Tag / PhD

by shannonchance

Sandra Cruz’s doctoral milestone

I have an exceptional PhD supervisee at TU Dublin, Sandra I. Cruz Moreno. She is an internally motivated, self-driven learner who needs little to no prompting from me. Supervising her for the past two years has been pure joy.

I am extremely pleased to report that Sandra achieved a major milestone yesterday because she very successfully “defended her Ph.D. proposal” (the term we use in the USA). Here, it’s called a confirmation examination to confirm that a student is on track and suitable to continue onward.

Sandra needed to submit an extensive report. The report is a bit more elaborate than a proposal back home, as it must include the work plan in addition to the first three chapters of the dissertation. She also included preliminary analyses of existing interview data.

TU Dublin is funding Sandra’s PhD so that she can analyze extensive interview data I collected from women studying engineering over the years since 2015. It’s such an enormous amount of data that I’ve never been able to wrap my arms around it fully. Sandra, a sociologist who has worked as a research consultant on rural development for the United Nations and similar organizations, is well-prepared to handle this large dataset. She has embraced the challenge and has made great strides forward.

Sandra Cruz at SEFI 2023, where she presented her research (left) and engaged thoroughly in events like the pre-conference Doctoral Symposium (center and right).

Sandra’s study is titled “Exploring Women’s Experiences on Collaborative Learning in Engineering Education: A Phenomenological Analysis.” She submitted written reports of the coursework she has done to date, as well as a five-chapter document presenting her research. Both of Sandra’s supervisors, as well as our college’s head of research and the external examiner from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), all read and critically analyzed Sandra’s submission.

The result of this review and of yesterday’s two-hour oral examination concluded that her “Proposed research and progress [are] suitable for [Sandra] to remain on the higher register” and proceed into the final stage of her doctoral research. That’s fancy talk for “It’s a go!” and “Full speed ahead!”

Sandra Cruz with her external examiner, Dr Roland Tormey and lead supervisor, Prof/Dr Shannon Chance, on the day of examination.

Regarding the research Sandra has produced to date, the external examiner’s evaluation states:

The report is very well structured and extremely well written. It demonstrates a high degree of scholarship in dealing with quite a few challenging concepts while, at the same time, managing to make them accessible. There is a very good balance between methodology and methods in chapter three in particular. 

The data available is suitable for completing of the PhD and the initial analysis carried out shows quite a lot of promise. 

-External Examiner Roland Tormey, PhD

Our advisory supervisor, Prof/Dr Brian Bowe, couldn’t attend the examination (he’s the university registrar, after all, and the end of Semester 1 is an extremely busy time of year). Nevertheless, his guidance to Sandra and me has been essential throughout the process. The advice he provides is targeted and highly applicable. Sandra and I have benefited from having him on the team.

I was delighted, but not at all surprised, to hear about the successful outcome. Congratulations, the result reflects your hard work and dedication.

–Prof/Dr Brian Bowe, Head of Academic Affairs at TU Dublin

I have included the cover and table of contents of Sandra’s report so you can see the level of detail required. The report is 96 pages long. While Sandra was rehearsing for the examination, I was off in India delivering a paper she authored on policy to address gender gaps in engineering — policy at the European and Irish levels. The policy paper generated great interest and will form part of the PhD study, although it wasn’t a major component of the confirmation report. In fact, there were a number of topics she researched that didn’t need to be explained in detail at this point, such as critical feminism, which will inform her work going forward.

Working with and learning with and from Sandra is an honor and a privilege. I am grateful to TU Dublin for providing the grant to fund Sandra’s research activity. I am grateful to Brian, Roland, and Marek for the support they have lent Sandra and me. And most of all, I am grateful to Sandra for her diligence, perseverance, openness, and sincerity. I have learned so much from her and from working with her!

by shannonchance

A new doc is born: Dr. Diana Adela Martin

Very soon I’ll get to call my colleague Dr. Martin, instead of ‘just’ Diana. Today, she submitted the “minor corrections” requested by external examiners on her doctoral thesis during her viva.

Diana Adela Martin
Dr. Diana Adela Martin

We have different ways of speaking about all this in the States. We’d say she needed to make some minor amendments to the text following her dissertation defense. Actually, back home, as everyone makes minor adjustments after their defense, these aren’t usually considered “corrections”. They are considered fully normal!

Some days I feel like an international thesaurus, since so many terms vary from the US, to Ireland, and again to the UK. Divided by a common language, we often say over here.

In Europe, the rules and expectations for punctuation are even different than in the States! I’m constantly walking (writing on?) a tightrope. Consider that English is my first (and pretty much only) language, and that Diana has been writing, studying, and conducting empirical research in a non-native language. It makes her accomplishments all the more impressive.

So, the deadline for Diana’s changes popped up, seemingly out of nowhere… and she delivered! I just received an email saying she’d gotten it all submitted, along with this screenshot:

I can’t really say how much it means to be mentioned in Diana’s thesis. It deeply touched me and let me know that all the hours of interaction mattered to both of us. I’m quite often the “unofficial” mentor but the lack of formal status doesn’t stop me from giving my all at it. In this case, her lead supervisor did ask me to serve as mentor when she joined our institution.

This type of work often goes undocumented, and we know it disproportionately falls to women and early career academics, who are expected to be good supports for others — empathetic and able to share freely. Too often, this expectation holds those unacknowledged mentors back from tasks that get higher recognition in institutions. Being the liaison to a student group can take a lot of time, with little to no formal reward in, for example, tenure and promotion deliberations (the US way of putting it). For me, I am glad to be at a point in life where I don’t worry too much about accolades — I’ve already earned tenure, currently hold a permanent position, and was made Full Professor back in 2014 — and I feel enabled to allocate my time to things I value.

I spend a great deal of time on diversity and inclusion, ethics, and sustainability — and on supporting early career researchers and entry-level teaching staff whenever I can. When I don’t hear from my informal mentees (Inês, Lelanie, Carlos, Canaria, and Diana) or my formal supervisee (Thomas), my week is half as alive.

Mentoring a fun and very important role, and I think we should have more mentorship programs. There is a new term emerging around the world for “promoters”, and this term is starting to grow on me. It is, in fact, what I do.

Diana’s message also evoked memory this image, which I recently shared on Facebook:

The caption for this image is: “When you see something beautiful in someone, tell them. It may take a second to say, but for them it may last a lifetime.”

I follow that advice with my mentees and supervisees, and I think it makes a world of difference.

The superstars in my own life (my own lead PhD supervisor, Prof/Dr Pamela Eddy, for one) have given this type of support to me. Indeed, Pam should have been listed as my #1 supervisor, though something slipped through the cracks.

Overall, positive attitude is important.

It’s infectious in the best of ways.

Expressing gratitude and thanks is good for everyone’s soul.

And yes, it’s also important to remain critical and reflective, and to stick up for yourself and others who are not getting the credit deserved. You’ll see this is why I pay attention to the order authors are listed on the projects where I’m involved: the final listing should accurately reflect the actual proportion of effort each person has contributed. I don’t take kindly to those with established reputations taking advantage and listing themselves ahead of those who actually delivered. Regarding such, I frequently take a stand. I see an instance where I will need to take such a stand looming on the horizon. Although I dread conflict, I know I’ll have to stand up for the emerging scholars who actually delivered, and to make sure they are not listed below any individual who left us hanging. I find it’s easier to stick up for others getting their due share of recognition than when it’s just for myself, and that I grow clearer on all this over time.

So, back to Diana’s thesis.

It looks like I need to upload the text to iPad or Kindle soon.

My friend, the late Wayne Ringer, felt compelled to read my entire dissertation when he was mentioned on my acknowledgements page. Him reading it was completely unexpected as he was a lawyer, not a higher education or green building guru who would benefit from the material. Nevertheless, he said if you’re acknowledged in a work, you should naturally read it. He and his daughter, Morgan, also attended my PhD graduation from William and Mary back in 2010. Boy, do I miss them.

So, my reading plan is clear. I’d better hit this new book of Dr. Martin’s, as soon as it’s off the presses!

Wayne will approve.

Diana’s topic is ethics in engineering, and she researched how it is handled in accreditation in Ireland. She has a number of journal articles under review that report various aspects of the study. She’s also on the steering committee of the Ethics working group for the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), which just today published a newsletter featuring some of my team’s work, under the title “Tackling gender inclusion of Middle East students in engineering education with Project Based Learning”.

Today, Diana is already shaping the agenda for research and practice in engineering ethics, not just following the crowd. And she’s headed to a new institution, to do a postdoc on ethics in engineering. She’s blazing new trails!

This level of leadership is impressive for what we in the USA would call a “baby doc”, a newly minted PhD!

by shannonchance

Learning London: Enjoying the (bus/fellowship/research) Journey

img_5651When you’re supervising a Ph.D. student, s/he usually comes to you for meetings. In my case, however, I travel over to LSBU twice a month to meet with my supervisee, Thomas, and his primary supervisor, Professor Shushma Patel. I’m doing this for several reasons:

  • It helps ensure Thomas gets effective advice that coincides. That helps since Thomas’ work and his conceptual thinking are very complex and we can work together to make sure all the parts fit together coherently.
  •  As part of my Marie Curie Fellowship, I’m also in training myself. As part of Work Package 4, Training, I’m supervising Thomas. This is an excellent way to build skills supervising students. Once Tomas successfully completes his Ph.D., I’ll be eligible to serve as a primary Ph.D. supervisor at TU Dublin and other institutions. This will surely make my applications for future funding more enticing to grantors, in cases where I’m proposing to “train” others in research.
  • In this case, I get to learn from Professor Patel, Thomas’ primary supervisor, who has impressive experience guiding doc students. I’m the second supervisor.
  • Meeting with Thomas and Shushma is loads of fun!

In advising Thomas, I get to draw from many aspects of my past experience–design creativity, environmental sustainability, engineering teamwork, and higher education (its organization and inner workings).

We usually spend about two hours in each meeting, as there are multiple facets to our work:

  • Most importantly, Thomas is writing a thesis (which in the United States we call a “dissertation”). It will include case studies of innovative engineering production. This is the central focus of our work.
  • Thomas is implementing his background research in designing and delivering The Great Challenge competition for the Design Museum, as I blogged about last week.
  • We’ve had an abstract accepted for a conference on product design education and we are developing it into a full paper, to submit in early March.

These meetings are delightful! We connect lots of synapses and we most definitely grow our brains while discussing complex inter-related issues.

img_5647-1The appetizer for the main-course meeting at LSBU each week is the trip there. I take a different route than I take to work daily and, on these days, I enjoy getting a bit of exercise. The fastest route to their campus is by way of the DLR, which is a 15-minute walk away from our flat

The cake-and-icing of the day? The double-decker-bus trip back to UCL! I love taking the London Bus from LSBU near Elephant and Castle, past Waterloo and the London Eye (the city’s giant Ferris wheel), across the Thames, over Strand Street, past Holburn Station and then straight north, through Bloomsbury, past Russel Square, to Tavistock Square. Then, it’s a short walk to the Engineering Front Building.

img_5672-1All parts of the journey are full of interesting sights!

Today on the big red bus, I got my very favorite seat–right above the bus driver, perched high above the street. The lovely sunlight today helped me overlook the bitter cold, and enticed me to snap even more photos than usual. You can see shots of the trip overall, with a frame-by-frame of some of my favorite areas.

I disembarked at Tavistock Square where a ceremony to commemorate Gandhi, held on the anniversary of his death, was concluding. The Square was magical and I felt Gandhi’s presence and the sense of peace he cherished–until I slipped on some black ice and nearly took a fall. Thankfully, I–or perhaps the spirit of Gandhi–caught me on the way down. I escaped injury.

img_5680Lessons of the day:

  • Completing a Ph.D. is a journey, best done with a collegial group of curious, knowledgeable, creative, and good-natured people.
  • A Fellowship also provides a gateway from the ordinary day-to-day routine and facilitates journey into the unknown.
  • There’s no better way to traverse the city on such a day than London Bus.
  • Seize the day and enjoy the journey. Make the very best of it you can.

AND:

BE THE CHANGE YOU HOPE TO SEE IN THE WORLD! –Mahatma Gandhi

 

by shannonchance

Chugging toward that PhD

Gavin Duffy and Rob Howard discussing Gavin’s conceptual framework.

We’re making definite progress on our research, Gavin and I.

Last week’s meeting with Dr. Rob Howard was a success, I’d say.  Gavin had a good “statement of purpose” to share with his dissertation advisor.  During our lunch meeting, the three of us were able to produce a diagram for the study (i.e., a conceptual framework model) that I hope will help speed the writing along.

It’s so inspiring to see Gavin make progress on his PhD!  Kind of makes you want to write a dissertation yourself, doesn’t it?

I wouldn’t mind writing another!  That lucky because my current research project actually feels like a dissertation study.  I’m happy to report progress on it as well.

Last week I emailed the outline, theoretical models, and introduction to my supporting authors and Dean Murphy.  I’m hoping to get feedback from them over lunch today.

Shannon Chance and Joe Dennehy at the Scholars Cafe on Aungier Street.

I’m putting the research to good use already, though.  Right after the meeting with Rob Howard, I was in the faculty cafeteria at the School of Business.

A very energetic professor, Joe Dennehy, bounded over to ask follow-up questions to the Teaching Fellowships keynote I delivered.  Joe wants to coordinate a group like the one I’ve been studying and asked my advice.

Every time I discuss the study I learn more.  And fortunately my graphic models worked well for communicating core ideas to Joe.

His zest for new ideas is contagious. How can you not love someone who writes of “the joyful serendipity of running into you on my way to see” the Head of School.

I plan to keep the conversation going with Joe… maybe I’ll soak up some knowledge about housing economics (which he teaches) while I’m helping him coordinate his faculty learning group in the spring.