About my PhD

Date created: 3.5.2023
Date Updated: 2.6.2024

Brief introduction into the start of my PhD

Late in 2019 after completing my honours thesis, I was working in the lab as a Research Assistant under my PhD supervisor. In December 2019, I was awarded my PhD scholarship and had met for coffee with my supervisor. We spoke about the plan for my PhD - the ideas for travelling, lab visits and conferences. It sounded so good!

I started my PhD in March 2020 at the Innovation Campus in Wollongong. Once I committed to moving to Wollongong, everything closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic! For the first 6 months-1 year, I felt very isolated. We were not allowed to leave a 5 km radius of our homes. I was not allowed in the lab for in total 1 year of my PhD. For the first two years of my PhD, the only conferences and training that I attended were online. I barely gave any presentations.

Once international travel was back in late 2021, it was really expensive. The first conference that I attended during my PhD was in Queensland (July 2022): the RACI congress. This conference was awesome! I met so many amazing people in different disciplines of chemistry. I grew my LinkedIn network and I had the best time. What's even better is that the dates overlapped with the Gold Coast marathon - the weekend before the conference, I flew to the Gold Coast to run the 42.2 km! It was an epic week.

The second conference that I attended was the Polymer Pacific (PPC17) also in Queensland in December 2022. A similar polymer crowd attended this conference, and I met more amazing chemists and polymer scientists. I had so much fun that on the last night, I stayed out until 4 am and missed my flight home. Lucky for me, I have Nick to help me come home (by buying me a new flight - which I paid him back for) and a kind sister to pick me up from the airport.

That was a funny day. The new flight was delayed and I didn't land in Sydney until after 12 pm. It was Thursday, and my supervisors still wanted to meet. My supervisor asked that I came to work, so I did. I was so stinky and tired. We worked on submitting a new abstract for the BioEl in February 2023 - which was accepted for a poster.

Both conferences in Queensland inspired me and motivated me to be a better scientist and to work harder in the lab. The feedback from my supervisor in my annual progress review (APR) was pretty amazing - it seemed that he could see how my confidence was growing as a scientist and at these conferences.

The next thing was to send me to an international lab for a visit. Initially it was early 2023, where I was going to visit a lab in the UK, University of Cambridge. At the same time, I was going to present at the Bioelectronics conference in Austria. By the time February came along, I wasn't keen to go as my lab work still needed more attention. Also the potential lab that my supervisor wanted me to visit wasn't interested in my work. Thus, travel was delayed for me.

The next thought was for me to go to Japan to visit Prof. Takashi Kato, an academic who I had met at the PPC17 conference in December 2022. I didn't end up going which is probably wise because I don't believe we could have got any interesting information from this lab visit. Furthermore, since I am in my third year, I did not want to waste a significant amount of time in a different lab. I am ready to finish my thesis, yet I still have quite a bit of lab work to do. I expressed my concerns to my supervisor, but he still thought it was a good idea to send me somewhere. I am very greatful for him wanting to do this for me.

I made plans to visit New Zealand. My supervisor has a friend who is a Professor of Chemistry, Prof. Keith Gordon, over at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. The lab visit involves me learning Raman Spectroscopy and analysing my materials for <2 weeks: from 21 May til 2 June. Following New Zealand, I was going to be heading to the USA for a conference. These plans fell through and I didn't end up visiting any lab. I did however attend the Fpi15 conference, which was another fantastic boost to my esteem, morale and motivation, which really helped me write and finish my PhD work. Over the month of June 2023, I travelled to the USA - see my Trips post USA 2023. It was amazing and gave me a final push to get going and finish lab work.

Here is a video that I prepared in 2021 for an online conference:

One of the best things I got to do in my PhD was attend all these conferences. I learned so much! I got to meet so many amazing people and best of all, I got the chance to grow my confidence!

About my thesis

It was long! I believe that even one of the reviewers commented about how long it was. Here is a breakdown of my thesis:

Chapter	Content	Words	Pages
1	Intro	13520	48
2	Methods	8370	31
3	Research	6289	29
4	Research	16100	55
5	Research	11963	42
6	Research	8374	32
7	Research	9706	35
8	Conclusions	2440	9
Total	Draft 1	65479	227
Total	Draft 2	76762	281

My advice to you, keep it short! Reviewers love that!