North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership
37th Annual Conference of the European Health Psychology Society – Bremen, Germany
Rosanna Maletta, Psychology, University of Liverpool (2021 Cohort)
I recently wrote a blog post (see: https://nwssdtp.ac.uk/2023/08/08/my-first-conference-experience/) which allowed me to reflect on my first conference experience. So, when the NWSSDTP asked me to consider writing about my second conference experience I was happy to have an opportunity to reflect again on my experience. Within the second year of my PhD, I began disseminating my research findings at conferences. After already being accepted to speak at the Understanding Society conference, I thought it would be a great experience to also present work at a different conference. This time I decided to submit an abstract based upon my second piece of work. This work continues to use secondary data. However, this time the focus is on the changing prevalence of discrimination, mental health, and social inequalities within the UK between 2015-2020. My supervisor suggested applying to the 37th Annual Conference of the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS), as it had a focus on health inequalities this year. In addition, he knew some colleagues had submitted abstracts too. I was happy to find out I was accepted to give a 10-minute oral presentation and that my colleagues had also been accepted to speak. I knew my experience at this conference would be different in comparison to my first conference, both because this would be my first overseas conference (based in Bremen, Germany), and also because this time I would not be attending independently.
Read MorePresenting my research at EURO 2022 conference, in Espoo, Finland.
Ozioma Paul, Business & Management, University of Manchester (2021 Cohort)
One of the things I was very excited about when I started my Ph.D. in 2021 was the opportunity to present my research at conferences. My first major engagement in an international conference was in July 2022 where I presented my research at EURO 2022 conference, in Espoo, Finland. I had a few months before submitted an abstract which my presentation/talk was based on. In my second year, I decided to take it a notch higher and was encouraged greatly by both of my supervisors. We decided to submit a paper to another conference, GECCO 2023, Lisbon. It was a lot of work getting my experiments and the paper ready as the time frame I had before I submit was short. I made the deadline, but the paper came back with some recommendations. My supervisors then advised a rework and re-submission into another stream as a workshop paper rather than a full paper. This time, it was accepted!
Read MoreOverseas Institutional Visit to University of New South Wales, Sydney
Olivia Fletcher, Geography and Environment, University of Liverpool (2020 Cohort)
Throughout my PhD, I had limited in-person networking opportunities because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When I reached the third year of my PhD I wanted to take the opportunity to visit an overseas institution. I decided to visit Professor Deborah Lupton at the Vitalities Lab, UNSW for four weeks. Deborah’s work has had a significant influence throughout my PhD, which focuses on young people’s use of health-tracking technologies. Deborah leads the Vitalities Lab, which brings together researchers working on understanding human experience in the context of the more-than-human worlds and their research includes critical digital health studies, living digital data, digital food cultures and innovative social research methods.
Read MoreMy First Conference Experience
Rosanna Maletta, Psychology, University of Liverpool (2021 Cohort)
As I began the second year of my NWSSDTP funded PhD at the University of Liverpool, I started to think about attending conferences to disseminate my initial findings. My PhD focuses on discrimination, disadvantage, and mental health in the UK, and it makes use of secondary datasets. When looking into which conference to attend, I thought it would be valuable to attend one linked to a dataset I use. So, earlier this year I sent an abstract to the Understanding Society conference, which provides an opportunity to share work using this dataset. I was happy to find out I was accepted to give an oral presentation. After registering for the conference, and booking my travel and accommodation, I began to think about what I should expect from my first conference experience. I spoke to other PhD students and academics about their experiences. Their positive stories reduced some of my nerves about presenting my research. However, unlike many of my colleagues’ experiences, I was travelling to this conference independently and I did not know anyone else who was attending. This made me apprehensive, as I knew I would have to go out of my comfort zone to meet others.
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North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership 