SU Queer Creativity Showcase

To help psychology PhD students consider careers outside academia, 4 psychology PhD alumni who embarked on a non-academic career will talk about: Why they left academia, how they prepared for non-academic careers, challenges they experienced while applying for non-academic jobs and working outside of academia, advantages and disadvantages of non-academic jobs, and how their PhD and skills helped them thrive outside of academia. Attendees are welcome to email Anat.Bardi@Rhul.ac.uk by December 2nd if they’d like the speakers to address additional issues. Speakers will address questions and where possible, will attend some of the other parts of the day. Representing well the field, all speakers work in research outside academia, but vary in their employment type and the career stage in which they left academia. See their bios at the end of the document.

*Please note that this event is open to all PGRs*

The event will run hybrid and will be recorded and available later to SENSS students.
Register here before the 3 December: https://rhulpsychology.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_08SEdG6Pd7hHVgG

Schedule
9.30-9.55 – Coffee & tea
10.00 -10.05 – Anat Bardi: Welcome and plan for the day
10.05-11.00– Dr Joshua Balsters
11.05-12.00 – Dr Kathryn Buchanan
12.00-1.00 – Lunch provided
1.00-1.55 – Dr Ana Ulicheva
2.00-2.55 – Dr Nali Moftizadeh
3.00-3.30 – Audience discussion, facilitated by Anat Bardi

Bios in order of the day

Dr Joshua Balsters completed his BSc and PhD in Psychology at Royal Holloway. His PhD thesis explored ‘Cerebellar Contributions to Cognition’ using fMRI. He continued to do postdocs at Trinity College Dublin (working for GlaxoSmithKline) and ETH Zurich working on brain-based markers for healthy aging and diagnosing Autism respectively. He then returned to Royal Holloway to undertake a Research and Teaching lectureship in psychology, focused on decision making neuroscience. He is now Research Director at NielsenIQ, where he uses psychology and neuroscience to advise global brands on their advertising, packaging, and product experiences.
Dr Kathryn Buchanan has completed her PhD in psychology, in Royal Holloway on "Evaluating Happiness-Enhancing Interventions". She then continued to a post doc at the University of Essex focusing on smart meters and domestic energy use. She then moved on to a Research and Teaching lectureship in psychology, Essex University, where her research focused on projects with a strong real-world relevance. She now has a portfolio career, where she has a) built her own business providing research services to research consultants b) is a fledgling counsellor and c) makes her own artisan granola!
Dr Ana Ulicheva completed her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience of Language at the University of Hong Kong, where she investigated how the sound patterns of language influence how we read aloud. After her PhD, Ana joined Royal Holloway as a postdoctoral researcher, where she focused on how readers use meaningful building blocks (morphemes) to recognize and spell words in English. Ana is now a Principal Researcher at Pearson Education.
Dr Nali Moftizadeh has completed his PhD in psychology in Royal Holloway on cultural identity and intergroup relations in the UK. He is now a senior research manager at SMRS, a culture, brand and communications consultancy working with employers and higher education institutions on a variety of different projects.