PhD Experience Interviews
Wondering what it’s like to do a PhD? And how you can develop your career after you gain your PhD? We’ve interviewed a variety of PhD students at different stages of their degree and PhD holders that have developed their careers and businesses in different directions, to help answer this for you.
View the profiles below to gain an insight into the life of PhD student – from their typical day to their biggest challenges and personal advice. Click here to read our interviews with PhD holders.
Current PhD Students
Clara Inés Alcolado Olivares
Clara is in the first year of her PhD at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain. Her research is based around understanding the reactivity of peroxynitrite with organic compounds such as commonly used drugs, food preservatives, or components of atmospheric aerosols.
Akshay Deoras
Akshay is in the final year of his PhD researching how well models can predict Indian monsoon low-pressure systems. The results of his research will help improve disaster preparedness and long-term planning.
Frances Boreham
Frances recently completed her PhD at the University of Bristol. Her research investigated the causes and consequences of hazardous lava-water interactions.
Nidhi Menon
Nidhi is a PhD student at Virginia Tech, focused on developing an engineered platform to study the breast tumor microenvironment, for diagnostic and prognostic purposes.
Priya Pollard
Priya’s a 1st year PhD student University College Dublin. Her project involves investigating a novel seaweed-ensiling process as an alternative to drying to preserve seaweeds nutritional and monetary value.
Nina Higson-Sweeney
Nina’s in the first year of her PhD in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath. Her project is focused on furthering our understanding of fatigue within adolescent depression.
Freya I. Addison
Freya’s in the final year of her PhD at the University of Leeds. Her project is about improving the precision of observations between collocated ground-based weather radar and airborne platforms.
Helena Hartmann
Helena is pursuing a PhD at the University of Vienna. Her research is centred around how we perceive, understand and share the suffering of other people around us, aka empathy for pain.
Calvin Swords
Calvin is coming to the end of the second year of his PhD at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. His research is focussed on how recovery as a concept is socially constructed in mental health services.
Henry Powell-Davies
Henry is in the first year of his PhD in the Cronin Group at the University of Glasgow. His research is based on the automation, optimisation, discovery and design of ontologies for robotic chemistry.
Abdullah-Al-Zubaer Imran
Abdullah recently finished his PhD at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His computer science research developed deep learning-based algorithms for medical image analysis.
Nathan Mistry
Nathan is about to enter the 2nd year of his PhD at the University of Hertfordshire. His research looks at how lifestyle stresses can impact skin barrier biophysics and skin barrier and oral cavity biochemistry and microbiology.
Jay Dave
Jay is in the third year of his PhD at Savitribai Phule Pune University, researching the applications of mesenchymal stem cells and nanocarrier for bone tissue engineering.
Islam Khan
Islam is in the final year of his Physics PhD program at Washington State University in the field of particle cosmology. His research is on the Possible Connections Between Inflaton and Dark Energy Within An Oscillating Reheating Framework.
Guy Cameron
Guy is in the 3rd and final year of his PhD in Immunology and Microbiology at The University of Newcastle, Australia. His research primarily focuses on investigating roles of our immune system outside of the typical pathogen surveillance.
De-Shaine Murray
De-Shaine is 2nd Year Neurotechnology PhD Student at Imperial College London. His research looks at monitoring the brain when it’s severely injured after a traumatic brain injury or stroke and patients are in neurocritical care.
Elpida Vounzoulaki
Elpida is about to start her third year of PhD research at the University of Leicester. Her research focuses on preventing type 2 diabetes in women who had gestational diabetes, and she an active STEM Ambassador.
Emmanuel Junior Zuza
Emmanuel is a year and half into his PhD at The Open University School of Ecosystems, Earth and Environmental Studies. His research is on understand the influence of environmental and social factors on smallholder macadamia production.
Christine Streeter
Christine is entering the 4th year of her PhD Carleton University, researching worker’s experiences of the changing conditions in the Non Profit and Social Service sector, pre and during COVID-19.
Jad Mahmoud Halabi
Jad is a 4th year PhD student at New York University Abu Dhabi/ New York. His project is title Smart Molecular Crystals: From Synthesis to Applications and has a particular interest in science communication.
Rakhi Vishwakarma
Rakhi is a PhD student at the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India. Her research is on the production of Borneol and Menthol and development of separation process from the reaction mixture.
Sara Abedi
Sara is currently in the 4th year of the Physics Doctoral Program at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her research investigates quantum transport properties of 2D electron systems.
Kamalpreet Singh
Kamal is a second year PhD student University of Toronto in the department of Chemistry. His research is focused on making hydrogen gas more affordable and easier to generate from water to use as a clean energy source.
Noelia Dominguez Falcon
Noelia is just two months away from submitting her PhD thesis at the University of East Anglia. Her research focuses on the application and the study of novel tissue engineering strategies for tendon repair, aiming to overcome some limitations from current therapies.
Harneet Sangha
Harneet’s heading into the fourth year of her PhD at the University of Leicester. Her research looks at the electrical currents in the Earth’s magnetosphere: how they change with time, and under different conditions.
Adam Netzer Zimmer
Adam’s about to start his fifth year of PhD research at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he’s earning a doctorate in anthropology as an affiliated researcher with the University of Iceland’s medical school.
Charlene N. Rivera Bonet
Charlene is a 5th year PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She studies depression and neuroticism in people with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) using MR Imaging and behavioural tests.
Fabian van den Berg
Fabian’s in the final year of his PhD research at Maastricht University. His project is about how humans learn numbers and how hands might help that process; this is especially useful for children developing their maths skills.
Gabrielle Huizinga
Gabrielle’s a 2nd year Immunology PhD student at the University of Michigan. Her research focus on the complications of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the clearance of respiratory bacterial infections.
Lewis Bridgeman
Lewis is a third-year PhD student at CVSSP at the University of Surrey. His research involves using multi-camera broadcast footage of sports, and using this data to create new viewpoints in virtual and augmented reality.
Pei Qin (Sabrina) Ng
Sabrina’s in the third year of her PhD at The University of Adelaide. Her esearch combines molecular techniques, data analysis, and next generation sequencing to investigate modifications on RNAs in plants.
Kat Ross
Kat is in the second year of her PhD at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth, Western Australia (WA). Her research involves studying supermassive black holes at the centres of distant galaxies.
Pavan Bagri
Pavan’s nearing completion of her Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree at the University of Toronto, whilst also working 4 days/week as a Clinical Pharmacist across 3 hospital sites in the Greater Toronto Area.
Elmira Vagapova
Elmira is in the third year of her PhD program at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, researching the mechanisms of acute myeloid leukemia cells resistance to targeted therapy.
Kyle Morgenstein
Kyle’s in the first year of his PhD at the University of Texas in Austin. His research interests are in the development of algorithms for advanced mobility for legged robotics and computer vision for exploration of extreme environments.
Julia Di
Julia is entering the third year of a combined master’s and PhD program at Stanford University. Her research explores how to give robots the sense of touch to make them more useful for tasks such as dexterous manipulation.
Michele Ponzelli
Michele is a first-year PhD candidate in a double degree program between the University of Girona (Spain) & Technical University Munich (Germany). His research has the aim of innovating water treatment technologies.
Rose Waugh
Rose is a final year PhD student at the University of St Andrews. Her research is focussed on modelling stars similar to the sun in its youth and understanding better the magnetic fields of these stars.
Emma Strand
Emma is a third year PhD student at the University of Rhode Island. Her research focuses on the physiological and genomic response to climate change stressors.
Bijou Basu
Bijou is a second year MD-PhD candidate, starting her second year of medical school. At the end of this academic year she’ll transition into doing a genetics PhD full time at Case Western Reserve University.
Annabel Farnood
Annabel is a third-year PhD student at the University of Glasgow, looking at the effects of online self-diagnosis and health information seeking on the patient-healthcare professional relationship.
Aaron Jones
Aaron’s now writing up his PhD thesis at the University of Birmingham. His research has investigated the Impact and Mitigation of Wavefront Distortions in Precision Interferometry.
Chris Sampson
Chris is making minor corrections to his PhD thesis post-viva at the University of Nottingham. His research was on optimising the cost-effectiveness of risk-based screening for diabetic retinopathy.
Freija Mendrik
Freija is half way through her PhD at the Energy and Environment Institute, University of Hull, researching the transport of microplastics through the Mekong River and to the South China Sea.
Ellen Brewster
Ellen is in the third year of her PhD at the University of Oxford. Her project looks at eighteenth-century reading manuals, using them to find out how eighteenth-century people theorised reading aloud.
Daisy Shearer
Daisy’s a year and half into her PhD at the University of Surrey. Her research project is based around the control of electron spin state in InSb quantum wells using quantum point contacts.
Julia Ravey
Julia’s in her final year of her PhD at University College London. Her research is helping to better understand how Alzheimer’s disease arises, which could lead to new successful therapeutics.
Bethany Cliffe
Bethany is a 1st year PhD student at the University of Bath, researching the adaptation of a self-help smartphone app (BlueIce) to prevent self-harm and improve the mood of University students.
Chloe Casey
Chloe is a 2nd year PhD student at Bournemouth University, researching the mental health of postgraduate researchers and is designing interventions that may improve their wellbeing.
Maria Sharif
Maria is a 1st year PhD student at the University of Birmingham, researching how to employ and exploit the biology of human gamma delta T cells for development of cancer immunotherapy.
Gareth Raynes
Gareth is getting ready for his PhD viva at Aberystwyth University and has been researching bacteria living inside coastal plants that can help other plants grow in salt contaminated soils.
Hannah Lewis
Hannah is a 1st year PhD student at Cardiff Metropolitan University. The aim of her research is to clarify what strategies are the most effective in supporting young people with dyslexia.
Chris Proctor
Chris is a third (and final) year PhD student at Ulster University. His project aims to develop a novel method of delivering antibiofilm compounds directly to an infected wound bed in patients.
Carlos Gonzalez Diaz
Carlos is a third year PhD student at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Games Intelligence (IGGI), as part of the University of York and Goldsmiths, University of London.
Danny Ward
Danny is a third year PhD student at the John Innes Centre and the University of East Anglia, working with Pseudomonas bacteria to understand how they infect their hosts.
Helena Bates
Helena is a final year PhD student at the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Oxford. Her research is on understanding the evolution of asteroids through analysis of meteorites.
Rebecca Hall
Rebecca recently finished her PhD at the University of York. Her research investigated the adaptations that occur in the symbiosis between the tsetse fly and its bacterial microbiome.
Raluca Gaina
Raluca is a final year PhD student at Queen Mary University of London. Her research is on exploring the algorithms of rolling horizon evolutionary algorithms for general video game playing.
Daniel Hernandez
Daniel is a third year PhD student at the University of York. His research is based around self-play training in multiagent systems; training AIs on a game such that they improve overtime.
Ellie Hurer
Ellie is a final year PhD student at the University of Hertfordshire, investigating a protein which is implicated in pancreatic cancer; this work can improve the efficacy of cancer drug treatments.
Nick Ballou
Nick is a first year PhD student at Queen Mary University of London. The long-term goal of his research is to help game designers make games that support healthy engagement and well-being.
Ryan Javanshir
Ryan is in the final write up stages of his PhD at the University of Southampton. His research is on understanding narrative structure, media specificity and genre in transmedia storytelling.
Amy Tucker
Amy recently entered her third and final year of her PhD at the University of Strathclyde. Her research has focussed on young people’s understanding of mental health stigma in Scotland.
Sammy Chapman
Sammy is a second year PhD student at Cardiff Metropolitan University researching how secondary school teachers can meet the demands of the Digital Competence Framework.
Eleni Routoula
Eleni is nearing the end of her PhD at the University of Sheffield on understanding Peroxidase immobilisation on Bioinspired Silicas and application of the biocatalyst for dye removal.
Alex Fitzpatrick
Alex is a PhD student at the University of Bradford researching ritual and funerary rites in later prehistoric Scotland: an analysis of faunal assemblages from the Covesea Caves.
Kai Arulkumaran
Kai is a PhD student at Imperial College London. His research centres around sample efficiency, transfer learning and interpretability for deep reinforcement learning.
Christian Nathan
Christian is a PhD student at the University of Leeds. His research project investigatores the role of the molecular clock in sympathetic preganglionic neurons.
Carina Nicu
Carina is a PhD student at The University of Manchester who has just defended her viva. Her research focuses on dermal white adipose tissue regulates human hair follicle growth and cycling.
Sam Rose
Sam is a new PhD student at Teesside University. Her research is focussed on better understanding how writing poetry can help cancer survivors to work through mental and emotional issues.
PhD Holders
View the profiles below to gain an insight into different ways that you can develop your work life after gaining your PhD. This could involve continuing a career in academic research, working in a commercial environment, starting your own business or doing something completely unrelated to your PhD.
Dr Malika Grayson
Dr Grayson gained her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 2016. She now works in industry as an Applications Portfolio Manager and is a STEM Speaker and Advocate.
Dr Kirell Benzi
Dr Benzi gained his PhD in Data Science from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2016. He is now a professional data artist and head of research at a tech company in Paris, as well as a trained public speaker.
Dr Sunni Patel
Dr Patel gained his PhD in 2011 from Aston University, researching risk factors & systemic biomarkers for Type II diabetes & cardiovascular disease. He is currently a business director at a large global pharmaceutical.
Dr Chris Pattison
Dr Pattison gained his PhD in Cosmology from the University of Portsmouth. He is now finishing a short term post-doc within the same research group and developing a career in science communication and science education.
Dr Nafisa M. Jadavji
Dr Jadavji completed her PhD in Medical Genetics & Neuroscience from McGill University, Montreal, Canada in 2012. She is now an assistant professor involved in a mix of research, teaching and service projects.
Dr John Young
Dr Young gained his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge. He is now a a Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, Deputy Director for the Institute of Biological and Biomedical Sciences and more!
Dr Asher Williams
Dr Williams gained her PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York in 2020. She is now a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University, researching simplifying vaccine manufacturing in low-income countries.
Dr Sherran Clarence
Dr Clarence gained her PhD in Higher Education Studies from Rhodes University, South Africa in 2013. She is now an honorary research associate at the University and also runs her own blog about working as a researcher/parent in academia.
Dr Gita Pathak
Dr Pathak gained her PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of North Texas Health Science Center in 2019. She is now a Postdoctoral Associate training in psychiatric genetics at the Yale School of Medicine.
Dr Khalil Thirlaway
Dr Thirlaway gained his PhD in immunology from the University of Nottingham in 2018. He is now a Science Communicator at the Natural History Museum, London.
Dr Michael Norman
Dr Norman gained his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of East Anglia in 2018. He is now the Public Engagement Officer at the Babraham Institute.
Dr Tahira Anwar
Dr Anwar gained her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Helsinki in 2019. She is now pursuing a career within industry and becoming more active in science outreach.
Dr Adani Pujada
Dr Pujada obtained her PhD in Molecular Cell Biology at Georgia State University in 2019. She is now a biomedical faculty member, mentor, and science communicator with a particular interest in promoting STEM education.
Dr Jerelle A Joseph
Dr Joseph gained her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 2018 and is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Physics at the University. Her research is on better understanding how cells organises its contents via the process of liquid-liquid phase separation.
Dr Omotayo Ilesanmi
Dr Ilesanmi has a PhD in Applied Biochemistry from the Federal University of Technology Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. He is now a lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry at the Federal University Otuoke, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.
Dr Amy Easey
Dr Easey has a PhD from the University of East Anglia where she genetically modified viral ligase enzymes for industry. She is now a biomedical scientist working in the Haematopathology and Oncology Diagnostic Service at Addenbrookes hospital.
Dr Vanessa Cesário
Dr Cesário has a PhD in Digital Media from the University of Porto. She’s now pursuing an academic career as a Postdoc in HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) as part of an EU project. She’s also aiming to teach in subjects including User-Centered Design and Interactive Media Design.
Dr Jonathan D. Morrow
Dr Morrow gained his MD-PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan. He now splits his time between providing clinical care to patients through the University of Michigan and research relevant to addiction and several other psychiatric disorders.
Dr Zoë Ayres
Dr Ayres completed her PhD at the University of Warwick in 2017, researching the use of diamond to make electrochemical sensors. She is now a research scientists in the water industry, developing different analytical techniques and sensors to help keep our water systems safe.
Dr Theanne Griffith
Dr Griffith gained her PhD in Neuroscience from Northwestern University in 2015. She is now a neuroscientist and children’s book author and will be opening her own lab in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology at the University of California Davis later this year (2020).
Dr Laura Tuohilampi
Dr Tuohilampi gained her PhD in Mathematics Education from the University of Helsinki in 2016. She is now a lecturer at the University of Helsinki, a Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales, Sydney and has also founded the company Math Hunger.
Prof Ramesh Raghupathi
Prof Raghupathi gained his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1991. He is now a professor in the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy at Drexel University College of Medicine.
Dr Ipsa Jain
Dr Jain gained her PhD in Molecular Oncology from the Indian Institute of Science. She is now a science illustrator and communicator, and works with TheLifeofScience.com to initiate conversations around sci-art and women in science.
Dr Harry Hothi
Dr Hothi gained his PhD in Orthopaedic Engineering from Queen Mary University of London in 2012. He is now the Implant Science Fellow at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, researching how to improve knee, hip and spine implants.
Dr Bishnu Karki
Dr Karki gained his PhD in the field of Nuclear and Particle Physics from Ohio University in March 2020. He is currently working as a postdoctoral associate in Prof. Haiyan Gao’s research group in Duke University.
Dr Kat Day
Dr Day gained her PhD Physical Chemistry at the University of Nottingham in 2000. She is now a Science & Fiction writer, an Associate Editor at PseudoPod.org and runs the blog ‘The Chronicle Flask’ about all things chemistry.
Dr Amit Kumar Singh
Dr Singh earned his PhD in Nanotechnology from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT Guwahati), India in 2018. He is now a Senior Research Fellow developing low cost and biocompatible micro/nanomotors for anti-cancer therapy.
Dr Sam Rowe
Dr Rowe gained his PhD in the fields of Chemistry and Biological Sciences from the University of East Anglia in 2018. He is now a project coordinator for Norwich Science Festival and also for Pint of Science in Norwich.
Dr Joe Manning
Dr Manning gained his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sheffield in 2019. He is now a postdoc researcher studying molecular simulations on nanomaterials at the University of Bath.
Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi
Dr Aitsi-Selmi gained her social epidemiology PhD from UCL in 2013. She now runs a private practice in Transformational Coaching and Consulting focused on careers, leadership and wellbeing.
Dr Jennifer Dillon (Bryant)
Dr Dillon gained her PhD in Molecular Cancer Studies at the University of Manchester in 2015. She now works at a biotech company called HairClone, optimising treatments for androgenic alopecia.
Dr Becky Smethurst
Dr Smethurst gained her DPhil in astrophysics from the University of Oxford in 2017. She is now an independent researcher at Oxford, runs a YouTube channel with over 100k subscribers and has published her own book.
Prof Carolyn Mair
Prof Mair gained her PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Bournemouth University in 2004. She is now a consultant working with the fashion industry and published her book in 2018.
Dr Rowan Hooper
Dr Hooper gained his PhD in evolutionary biology from the the University of Sheffield. He is now a journalist and writer (last book called Superhuman) and podcast editor at New Scientist.
Dr Ben Britton
Dr Britton gained his DPhil in material science research at Oxford University in 2010. He is now a Senior Lecturer in Materials Science and Engineering at Imperial College London.
Prof Debby Cotton
Prof Cotton gained her DPhil in the school of education at Oxford University. She is now the Director of Academic Practice and Professor of Higher Education at Plymouth Marjon University.
Dr Nikolay Nikolov
Dr Nikolov gained his PhD in the area of Anthropology of Architecture from UCL in 2020. He is a video journalist working with Mashable and advises PhDs consider options outside of academia.
Dr Emily Roberts
Dr Roberts gained her PhD from Duke University in 2014 in the field of biomedical engineering. She now runs her own business named Personal Finance for PhDs.
PhD Advice
Gain valuable insight from our collection of exclusive interviews with both current and past PhD students. Learn from their best advice, personal challenges and career path after completing their doctorate.
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