ◽

The University ◽

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Andreia Nunes is first author on ‘ Identification of candidate miRNA biomarkers for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy using DUX4-based mouse models’, published in DMM. Andreia is a postdoc in the lab of Peter L. Jones at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, Reno, NV, USA, investigating therapeutics for and disease mechanisms of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.

Sexual violence during research: How the unpredictability of fieldwork and the right to risk collide with academic bureaucracy and expectations

Critique of Anthropology ◽

10.1177/0308275x20917272 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 40 (2) ◽

pp. 173-193 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Luisa T Schneider

Keyword(s):

Sexual Violence ◽

Sierra Leone ◽

Academic Writing ◽

Early Career ◽

Competitive Disadvantage ◽

The Right ◽

The University ◽

The Impact ◽

Research Endeavour

In a contradictory fashion, researchers, their departments and universities simultaneously recognize the unpredictability of fieldwork experiences and outcomes and help establish a bureaucratic system of planning every component of their research. Ethnographic unpredictability and its consequences are a fact of fieldwork and it is essential that researchers and institutions are prepared to view these as part of interpretable data, to learn from them and not mask them. This article examines ethnographic unpredictability through the lens of sexual violence which I experienced during my doctoral fieldwork in Sierra Leone. I show how I redirected my research and renegotiated my position as an academic. I discuss the culture of risk and analyse the influence of neoliberalism on the university. I describe how ‘market logic’ conceptualizes unpredictability as competitive disadvantage. I show the impact that the imaginary ‘perfect academic’ has on early career researchers and the complicity of mainstream academic (re-)presentation in nourishing the image of the ‘in-control academic’ through muting personal field experiences and vulnerabilities and silencing unpredictable occurrences in academic writing. I conclude with recommendations on how personal situatedness, vulnerabilities, and transformations can be approached as factors in every research endeavour which must not pose threats to an institution’s competitive advantage.

First person – Jenny Vermeer and Jonathan lent

Disease Models & Mechanisms ◽

10.1242/dmm.046292 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (7) ◽

pp. dmm046292

Keyword(s):

The Netherlands ◽

Lineage Tracing ◽

Early Career ◽

First Person ◽

Project Leader ◽

Novel Treatments ◽

University Of Oxford ◽

The University ◽

ABSTRACTFirst Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Jenny Vermeer and Jonathan lent are co-first authors on ‘A lineage-tracing tool to map the fate of hypoxic tumour cells’, published in DMM. Jenny conducted the research described in this article while a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Ruth Muschel at the University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. She is now a project leader in the lab of Miranda van der Lee at Byondis, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, investigating new targets, particularly in cancer, that will lead to novel treatments. Jonathan is a PhD student in the lab of Marc Vooijs at Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, investigating new cancer targets and testing possible new interventions with a focus on tumour hypoxia.

First person – Gideon Hughes

Disease Models & Mechanisms ◽

10.1242/dmm.047415 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (10) ◽

pp. dmm047415

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Tissue Regeneration ◽

Model Organism ◽

Early Career ◽

Disease Models ◽

First Person ◽

Zebrafish Model ◽

The University ◽

ABSTRACTFirst Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Gideon Hughes is first author on ‘Machine learning discriminates a movement disorder in a zebrafish model of Parkinson's disease’, published in DMM. Gideon conducted the research described in this article while a PhD student in Betsy Pownall's lab at the University of York, York, UK. He is now a postdoc in the lab of Henry Roehl at the University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, using the zebrafish as a model organism to study human disease and tissue regeneration, combining his research with his interest in computer science.

First person – Giulia Corbet

10.1242/jcs.259302 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 134 (17) ◽

Keyword(s):

Early Career ◽

Stress Granule ◽

First Person ◽

Granule Formation ◽

University Of Colorado ◽

Form Function ◽

The University ◽

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Giulia Corbet is first author on ‘ ADAR1 limits stress granule formation through both translation-dependent and translation-independent mechanisms’, published in JCS. Giulia is a PhD student in the lab of Roy Parker at the University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA, investigating how ribonucleoprotein granules form, function and are regulated.

First person – Victor Palacios

10.1242/jcs.258592 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 134 (7) ◽

Keyword(s):

Chromosome Segregation ◽

Germ Cells ◽

Medical Center ◽

Early Career ◽

First Person ◽

University Of Texas ◽

The University ◽

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Victor Palacios is first author on ‘Importin-9 regulates chromosome segregation and packaging in Drosophila germ cells’, published in JCS. Victor conducted his PhD research in the lab of Michael Buszczak at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, where he investigated the essential role of Importin-9 in Drosophila fertility.

First person – Stéphanie Cottier

Biology Open ◽

10.1242/bio.054171 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (6) ◽

pp. bio054171

Keyword(s):

Cell Wall ◽

Model Organism ◽

Cell Wall Protein ◽

Early Career ◽

First Person ◽

Conserved Residues ◽

The University ◽

Insight Into ◽

ABSTRACTFirst Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Biology Open, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Stéphanie Cottier is first author on ‘The yeast cell wall protein Pry3 inhibits mating through highly conserved residues within the CAP domain’, published in BiO. Stéphanie is a post-doc in the lab of Roger Schneiter at the University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland, investigating using yeast model organism to gain insight into the function of the widespread CAP protein superfamily.