Heidi R. Gardner

On Not Being a PhD Student Anymore

April 6, 2019April 5, 2019Leave a comment

I’ve got a (relatively long-term in the world of academia) grown up job; hoorah! After my PhD finished I had a 6 month contract working as a Research Assistant, that contract ended just before Christmas meaning I could head off on my Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship travels. Now I’m back in the UK and looking at career steps that are hopefully a bit more stable.

I’ve been working as a Research Fellow for a month now, and I’ve had a few friends who are in the final stages of beavering away at their PhDs ask what it’s like to not be a student. Personally I hadn’t really put much thought into it before anyone had asked – probably because I’m working with the same (wonderful) team as I was before, and I have been focussing on learning how to my job and getting back into some semblance of normal life after a few months gallivanting across time zones.. Anyway, I figured it was time to reflect on how things have changed (or not) since leaving finally student life behind at the age of 26.

Image from Cristina Vanko’s 100 Days of Adulting project

First up, I’d just like to confirm that the rumours are true; there is life after a PhD, and it is entirely possible to not be a student.

When you’re in the thick of it, it can feel overwhelming and never-ending, but it does come to an end and you absolutely can graduate. Lots of people have done it before you, and people will do it after you; but it takes grit and resilience. I’ve spoken before about my hope of staying in academic research, and for now at least, that’s going well – my current contract will keep me in employment until 2021.

The main difference between my role now and my role as a Research Assistant, is that I’m now leading a project rather than supporting other researchers across lots of different ones. In that sense it feels a lot like when I was doing the PhD; I have a main project to focus on, and then a few little ones bubbling away in the background. If I’m honest, I much prefer that set up than Research Assistant life – I found working across lots of different things without leading any of them quite difficult, I felt like I lacked focus because my work was so varied. Now my days are still varied, but not too varied if you know what I mean? The work is substantial enough for me to get my teeth into, but there’s also some nice bits of what I think of as ‘snack-y’ work for me to do to keep me on my toes.

I think the only real difference between working in an actual grown up job and being a PhD student, is that people seem to take you a bit more seriously (I’m cringing just typing that, but I think it’s true… eeeek!). When I say ‘people’ I don’t mean my colleagues at work, I mean everyone else. I’ve shed the badge of student that I’ve carried around with me for so long, and it feels like people now view me as a ‘Researcher’ because I work for a University. My own perception was that I was a Researcher when I was doing my PhD, but maybe that’s not normal? I don’t know.
The best example of this was when my partner was updating our details for council tax recently. He asked what my job title was, and I said Research Fellow, and he did a sort of double take and said ‘seriously, I thought you were a Researcher?’. I explained that when someone asks me what I do, ‘Researcher’ is what I use – it’s more descriptive, and the ‘Fellow’ literally adds nothing but jargon and a weird air of self-importance. The response I got to that? ‘Yea, but Research Fellow sounds so much more of a big deal, like woah, you’re a Research Fellow, that’s pretty cool.’

Anna Borges / BuzzFeed / Via buzzfeed.com

It’s weird how a job title can make people think differently of you, more often than not they take you more seriously as soon as you no longer reply ‘student’, and that’s felt very strange to me over the past few weeks. I still feel like a giant baby, I am still outraged when I’m expected to pay bills on a regular basis (I’m only half joking; seriously, it’s relentless – every month?!), and I still call my Mum when something of note happens because I’m largely clueless as to how to deal with things that grown ups do (see the point above where my partner was dealing with the council tax..).

Adulting is hard, and not having the safety net of the student title takes away a whole lot of leeway when it comes to screwing up and not knowing stuff (I have no proof of that, that’s just my perception). Now it feels like people think I know shit when in actual fact I feel like I know less than I ever have? Anyway, I’m going to end this post now before I continue to waffle on about how growing up is an absolute con. Please tell me I’m not alone here?!

Good Things: March 2019

April 4, 2019April 4, 2019Leave a comment

HOW IS IT APRIL ALREADY?! Seriously, this year is going by at an unbelievable pace and it’s beginning to freak me out. I’m back today with my Good Things post for March. I started doing this in January as a way to open up a bit more and make this blog more personal, but I then didn’t do a one at the end of February because the start of March was filled with things that were very much Not Good, and it didn’t feel right.
The 6 broad categories that I used in January seemed to work pretty well, so I’m sticking with them for now – let me know if there’s any other categories you’d like to hear about!

Excellent humans

I’m starting off this post in a hugely mushy way – bear with me, this kind of slushy shit won’t be around for long. At the start of this month I lost a friend to suicide. It was really, really horrendous, and I’ve thought about him a lot over the last few weeks. The only good thing that came out of that entire horrendous ordeal was making sure the people around me knew how much I loved them. My partner, my Mum, and my friends, have all been highlights for me this month. I feel lucky to have such a fabulous group of humans surrounding me, and this month has been very much about making the most of free time spent with them. I’m sure there are other excellent humans in the world that I don’t know personally, but right now I’m pretty sure that my tribe trump all others.

Cool places

A few weeks ago I went to a local vegan cafe for the first time. I’d wanted to go for ages, but it was actually waaaaay more gorgeous than I thought it was going to be. If you’re in Aberdeen, go to Bonobo, but don’t go too often because I want to make sure that I get a table every time I go.
At the start of March my partner and I went away for a weekend, nowhere super exciting, but we had such a lovely time. We went to the cinema in Dundee, stayed in a hotel near Edinburgh and got room service and watched Crufts (I really love dogs ok), and on the way back we went to St Andrews for lunch and a wander around. It was the perfect little old couple day, and I loved St Andrews so much that I then met a friend there for lunch later in the month. It’s a super cute little city, and I’ll definitely be visiting again over the coming months.
In a really sickening way, I’ve loved being home this month. Aberdeen is bloody lovely when the evening start to get brighter.

Book(s) of the month

Fiction: Mend The Living by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Sam Taylor – I bought this when I was in Washington DC in January, and OH MY GOD. This book made me cry, made me think very big thoughts, and then made me cry again.
Short story collection: If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi by Neel Patel – I really, really loved this, to the extent that I read it on car journeys when my partner was driving even though I’m aware that’s very antisocial (it was worth it).

Online media

Podcast: Polarised – Denialism, with Caroline Lucas & Keith Kahn-Harris. Polarised is a podcast from the RSA that aims to investigate ‘the political and cultural forces driving us further apart’, and this episode was the first one that I listened to. I listened to it when I was driving from Aberdeen to Edinburgh for an event, and found myself having to pull over multiple times so that I could pause it and scribble down ideas that I was having as a result of the points the guests and hosts were making. Expect a few blog posts that refer to this over the coming weeks.
Blog post: Public engagement can fight against health inequalities – but only if we do it right: Imran Khan for the BMJ blog. Imran Khan is the Head of Public Engagement at Wellcome, so it’s not at all surprising that he’s managed to perfectly articulate the value of public engagement and the potential impact that it has on health research. This piece made me a bit emotional, and I’ve bookmarked it so I can send it to people in the future.
Article: False balance – what it is and why is it dangerous? Sophie Cremen. If I remember correctly Sophie wrote this about a year ago, but reshared it on Twitter which was how I came across it. In short, read it, it’s bloody brilliant and raises crucial points about the way ‘balance’ is presented in the media, particularly when it comes to stories about scientific topics.

One specific moment

A few months ago my wonderful friend and colleague, Dr Heather Morgan, asked me to design the artwork for the new podcast that she’s launching. I agreed to, but was nervous to actually do it because doing design work for people is terrifying because I’m not a designer. When I eventually got round to doing the thing and sending the image to Heather, I got the biggest warm fuzzy feelings ever.

Artwork for Higher Education, Human Employment (HEHE)

I’m sneaking another moment into this category because it was so lovely that I can’t not mention it. The wonderful team at NUI Galway sent me a huge hamper of Irish goodies! I’ve worked with these incredible humans for a few years now, and I have loved each and every project we’ve worked on together. The fact that they sent me this gift complete with PhD-related congratulations actually made me tear up. So unexpected, so unnecessary, and so bloody lovely. I am so lucky to work with this team, and I hope the collaboration continues for many years to come! (Also, strawberry and champagne jam is up there with the best things I’ve ever tasted)

Irish goodies gifted from colleagues at NUI Galway

Work thing

Earlier this month one of my fab colleagues, Dr Katie Banister, went into a few of the local schools to talk to students about clinical trials. She invited me to go with her and it was SO FUN! We talked about the trials that are going on at the Aberdeen Trials Unit, as well as the subjects we chose at school and University that then led us to the careers that we’re in. I left feeling suuuuuuper passionate and motivated to get stuck into work, just like every other time I do meaningful public engagement.

What did you love about March? Leave a comment below and let me know 🙂

Why Do I Have Depression? Making My Experiences Worthwhile

March 26, 2019March 25, 2019Leave a comment

I’ve talked about depression a lot on my blog recently. I’ve been very open about my own experiences, but I’m acutely aware that my experiences are individual to me, and on the whole, we don’t completely understand why people experience depression, why they experience it in certain ways, or how we should treat it best. Sometimes it can be really frustrating to live with depression; previously I’ve found myself feeling a bit jealous of people that don’t have this heavy blanket to carry round with them – why do I have these experiences? Why don’t others? If I have kids will they have these experiences too?

Instead of being jealous or frustrated, in recent months I’ve mad a conscious effort to make my own experiences of depression feel worthwhile. Whether that’s been blogging about it, providing online support to people that I’ve never met, talking to people in real life.. it’s been a weirdly nice way to ensure that something good comes out of such difficult experiences.

Now, I’ve decided to take part in a research study.

My entire PhD looked at participant recruitment in research (specifically, clinical trials), so I know that recruitment is hard. That said, I’m not taking part because I don’t want the researchers running the study to stress-cry more than absolutely necessary. I’m taking part in a research study about depression because it makes me feel like I’m contributing to solving the problem. If I have to live with depression, then I may as well use my experiences to help researchers understand it more thoroughly. Maybe my contribution to research will help answer why I have these experiences, why others don’t, and whether any potential children of mine would be at risk of these experiences as well.

So, what’s the study?

Recently, researchers at King’s College London launched the largest ever single study of depression and anxiety. They aim to recruit at least 40,000 people living in the UK that have experienced depression or anxiety at some point in their life. This study, the Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression (GLAD) study aims to ‘make important strides towards better understanding of these disorders and improving the lives of future patients‘.

If you live in the UK and have experience of depression or anxiety, I would really recommend that you watch the video below, and read on to find out more information about what taking part in the GLAD study involves.

It’s really important that we try to get as many people from as many different backgrounds to take part. When lots of similar people (i.e. people of one ethnicity, people of a limited age group, people of the same gender etc) take part in research, the results are at serious risk of bias – meaning that the results would only be applicable to the group of people that took part in the study. The GLAD study team has explicitly said that they want to recruit from diverse groups that represent the entire UK population, and they are actively working to address the complex barriers that exist for some potential participants by working with mental health organisations that have links to various different communities around the UK.
Clearly, it’s important that everyone with experience of depression or anxiety takes part in this study, but if you do know of any mental health organisations, or community groups that you feel may be difficult to connect with via the methods that the team are already using, please do forward them this blog post or direct them to the study website (www.gladstudy.org.uk) for more information.

How you can take part in the GLAD Study

Step 1: If you have personal experience of depression or anxiety, and live in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, head to www.gladstudy.org.uk. Scroll to the bottom of that page and enter your details to sign up.

Step 2: Read the information sheet carefully to ensure that you understand what the study entails, and what will be expected of you if you take part.

Step 3: Go through the consent process, this is a series of 15 yes/no questions, and you’re also asked for your address and NHS number (I didn’t know my NHS number and was still able to go ahead and complete it – I’ll go back and complete my NHS number when I have it later this week).

Step 4: Complete the GLAD study survey. This is quite a long process, but it’s where the bulk of the effort comes in terms of research participation – after this involvement is pretty minimal (but still important) going forward. I think it took me about 30 minutes or so to complete the survey. The survey is split into various categories, the sensitive ones also include an option to skip if you don’t feel comfortable answering them, which I thought was a good way to ensure that the research doesn’t trigger anyone with particular life experiences.

Step 5: A GLAD study saliva kit was sent to me within just a few days of completing my address details in step 3. Open this up and make sure that you have everything listed in this ‘what is in my saliva kit?’ section of the leaflet enclosed.

Step 4: Follow the instructions to fill the saliva sample tube – note, make sure to brush your teeth 30 minutes before giving you sample, and don’t eat or drink anything in that time. You need to fill the tube to the 4ml line, and there will already be 2ml of a DNA stabiliser in there. This may take a few goes; 2ml of saliva is a lot more than I expected, it took me 5 goes to get enough! Pop the lid firmly back on the tube and shake it up.

Step 5: Put everything in the freepost envelope that comes in the kit, and pop it in the post box.

That’s it!

When the study team receive your sample, they will extract DNA from your sample. Samples will then be stored without any of your personal details; if you are from England and Northern Ireland, your sample will be stored at the NationalBiosample Centre (NBC) in Milton Keynes, if you are from Northern Ireland, some of your sample will also be stored in secure facilities at Ulster University in Coleraine, if you are from Scotland, your sample will be stored at NBC and some will also be stored at the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility at the University of Edinburgh, if you are from Wales, your sample will be stored at NBC and some will also be stored at National Centre for Mental Health/MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomicsat Cardiff University.

This post is in no way sponsored or affiliated with the GLAD study. I enrolled in the study as a participant following the steps described above after seeing a post about the study on Twitter. I wrote this post as I want to highlight how quick and simple study participation can be, in an effort to encourage people with experiences of depression or anxiety to take part themselves.
For more information please visit www.gladstudy.org.uk.

Some Thoughts for New WCMT Fellows

March 19, 2019March 17, 20193 Comments

At the start of this month 150 new Churchill Fellows were announced. That means it’s been just over a year since I could talk about my WCMT Fellowship – which seems insane! My Fellowship adventures started at the beginning of January and finished at the end of February, so I’ve had some time to decompress and attempt to make sense of the reams of notes I made over the course of those 8 weeks. I wasn’t able to go to the new Fellows’ seminar to share my excitement and experiences, so I thought I’d share a few points here.

If you’re a previous Fellow like me, please comment below and share your tips for new Fellows; and if you’re a new Fellow, I hope you find this useful! Happy to answer questions if there’s anything I’ve missed too, just leave a comment or contact me on Twitter 🙂
If you’re not a new Fellow/don’t plan on doing long trips any time soon, this is probably not the post for you – it’s going to be pretty long!

Planning

Plan your trip with a gap at the end before you need to get back to real life. For me, I only really started to make proper links between the conversations I was having towards the end of the trip, and having an extra week at home before I went back to work was really good for letting all those ideas stew without other things needing to take priority.
Plan trips carefully, taking into account the potential for jet lag. I was either cocky, stupid or ignorant when I booked my flights, and I definitely paid for it. Flying from Washington DC, to the UK, to Berlin, and then to Singapore within a few days was not my finest moment, and my jet lag in Singapore ruined the first few days completely.
Leave space in your itinerary for unexpected meetings, new connections, and downtime. You did not travel across the world to have to say no to meeting new people, similarly, you did not travel across the world to sit in various branches of Starbucks. Make the most of the time you have – that means meeting people you might not have expected to but also sightseeing and visiting places you otherwise wouldn’t get chance to.
I get lost wherever I go, I have a terrible sense of direction and I knew I’d be reliant on Google Maps to make sure I could find my way around. With that in mind, I chose hotels in Singapore and Hong Kong that came with a ‘Handy‘; a smartphone that is docked in each room that comes with free local data. I got free mobile data through my network (EE) when I was in the USA and Canada, but having a Handy was incredibly useful when I was in Singapore and Hong Kong because my mobile data would have costed me £6 per day to use.
If you’re visiting places where English is not the first language, I’d recommend having a few select phrases memorised or at least written down. I had hotel addresses saved in various languages which was particularly useful when I needed help trying to navigate public transport, and I don’t eat meat so I had a few versions of ‘vegetarian’ noted down to make sure that I could communicate that in cafes and restaurants.

Packing

Packing cubes are life changing. I packed for the first leg of my trip without packing cubes (completely forgot I had them), and didn’t appreciate them until the second part of my trip. A previous Fellow recommended them and I thought he was over-egging their impact, but they really do make travelling to multiple destinations so much easier.
Buy a travel adapter that covers multiple territories, and take an extension cable. The placement of sockets in hotels has become one of the most boring topics that I can rage about (seriously though, why is there never a socket next to the bed for a phone charger, and next to a mirror for hair dryer/straighters?!).
Make a formula for your hand luggage – take the minimum you need and try to leave lots of space in case you buy things and your suitcase is too heavy (I like books, standard airline weight limits do not). Standards that I always include in hand luggage: a mini toothpaste, toothbrush, hand cream, tissues, mini pack of wipes (for grubby fingers or to take makeup off etc), a book, headphones, a booster charger for my phone, small supply of medication (in case your suitcase gets lost), a spare pair of contact lenses, and my glasses. Everything else is extra bulk that you end up dragging around airports, wishing you hadn’t.
Luggage is important – use something that you trust not to break because this is absolutely not the time to see the contents of your suitcase whizzing its way around the baggage reclaim belt. I used AWAY luggage – the large suitcase and the everywhere bag for my hand luggage. It’s now the only luggage I’ll ever use. It’s sturdy but relatively light, and the AWAY packing cubes fit perfectly.
Pack clothes with the intention of doing laundry – there’s no need to take enough outfits to last you 4 weeks when you take take enough for 1 or 2 and wash them. Whilst I’m on that point too; don’t do laundry in hotels! The price is extortionate, and if you use a local launderette you can often get them back within quicker turnaround time. I used a drop off launderette in New York that charged by the kilo and meant I could have everything apart from the clothes I was wearing, washed for less than $10.

Money

The funding that you received from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust is enough to cover your trip, but bear in mind that you might want to do more than just cover your trip. I saved some money of my own to add to the funding I got for the Fellowship, meaning that I was able to spend a bit more on areas of the trip that were important to me (always staying in hotels rather than hostels, going on day trips to places further afield etc).
Make sure you have at least some cash in each currency you’ll need. In places like the US I used my card all the time (remember to 1) tell your bank you are travelling before you leave, and 2) check for potential charges!), but when I got to Singapore and went out of the airport to get a taxi, I was surprised that the taxis only took cash.

People

Find a ‘connecter’ – this is actually a piece of advice I was given by one of the wonderful people I met in Toronto (hoorah for you, Dawn Bazely!). I met her in the first stop of my travels, and a self-described ‘connecter’, she linked me up with lots of other people. Some I couldn’t meet because they were too far away, but I was able to Skype them after Dawn introduced us, others I met the next day. People that know people are your best friends whilst on a WCMT Fellowship!
Meet people you think you disagree with. This is a weird situation to describe because I don’t want to mention names, but look for the people in your area of research that appear to have opposing views to you. Talking with these people will stretch your ideas, challenge you, and strengthen what you get out of the Fellowship. I met with a few people that I thought may hold opposing views to me, but after I’d heard their reasoning it was clear that we weren’t so different, and that taking their concerns into account was important if I ever wanted my Fellowship to achieve anything.
Not all conversations need to be planned. I spoke to people looking around art galleries, science museums and exhibits – I didn’t know any of them before and I don’t know any of them now, but when you’re travelling alone you tend to have lots of conversations with other people that are travelling alone, or groups of people that feel a bit sorry for you wandering about by yourself. Those conversations can be just as valuable as the ones that are intentional.

Note taking

This probably goes without saying, but taking notes after (or during) each of your meetings is crucial. I took two audio recorders with me, but ended up not using them because I was often meeting people in busy places where the sound quality would have been too terrible for me to ever want to listen back to. Instead, I used a pen & paper. I didn’t take notes during all of the meetings because I was conscious of wanting to really take part in the conversation, but after each meeting I spent 15-20 minutes writing notes to make sure I’d captured everything.
As I said, I used a notebook – not a laptop, iPad or anything electronic. That meant I was entirely reliant on not losing the notebook. That was fine, it was small enough to live in my handbag, and it only came out for me to take notes. Still, I took photographs of each page after I’d written them, just in case. I prefer writing notes to typing them because I remember them more easily, but if you decide to go down that route I’d definitely recommend taking photographs just in case your notebooks gets lost.

At the very beginning of my Fellowship journey I was so overwhelmed, I don’t think I really believed it was going to happen until I started meeting people, but the main thing is to dedicate yourself to your project, and enjoy it! It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, and one that I will remember for the rest of my life. Now to convince my boyfriend to apply for a WCMT Fellowship so that I can piggyback onto any future travel plans..

Making Sure Depression Doesn’t Get in the Way of Life

March 17, 2019March 17, 20194 Comments

It’s been over a week since I last posted. That’s partly because I wanted to take some time to step back and intentionally switch off from the extra things I do outside work (i.e. blogging), but also because I wasn’t sure how to follow up a post where I talked about depression in such a direct way. The last week has been better, I’ve spent lots of time with my boyfriend and we’ve helped each other through the emotional rollercoaster of grief. Before I start posting about public engagement, Fellowship adventures, and clinical trials, I wanted to acknowledge how I deal with depression on a daily basis, and how I make sure it doesn’t stop me from enjoying life.

I’m lucky that I’ve got to this point; as recent events have taught me, many don’t, but if you do live with depression these points might be good starting points to make sure you don’t get overwhelmed by the low points.

Finding joy in the little things

Every night since our friend died, my boyfriend and I have told each other two things that we’ve enjoyed that day. That first night was difficult, and I ended up saying something like ‘I had a really good cup of tea’ and ‘I listed to some fun music when I was driving home’, which felt pathetic and stupid because after those two good things we literally found our friend dead. That said, doing that made sure that I had reminded myself that the day wasn’t completely horrendous, even if the previous few hours had been. Now we do this every night before we go to sleep, and it reminds us that even though some days are thoroughly crap, there’s always something good in them. Some days it’s hard to limit those things to two, and those are extra good days, but on the days when it’s difficult to find good points in the day two is enough to remind you the life is actually alright most of the time.

Talking to someone impartial

A few weeks ago, I started going to see a therapist. I’ve been to a therapist once before and I didn’t click with her at all – the advice she was giving me didn’t sound constructive or like it would actually result in anything good, so I stopped going. I tried therapy through the NHS but had to wait for 18 months, and then again I didn’t click with the therapist. Since then I’ve been hesitant about going back because I wasn’t sure how to find someone I clicked with, and honestly, because it’s expensive. At upwards of £40 per session, as a PhD student I wasn’t keen on the trial and error approach to finding a therapist that I liked. Anyway, now I’m in a position to pay for therapy, I went online and did some research on therapists local to me. I visited each of their websites, read their ‘About Me’ sections, found out what areas of therapy they specialised in, and then emailed one. I told myself I’d do one session, and then reassess and figure out if they were the right fit – so I didn’t go in expecting to have found ‘the one’. Luckily, I felt like she was a very good fit, she didn’t recoil when I swore (I’m a pretty sweary person), laughed when I laughed, and seemed very in tune with my body language etc, noticing things that I hadn’t even realised I did. I’ve only been to 2 sessions so far, but it’s been really helpful. Even just two weeks in I’m finding myself stepping back and being able to reflect on things so that I can figure out how I can manage them.

10/10 would recommend speaking to someone that is completely impartial – the guilt I sometimes have when talking about heavy stuff with friends or family isn’t there, and it’s nice to be able to talk about my thoughts in a completely judgement free environment.

Letting myself be sad

Some days, it’s not possible to pick myself up and keep going. Sometimes, I wake up and know that I’m going to have a low day, and that’s totally ok. It’s fine to take some time out, but the last few times I’ve felt like that instead of laying in bed/migrating to the sofa at some point in the afternoon, I’ve really tried to do just one thing. I usually target one thing on my to do list and do that. That one thing might take me longer than usual, but it’s one more thing than I would have done otherwise. Usually, after doing one thing, I feel a bit better and try to tackle another, and that makes sure that I’m still feeling productive even though I might do doing the things whilst sat in my pyjamas.

Sources of Support for Those That Are Struggling

March 8, 20193 Comments

This is a weird blog post to write, but I didn’t want the week that I’ve just had to go by without saying anything – it’s too important.

My first day at my new job as Research Fellow was supposed to be Monday 4th March, and I’d planned for this week to be about getting stuck into work, writing lots and getting a feel for the new project that I’ll be working on for the next 2 years. Instead, on Sunday evening my partner and I went to our friend’s flat because we were worried about him. He hadn’t been answering text messages, he wasn’t answering the door to his flat, his phone was going straight to voicemail, and no one had heard anything from him since the early hours of Saturday morning. We got the spare key to his flat from another friend, and let ourselves in. We found him dead.

This week has been one of the most surreal weeks of my life. It still doesn’t feel real, and I’m not sure that it ever will.
The point of me writing this blog post isn’t for sympathy, or messages of support – we’ve had lots of them already, and everyone around us has been understanding, supportive and kind. I feel lucky that we have people around us that we’ve been able to call ‘just because’. Some people don’t have that, or don’t feel that they have that, so I wanted to highlight sources of support that are available to people that need it.

I’m based in the UK so these are UK-centric, but I will try to include links to international organisations too – if you know of any further sources of support, please leave details in the comments below and I will add them into the list below.

Helplines

Mind

Infoline

The Mind team provides information on a range of topics including:

types of mental health problems
where to get help
medication and alternative treatments
advocacy.

They will look for details of help and support in your own area (UK).
Lines are open 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday (except for bank holidays).
0300 123 3393
info@mind.org.uk
Text: 86463

Legal line

The Mind legal team provide legal information and general advice on mental health related law covering:

mental health
mental capacity
community care
human rights and discrimination/equality related to mental health issues.

Lines are open 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday (except for bank holidays).
0300 466 6463
legal@mind.org.uk

Blue Light Infoline

Mind’s Blue Light Infoline is just for emergency service staff, volunteers and their families.
The team provides information on a range of topics including:

staying mentally healthy for work
types of mental health problem
how and where to get help
medication and alternative treatments
advocacy
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
existing emergency service support
mental health and the law.

Find out more about the Blue Light Infoline.
Lines are open 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday (except for bank holidays).
0300 303 5999 (local rates)
bluelightinfo@mind.org.uk
Text: 84999

If you’d rather not speak to someone on the telephone, Mind also offer a web chat service, there is more information here.

Samaritans

Samaritans are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
You can call them on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org

Websites

The Mental Health Foundation
Mental Health UK
Mental Health Matters
Mind (charity)
Types of mental health problems
Supporting someone with mental health issues
How to access mental health services

Starting points for international organisations/sources of support

Canada
USA
Australia

Also, another point – the language that we use around mental health and suicide is important. Research has shown that using stigmatising language can deter people from seeking the help that they need.

“Suicide is no longer a crime, and so we should stop saying that people commit suicide. We now live in a world where we seek to understand people who experience suicidal thoughts, behaviours and attempts, and then to treat them with compassion rather than condemn them. Part of this is to use appropriate, non-stigmatising terminology when referring to suicide.”
– Susan Beaton, Suicide Prevention Specialist

With this in mind, Samaritans recommends:

Phrases to use:

A suicide
Take one’s own life
Person at risk of suicide
Die by/death by suicide
Suicide attempt
A completed suicide

Phrases to avoid:

Commit suicide
Cry for help
A ‘successful’ or ‘unsuccessful’
Suicide victim
Suicide ‘epidemic’, ‘craze’or ‘hot spot’
Suicide-prone
Suicide ‘tourist’

Living Artwork and Questioning the Ageing Process – a Visit to STATE Studio Berlin

February 19, 2019Leave a comment

I’m fiiinally making some time to write blog posts about all the wonderful places I’ve been as part of my Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship over the last few months, so if you’re interested in science communication/how science can be communicated using art, then be sure to check back over the coming weeks. Last week I talked about a fantastic exhibition that I visited at the Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore, which was more data visualisation than art, so today I thought I’d highlight something that’s more obviously in the art sphere; STATE Studio in Berlin, Germany.

In between Fellowship trips (I did two legs – North America and Asia), I sneaked in a
weekend in Berlin. This wasn’t strictly Fellowship-based travel as it wasn’t in my itinerary, but STATE Studio’s work merging art and science is the reason I went to Berlin, so I’m counting it as part of the Fellowship
experience.

STATE Studio is a public gallery, showroom and event space that was established on the back of STATE Festival; Berlin’s festival for open science, art and society. The team also have an agency made up of a collective of artists, designers, scientists and cultural producers, to create innovative experiences to engage the public with science. The Studio part of STATE opened in October 2018 (after my Fellowship was funded, hence the last minute addition to my itinerary!), and is home to various exhibits that focus on cutting-edge scientific research, innovation, and creativity. In the words of STATE, “It’s a place for creative synergies between science, art, and innovation to discover and explore the breakthrough developments that shape our future.”

For me, the two standout exhibits were, the Living Canvas installation, and ÆON- Trajectories of Longevity and CRISPR.

Living Canvas, Fara Peluso with biotech start-up Solaga

Artist Fara Peluso with her Living Canvas exhibit. Image credit: Anne Freitag Photography

The Living Canvas is the first thing you see when you walk into the STATE Studio space – at first glance it looks like a regular painting, but on closer inspection it’s clear that it really is living. Within a chunky glass frame is a growing algae biofilm, and it comes complete with external circuitry that supplies that algae with life-giving saline solution. What I found super interested is that the algae biofilm inside the Living Canvas is actually in constant interaction with the exhibition space itself; the algae is filtering the air around it, removing carbon dioxide and pollutants, and releasing oxygen and water – which you can see as little bubbles on the inside of the glass, giving the impression that the piece is sweating.

The Living Canvas was designed by artist Fara Peluso, in collaboration with Solaga, a Berlin-based biotech start-up which specializes in the development of innovative solutions for air filtrations and regenerative energy production based on algae biofilms. In interviews since the exhibition opened, Fara has explained that she wanted to initiate a discourse on sustainability and new technologies, and so created a work of art that will continue to develop over the course of the exhibition’s lifetime.

As part of the Living Canvas exhibit, Fara Peluso also runs an algae cultivation workshop at STATE. The Algature workshop combines DIY Biology and speculative design, giving attendees an opportunity to develop their own algae cultivation tool that they can then take home to purify the air in their own spaces.

ÆON- Trajectories of Longevity and CRISPR, Emilia Tikka with the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)

After admiring the Living Canvas exhibit I headed upstairs to a bigger space which included the ÆON- Trajectories of Longevity and CRISPR exhibit (I originally found out about STATE Studio from a piece that Nature did on this exhibit). This was one that I found really interesting because it’s a photography exhibit, and therefore something that could be translated into the format of a blog post with relative ease.

Photographs by Zuzanna Kaluzna form part of Emilia Tikka’s ÆON. Image credit: Anne Freitag Photography

STATE has a residency program, where artists spend an extended period of time within a scientific research environment. A residency is designed to provide an intimate link between artists and research institutions, in the hope that the artists can produce innovative work that defies convention and provokes curiosity, whilst also enabling scientists to reflect on the potential impact that their work may have on wider society. This exhibition was a result of Finnish artist and designer Emilia Tikka‘s residency at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC). There, she worked on uncovering the molecular hallmarks of ageing, and exploring the potential of CRISPR gene editing technology to reverse the biological clock. According to STATE, “ÆON- Trajectories of Longevity and CRISPR – addresses philosophical and societal dimensions of the desire for eternal life.”

The main body of the exhibit is made up of photographs, styled and conceptualised by Emilia Tikka, and shot by Zuzanna Kaluzna. The photographs tell the fictional story of a potential future; a couple are given the choice to defy the ageing process – the man agrees to, and inhales the CRISPR therapy, the woman does not. The resulting images are confronting as you see the consequences of their decisions; the man ceases to age, and the woman continues to do so. The fictional inhaler that Tikka designed is also part of the exhibit.

Emilia Tikka’s speculative design for a CRISPR–Cas9 inhaler. Image credit: Anne Freitag Photography

Clearly, Emilia’s work is speculative; you absolutely cannot take CRISPR gene editing technology via an inhaler, and then never see another wrinkle again, but the potential for CRISPR to be able to do something like this isn’t actually that far fetched. The world’s media recently exploded when a scientist from China revealed that he’d used CRISPR to edit the genomes of human embryos so that they would be immune to HIV infection.

CRISPR is a perfect example of the speed that science is moving at, and just how far the ethical and societal impacts of that are lagging behind. In my opinion, this exhibit at STATE Studio is a great way to stimulate conversation around these complex scientific topics.

A Day in Data – SPREAD’s Life Stripe Exhibition

February 14, 2019February 14, 20193 Comments

If you were to look at your day in 24 blocks of one hour, what do you think the biggest block of time would be spent doing?

Right now I’m in the thick of some of the worst jet lag I’ve ever had, so I’d hazard a guess at 50% of the time being asleep (usually in the middle of the day), a further 20% of the time spent in bed wishing I was asleep, and the rest doing, y’know, life (read: in search of food).

This idea of visualising a day in terms of blocks of activity has been used by a design collective called SPREAD. SPREAD, established in 2004, is made up of two Japanese designers, Haruna Yamada and Hirokazu Kobayashi. Their ‘Life Stripe’ project aims to “find patterns in our everyday existence by using bands of color“.

I saw the Life Stripe exhibit at the Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore; a relatively small museum that includes a beautiful design shop and cafe on the ground floor, with the exhibits on the floor above. I hadn’t planned to go to Red Dot at all, I’d spent the day at Singapore’s ArtScience museum (more on that in a later blog post), and had some time to kill in the Marina Bay area. After wandering around the bay and having what turned out to be the best salad I’ve ever eaten (from now on I’m putting watermelon and pistachios in every salad, ever), I caught sight of the Red Dot sign. I figured I’d go in and have a wander around, thinking that if it wasn’t great then at least I’d be out of the heat and in the comfort of decent air-conditioning for at least an hour. Turns out, it was one of my favourite places in Singapore; the Life Stripe exhibit being a main reason.

When you head up the stairs to get to the upper floor of Red Dot, the first thing you see is this:

A rectangular block striped with colours, that you then figure out correspond to the key below. Along with a few other museum visitors, I couldn’t walk away from this first image before deciphering what the coloured box was telling us – spoiler alert; this 24 hours is filled with a lot of work/study, some sleep, intermittent housework/chores, two mealtimes, and a spot of shopping.

In SPREAD’s words: “Life Stripe lets you see your daily, weekly or monthly routines in an exciting way, and helps you discover something about yourself. A Life Stripe work is a “pattern of life” made by replacing one’s everyday actions such as sleeping, dining, relaxing, and working, with 21 colors selected based on research, and recording them along a 24-hour axis.”

The striking thing about Life Stripe came later; a wall filled with 88 of these rectangles, each showing a different colour pattern. On closer inspection these blocks reflected the activity of different people, with different jobs and lifestyles.

Photograph of the Life Stripe exhibit, taken by Heidi on Sunday 10th February at the Red Dot Design Museum, Singapore

SPREAD collected over 150,000 life records of both well-known and ordinary people of various careers, circumstances, genders, age, as well as animals, and made Life Stripe works based on them. They continue to collect data to this day, and the work on show is just a small collection.

In the squares above you might be able to make out that a Graphic Designer has a pretty rigid routine, spending most of their time working, some emails and then sleep, whereas (perhaps unsurprisingly) a Pet Sitter has a more varied day with short time slots spent doing different things. As well as the job titles, the brief description underneath each of the coloured rectangles also gives age, gender and location.

They’re not all human either – this one for a cat got a lot of laughs as people uncoded the sleep-meal-hang out routine; though there was some discussion about whether this could have been a teenager or not..

I got thinking about this exhibit and how useful it would be to communicate what the day to day life of a specific career might look like to someone who isn’t familiar with it. I’d bet that if different types of Scientists made their own coloured blocks no two would be the same!

‘Science Has No Gender!’ …But Does It Have a Race?

February 11, 2019February 11, 20194 Comments

Today, February 11th, is International Day for Women and Girls in Science. Today is a day to promote full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls. I’ve talked about women in science on this blog before, and honestly, I wasn’t planning on writing a blog post at all today. I figured I’d just be repeating myself, and at the same time I’m sort of thinking that I’m preaching to the converted – most of the people that read this (as far as I know), are pretty happy with initiatives to improve working environments and opportunities for women in science.

(A note before I start – when I refer to ‘women in science’, I mean every person that identifies as a woman, whether that’s the gender they were assigned at birth or not. To be honest, celebrating and encouraging non-binary people in science should be included in the International Day… title too, but I don’t think the world (i.e. the UN and UNESCO) have come that far yet. That’s a fight for another blog post, but know it’s something that we as a community should be aware of.)

So, why am I writing this blog post at all? Well, today I had a bloody brilliant day. I went to We’re The Furballs – the dog petting cafe that I mentioned in a blog post a few days ago. I was feeling pretty happy with myself because yesterday I did lots of cool science/art related exploration for my Fellowship, and today was a break day that featured a corgi called Waffles, a toy poodle called Lulu, and a sausage dog called Slinky. I also went book shopping, and found the local Sephora – all in all an excellent Monday. That being said, I stopped for ice cream on the way home from the dog petting cafe, and checked Twitter. At the top of my timeline was a post from Hana Ayoob (if you’re not following her, I suggest you remedy that immediately – she also has a wonderful Etsy store) drawing attention to this:

Science has no gender!

We need 100% of our brainpower to address global challenges.

We need more #WomenInScience.

We need to support women & girls who choose science!

🌐 https://t.co/LEO1A3V12Q pic.twitter.com/Cb6LLSe3Wo

— UNESCO (@UNESCO) February 8, 2019

Does anything about UNESCO’s tweet look a little off to you?

No, I’m not talking about spelling errors or unfortunate hashtags, I’m talking about the fact that every single woman in their graphic is white. This made me really, really frustrated. So frustrated in fact that I pretty much forgot about the whole dog petting cafe thing for about 10 minutes.

The whole “we need more women in science” thing is one thing that irritates me on a consistently low level – telling women that we need them in science is not going to make them build a career in science. When I was a teenager choosing my options for subjects at school, the fact that I might be selecting subjects that would push me into a field where there would be less women than men did not encourage me to choose STEM subjects. I wanted to know that women in science were given the same opportunities as men, and the fact that there was (and still is) a shortage of women in science did not fill me with confidence on that front.

ANYWAY. Back to the issue with the graphic above. It’s terrifying that I feel the need to say this, but all women are not able bodied slim white women. This fact should not come as a shock.

If the 7.5 billion people in the world was represented by just 100 people:

50 would be women
50 would be men

60 Asians
16 Africans
14 people from the Americas
10 Europeans

1 would be dying of starvation
11 would be undernourished
22 would be overweight

So if we’re going by what the world looks like, even 1 out of the 5 women in the graphic being white would be an over-representation.

The representation of women in science in the media needs to change. It’s really not that hard – look at the image below.

Image credit: Intersectional Rosie the Riveter Print from Tyler Feder’s Roaring Softly Etsy store

Every single young girl should be able to find someone that she identifies with, and that she can look up to.

If you’re asked to name a woman in science, only being able to name Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin or Ada Lovelace, isn’t a good thing! All of the women in science that I’m seeing being held up as champions and ‘inspirations’ to get girls interested in science are white. That’s not ok.

I don’t want to work in an environment that is full of white women just like I don’t want to work in an environment that is full of white men. I want to work in an environment that is multicultural, heavily diverse, and full of passionate people of all genders, shapes, hues and sizes, feeling supported in the work that they are doing.

I’ve just written 300 words to explain why working in diverse environments is good for science, but I’ve deleted them because we should not be pushing for diversity because it’s good for science. We should be doing it because it’s human decency. As a cisgender able bodied white woman, I am absolutely done trying to explain the advantages of diversity to other privileged people; opening science up to everyone is just fucking ethical.

From UNESCO’s website: “This Day is a reminder that women and girls play a critical role in science and technology communities and that their participation should be strengthened. The celebration is led by UNESCO and UN-Women, in collaboration with institutions and civil society partners that promote women and girls’ access to and participation in science.”

UNESCO, here’s a reminder that all women and girls play a critical role in science, not just the slim able bodied white women that you have used your sizeable platform to highlight. Do better.