59- Dr Rebecca Dumbell- Reflecting to gain perspective

Not everyone can say that their PhD recruitment interview took place from an exotic place; well Rebecca started her research career following a phone interview whilst she was travelling in Borneo. To me, this is an interesting career trait of not seeing limitations in a less than perfect situation, but a positive attitude in believing in positive outcomes.

Dr Rebecca Dumbell is a senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. She is steadily building a research team having gained her academic position just when we entered the Covid pandemic. She has already acquired many valuable practices as a new PI, from practising routine reflection to co-producing agreements on communication approaches with her team.

It took Rebecca 2 postdoctoral periods prior to jumping into the PI role as a lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. Her transition to gaining an academic position, from the time she started to apply for position seems to have been fairly quick. This likely stems from the many opportunities she took throughout her PhD and Postdoc positions. 

She describes the building of her network as being of particular importance in her career transition. Her strategy in choosing opportunities on the basis of what she enjoys has clearly paid off in her speedy transition. She is all too aware that academics need to make wise choices in the opportunities they take. Her mantra of “what can I say no to, to say yes to” written on a Post-it note on her desk is a reminder that staying focused and strategic is needed to not fall into overwhelm.

Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking:

• How each small leadership experiences build on each other for a transition into an academic role
• How a simple practice of pausing and reflecting is a powerful habit 
• Why building research group practices such as co-creating an approach to communication can help everyone in the team

Transcript

Sandrine: 0:11

Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, dear listeners. You are on the podcast, Research Lives and Cultures. I'm your host, Sandrine Soub. And today I have with me Rebecca Dunbell. Welcome on the show, Rebecca.

Rebecca: 0:26

Thank you for having me.

Sandrine: 0:28

So you are currently working at Nottingham Trent University. So not too far from, from where I live because I'm in Sheffield and you are a senior lecturer and If I understand correctly from your mini bio on your website, you work in the field of pharmacology.

Rebecca: 0:47

Yeah, so I, I work in kind of how the brain regulates body weight and trying to understand that on a physiological level. So kind of more on the fundamental science side of things rather than the drug discovery, which is the next step from that.

Sandrine: 1:05

It would be really good to have a potted history of your, of your career so far, you know, how did you ended up working where you are now?

Rebecca: 1:13

I guess my research career, it started in Scotland, which is where I grew up, where I'm from. And I studied initially zoology. I really enjoyed general biology and I liked the idea of being a research scientist, but I don't think I really knew what that was. involved. So I just was studying what I was interested in really. And that kind of led me every step got narrower towards the path where I am now. So I got interested kind of in metabolism in that degree. And my final year project was kind of looking at a kind of metabolic rate and things like that in mice. I then I was lucky I got a scholarship to do a master's by research in MRes and the vet school in Glasgow. And that was great because I worked on essentially two six months research projects in different labs and completely different things, very different to what I'd done before as well. But very applied and I really, really enjoyed that. And from there, I tried to get funding to go back to the lab where I'd done my final project in Aberdeen and actually applied two years in a row for external funding. We didn't get it. So it didn't work out how maybe I thought it might. And so I had a year essentially off. And in that time, I I took a really nice holiday, went traveling, and I actually I had applied to other PhD programs in that time and I had an interview for my PhD. I was in Borneo

Sandrine: 2:39

Oh, nice.

Rebecca: 2:41

I mean, you know, is I think 2010 so I think that was while we were there is when they announced the invention of this thing called an iPad with, you know, that's where technology was at the time it wasn't particularly connected. So I. I was lucky that I'd been in an internet cafe for an hour and checked my emails and I'd been invited to interview. And I was like, Oh my God, what am I going to do? I'm not in the country. And I, I gave them my phone number for my mobile phone that I had while I was over there. And luckily they agreed to do the interview over the phone in the middle of the night, in like one of these Motorola flip phones that I had with me over there with my traveling sim. I got the, the position to do my PhD in Aberdeen in a different lab, and that was working on a project where we were trying to understand how body weight is regulated in this really interesting model species of Siberian hamsters so these are like your Russian dwarf hamsters that Lots of people keep as pets and in the wild, in the wintertime, they get smaller and lose weight. They don't get as hungry and they, you know, they kind of conserve energy but they don't really hibernate. And the idea is if we can understand what the physiology is in that, we can then apply that to other species and of course of humans. And We did some really cool work there and I, I got to travel during my my research there. I spent some time in a lab in Hanover and met lots of people. And we found some really interesting mechanisms in, in these hamsters that kind of links growth and metabolism together. And that's really been a theme in my research going forward as well since then. From there, I, I took a postdoc in, again in Germany, but in a different place in Lübeck, near Hamburg, sorry. And that was working on kind of circadian rhythms, so daily rhythms and metabolism and different hormonal kind of processes. I was there for two years, and then I came back to the UK and worked at the Medical Research Council Institute in Harwell, which is near Oxford. And that's a big mouse genetics facility. And that was great because it was a four year project. So it gave me time to really develop skills and build kind of expertise and also develop kind of side projects as well. Which kind of led me to where, where I am now, where I started my own group at Nottingham Trent you know, working on my own kind of ideas.

Sandrine: 5:09

So let's unpack some of these because obviously you had to make a lot of decisions along the way. And one decision I'm particularly interested is, the transition from PhD to postdoc, the choices that we make in terms of, the approach that we have of a group where we want to work. So in your case, the choice of this group in Germany, how did it come about? Did you just answer you know, a job advert or what was your approach to getting that, that role? Of

Rebecca: 5:39

So the job was advertised and it was advertised through a research network that I was part of. So I kind of got it through an email list. I think it was, it was quite close to the end of my PhD at this point. And I remember being very anxious about this transition between PhD and postdoc. And, you know, a lot of the advice that was going around was that, Oh, you should be looking at having a fellowship or, you know, looking for being included on someone's grant, so you should be thinking about this years ahead. And, I mean, great, if you can do that, but that wasn't my situation. So I was applying for jobs. the guy who I worked for, so that when I applied for it, he had met me. I think my second supervisor and someone else who was in the same lab as me at a conference just after I put in my application. So there was, there were, I mean, I'm sure there were conversations that were had, like, you know, who's this Rebecca person, what's she like, kind of thing. I mean, hopefully that helped, but I mean, I got the job in the end. There was a phone call, so it was kind of an informal conversation beforehand, before I was invited to interview. But I think really that, that is kind of an interview, isn't it? An unofficial way of doing it. And I didn't have a lot of notice for that either. And I'm. I remember panicking and going into the office next door and my, my friend who is a postdoc said, ah, there's an interview. She's like, it's not an interview. It's not an interview. It's fine. It's fine. And then we come off the phone and she was like, it was an interview, wasn't it? I was like, yeah, it was.

Sandrine: 7:11

course. Yeah.

Rebecca: 7:12

But it's, it's a conversation, isn't it? So I think a lot of the time now I'm on the other side of things. when you're hiring someone into your group is that you are compatible personalities. And I think that's probably, What was going on there, really, having that conversation.

Sandrine: 7:30

And it's interesting because in some ways, you know, often, you know, the sort of advice that you will give to people say, Oh, you know, you need to have read, you know, the papers and have got something to say, but you may not be in a situation where you actually do. What do you think that you did well in term of that particular interview?

Rebecca: 7:49

I think you are who you are, right? That's not going to change. No preparation is going to change that. So I think kind of being an, you know, try and be confident, try and be an authentic representation of yourself. Yeah, in that situation, if there are other phone calls going on with other applicants, then they are going to be in the same position as you. So that's what you're competing against. So I guess. I was panicked, but try not to Is is is the thing I think to have in mind.

Sandrine: 8:16

I don't know how many, you know, interviews you had, when you were looking for a postdoc, but we choose a postdoc that not necessarily exactly the sort of topic that you know, you have in mind in terms of what you want to do next. So how did you, sort of articulate for yourselves or sort of frame for yourself what this next step was about.

Rebecca: 8:37

I think that's such a good thing to think about because even if you think the project is gonna be really related to what you've previously done, it's probably gonna be in a different lab. It's gonna be completely different. And I think. I, I experienced it and I saw other, I've seen a lot of other people experience it. When you go from PhD to postdoc and you're, you know, you've come from being the absolute expert in your topic and you've worked on it for three, four years and you know everything about it and you're really confident and you go to another lab and you're like, Oh, I have to kind of start again. And it's a shock. So that's tricky. But you are quicker at kind of getting over that once you're there anyway. I think in terms of, of deciding what I wanted to do, I knew that I, I wanted to, I mean, this is when we were still in the eu, so I knew I wanted to go to a different country if I could. And I, I'd been to Germany a lot before and I was quite confident to go there and I thought that would be a really nice opportunity. The topic itself was. kind of related to what I've been doing, but, but not completely related. And I knew it would be an opportunity to really challenge myself and learn new techniques and kind of see things from a different angle, kind of broaden my expertise. That definitely did happen. But maybe not in exactly the way that I thought that it would. I think a lot of the skills I got there were more, more soft skills, more kind of undefined skills, working with other people, different kinds of people and being really being able to adapt to situations really quickly, which maybe I wouldn't have considered when I was looking for jobs.

Sandrine: 10:21

And, what was the experience like? Cause again, you know, a lot of PhD students ask themselves, okay, you know, should I go to a country? And I don't know whether you even speak German, but, moving to a country where you don't necessarily speak the language or, you know, a little bit, there are lots of. you know, complication that exists in terms of moving to a different country. What was it like for you?

Rebecca: 10:42

Well, I mean, scary and exciting are two sides of the same coin, aren't they? So it's, it's a kind of come hand in hand. So, so I have a little bit of German, enough to get by, maybe conversational a bit, but you know not fluent, let's say. So what was really important to me is when I did go over for the in person interview, I met everyone that was in the lab. And it, and it. The impression I had is that it was a very international lab. If you, if you speak English, that is your passport essentially to work in any scientific lab. It's really a privilege if you're able to do that. And as a native English speaker, absolutely, it's a privilege because you can go to most labs and because that is the language that science is published in. And the group I was in, I think there were about 10 to 15 people over the time I was there, and about half were native German speakers, so from Germany, Austria, and so on and the other half were from all over the world, so Belarus, Hong Kong I was the I think the only native English speaker, the only British person and again, that I was a privilege because that meant that I was actually asked to proofread a lot of the writing that was coming out of the lab. And that improved my written English as well. Because I had to make sure that I wasn't, you know, being lazy or, you know, I had to learn a bit more grammar than maybe I'd got away with before. But it was really fun because it was a relatively big group and it was a big international group. That made a big difference and we were each other's kind of support group within, within that team. The city we were in, Lübeck, is kind of, it's quite touristy, but really for, for Germans, not necessarily for people coming internationally because they would tend to come and go to Hamburg or, you know, somewhere bigger. So, you wouldn't really get by just speaking English, which was good because it, it pushed me. And I think a big learning curve for me, I'd been there. Maybe a few months and I realized, look, there's no point in me trying to speak perfect German with a perfect German accent because I'm always going to sound British. So just, just relax about it and like try your best. And it actually became really fun then. And that kind of made things a lot easier as well.

Sandrine: 12:59

So one of the things I'll be interested to hear from you is about the sort of opportunities that you took along the way. So obviously I'm biased because I worked as a researcher developer for many years and, you know, working with PhD student postdoc and encouraging people to take as many opportunities as they can within the boundary of, you can't do everything. So when you're reflecting on, these early years, during your PhD and your first postdoc, what do you think that you were doing in term of this sort of side opportunities that are not necessarily just the science that you feel we're part of building, you know, a portfolio of competencies that, that that help you to be better positioned to transition afterward.

Rebecca: 13:45

Yeah, so when I was doing my PhD, I was in Aberdeen again, and there were a lot of opportunities to get involved in things with kind of science communication public events. We have a big science festival every year that You could be recruited to take part in, and I did that a couple of times. Within the university, they ran training, and they encouraged us to apply to things like FameLab, which is like a science communication competition, which, which I did. And I was quite strongly involved, and still am, in one of the learned societies that I'm part of. And that You know, kind of joining early career researcher committees and, you know, local organizing committees for small events, things like that, made a big difference because it wasn't necessarily just people locally, but it was people within the field that I work, but nationally and internationally. And I made a lot of friends that way as well which has is continues to be my, my professional and support network within my career. So that was really good. And it, it kind of gives you those. It helps kind of build your CV and it gives you those additional skills. And I think I've always kind of, it's not expected, but aimed to have a research career, but understanding that not everyone achieves that. So making sure I've got those additional. Skills and opportunities to go and do other things, but I think it's really important that the, that you're doing things, not just for the sake of it, but that you're actually enjoying it because a PhD is really stressful. Don't give yourself more stress than you need. But it, but if it is something that you enjoy, then it it's a distraction, but it's something that's also really proactive and really useful for your development as well.

Sandrine: 15:32

The thing, you know, when you were researchers, you know, there are many opportunities out there but there is a point where you, you can't do everything and you actually need to be doing the research to actually move forward. What was your approach in making this decision?

Rebecca: 15:46

Think it's important that it's something that you're going to enjoy because something that might take the same amount of time but takes a lot more mental energy is more draining and it's more, it's more going to take away from your research. Both of those things might, you know, build your, your CV. But if it's something you're not going to enjoy do you need that on your CV anyway because is that the direction that you want to go later anyway. So, everything is like a cost benefits decision, you know, so how much I have this post it note on my desk. It says, okay, what am I saying no to, to be able to say yes to this? And that's, that's exactly the thing. So if it's something that, you know, is going to benefit your development, your career, your CV, and you're going to enjoy it. Then I think that's, that's how I made those decisions.

Sandrine: 16:34

So then let, let's step in the, in that time when you, you know, at the end of your postdoc and you wanted maybe to go back to the UK, what was then the approach in kind of getting a job back home?

Rebecca: 16:49

So in, in the job that I was in I had, Basically, you would have a review every year and it would be three months before the end of that year. So every nine months in and We had the first round of that and things were going well, and I was getting a lot out of that postdoc. But I kind of knew at that stage that I don't want to stay in this group for a big length of time. Because, I mean, that would have been the next thing to do to be applying for, you know, fellowship to stay there. So, wouldn't say that I was, I was know, really being proactive about looking for another job, but I had my eyes open basically. And I'd seen this job advertised and in fact, it was on Twitter and it was someone I knew had shared the link to it. And I was, I was attracted to that job because there were, there were several roles going in the same institute in across two different groups, which my background, I could have easily fitted to either of them. Cause one was neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience, and one was kind of metabolism and diabetes. And I kind of work in the, in the kind of niche between that. So I thought that it would be a good fit for me and And it turned out it was.

Sandrine: 18:03

And the, and these were also postdoc positions that

Rebecca: 18:06

Yes, yeah. The nice thing about them as well is that they were a long post op position, so it was four years, which I think is still not very common to see things that are that long.

Sandrine: 18:17

and, and what do you think that you did differently in the, during that second postdoc in a way of then setting the scene for your next transition? I mean, were you doing anything differently?

Rebecca: 18:31

I think I did approach it differently. I think I, I came in, I had a lot more experience. I'd moved labs and I'd seen how other people had made those transitions before. I think knowing that I had a longer contract gave me a little bit of time to be really kinder to myself earlier on, but also the fact that it was my second postdoc really helped with that. The thing that really helped me Which again is luck is I, I came in and we were starting a quite ambitious long project and it was multiple researchers on the same project, but there was an additional project that was just finishing. And they needed someone to kind of tie up the loose ends on that. And that was really within my expertise. For me was perfect because I could hit the ground running with that. It helped them because I had the expertise that they didn't have anymore because that person had left and we managed to get the paper out pretty quickly. So it was a quick win all around. For the main project that I was employed on and, you know, we had two PhD postdoc and I think another research assistant in the end as well. that, that work is still coming out. So that's, that's taking a long time. So it's kind of important to have other things kind of on the boil as well. And I think because I had that experience behind me I was a little bit more able to juggle those different things in that new position.

Sandrine: 19:58

One thing that comes to mind is about, you know, involvement in teaching. One of the challenge that for some postdoc is that, you know, depending on the context that they in, they may not have opportunities to teach or they feel that they don't have the time. And then, you know, then applying for a lectureship position, you know, you are often, required to have some form of teaching experience. So what did you do yourself, you know, during that second postdoc, maybe to build some of the things that are required for lectureship position and that, that are not actually part of the defined role of a postdoc, but that somehow you need to acquire.

Rebecca: 20:38

Yeah. So, Really, in the, in the postdocs that I'd done and during my PhD they were, so my PhD was in a research institute attached to the university, so there wasn't any, there weren't there wasn't really much teaching opportunities there. However, I had done a lot of demonstrating, and I'd used, You know, connections I had, I knew the people that kind of organized that from when I was an undergrad student. So I'd done a lot of that. In Germany, I'd supervised students but I hadn't given any lectures or anything like that. And again, at, at Harwell, it was a research institute. So again, we didn't have lectures or anything like that. So It could have been that I had no experience teaching. What I had done is, because I was looking, that I was aiming to go for lectureships later on, I used my network and I had friends who were lecturers and they invited me to give invited lectures. And also staff talks, but they invited lectures like you can use as teaching examples there. What I was able to do is I was, I was able to be a named supervisor for PhD students when I was at Harwell as well. So again, Maybe I didn't have that much kind of lecturing experience, but I did have supervision experience. And, and actually when I started at as a lecturer that wasn't an issue at all. in that particular recruitment, they didn't mind about that.

Sandrine: 22:05

So what has it been like then that, that jump from working as a postdoc to becoming a lecturer? Tell us about that, that phase of starting to apply, whether you had to apply, you know, in multiple role.

Rebecca: 22:19

So I. I think I started applying for lectureships in the last year of my postdoc, so I'd been there for about three years. And, and I was kind of, I'd been working up to that point, really, and I was like, okay, well, I'm going to start going for these things now as a practice. And accidentally here I am, cause I didn't expect that, that I would get. You know, the first thing that I went for. And I don't think this was the first job I went for. It was maybe first or second that I went for. So I had applied for, I think, three. I didn't get one. I got this one. And I was, you know, It took a long time for the third one to invite me to interview and I, I didn't go to the interview in the end for that one. So for me, it was a really particular time in history, right? Because I started this job in May 2020. So I

Sandrine: 23:10

Wow.

Rebecca: 23:12

yeah, so,

Sandrine: 23:13

a time to jump into a new role. Yeah. Wow.

Rebecca: 23:16

and at the same time, the the MRC were closing the, they decided to close the Institute where I was for my postdoc as well. So. You know, massive upheaval I could have stayed another year there to kind of wrap things up, but I decided not, I'm gonna, I think I need to move on because it's a good time, and then COVID hit and everything is history really. You know, I had, I had a grant for my own kind of, Independent side project to go to collaborators lab and we plan to do that. It was early 2020. It was just before the lockdown because the collaborator asked if I could come a week later. And I said, well, if that doesn't work for me, it needs to be the week before. And. The second week, the week later is the week that lockdown actually happened. So I wouldn't have even managed to go in the end. So all that is luck. You can't be strategic about a global pandemic, you know? So, yeah. And then I started the job here, obviously remotely, we were supposed to be moving house and we didn't know where we were going to be and everything. And, and when I was able to come to Nottingham The labs were all closed so I couldn't start my research really actually until 2021. Which, you know, I was able to really focus on getting my teaching organized without that really impacting on the research any more than, you know, everything that was going on at the time. So, yeah, I mean, it's not, I wouldn't say that it was lucky, but it worked out okay for me, I think, in the end.

Sandrine: 24:49

Yeah, gosh, what a year you, you had in that first year in your role. So because you had been a postdoc and I don't know the experiences that you had had in terms of accessing research funding. What has been your, sort of transition in accessing research funding?

Rebecca: 25:07

So my first small research grant was actually during my PhD and it was research visit grant from a small society to go, to go to Hanover to our collaborators lab and carry out some experiments there. And I mean, that's obviously something I was guided in and supported in with my supervisor, but it was in So that really kicked that off really. I think in terms of travel funding, going to conferences and things like that, most conferences you can apply for travel funding if you're a student or a postdoc. And I would always encourage people to do that. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't, and often it's a lottery actually, so you just go for it. I've had some other small grants along the way I think probably the most important one for me again was. was this one just at the end of my second postdoc, because that allowed me to have data that was really my own data that I could publish as the senior author. And that really kind of puts the stamp on that as my work and, actually it's the founding work for, for my group now as well. So it was really, really useful. It was only like, I think about 5, 000 pounds, something like that. But it was enough you know, working with collaborators and with the resources that I had to be able to do that. And it just made a huge, huge difference to me, really.

Sandrine: 26:27

Something that I'm often really interested in asking people is the transition to building their own research niche, you've done two postdoc and you had your project, you know, as a, as a PhD student. So how, how,, Is your niche developing? And, and for some people it may actually take several years after they get their first lectureship to actually have a sense of their, their research niche. It's not kind of something you have straight away.

Rebecca: 26:52

I think you can't start thinking about this too early because it's something that develops and it grows over time. And, you know, maybe you'll, you'll start going down one route and that's a dead end and you go down a different route and that's fine. But all that time you're building your expertise, right. What is it that you take from all the different things that you've worked on that makes you, your specific, you know, expertise. I think for me, a lot of it is to do with having those conversations with people and realizing what it is that you know versus what other people know. So meeting lots of people, talking about lots of different ideas all the time. Kind of, how I've ended up where I am is, I guess I think a lot to do with luck because, the kind of physiology that I was working on in my PhD is very similar to what I've seen in my more recent work in a different model. And the idea for that came about. While I was actually in Germany in my, my postdoc lab, and I presented a paper for our journal club. And I was like, this has given me this really cool idea. I bet they're thinking about this, blah, blah, blah. And it just happened to actually be from the lab, a lab in the new institute that I was moving to. not the group that I was moving to, but a different group. And then I was in the right place at the right time and I asked him, I was like, you know, these mice, you've published this work and you see all these gene expression changes. These looked to me like this is a metabolism effect, but you've not reported any of that, you know, have you weighed these mice? And they were like, well, no, but they look smaller. And, I was like, can I have some? And they're like, okay. So, so we, we built that kind of collaboration and because it was outside of the group that I was employed in, it was really much more independent than if it had been something that was working on under my supervisor. And because I was able to get some funding for that, that really made it mine. But. We were lucky, or I was lucky, that the results really reflected you know, what I'd hypothesized, and it is very similar mechanism to things that I have been working on since the start of my research career, and so that really helped me. Helps me kind of build that kind of ownership of those ideas and it's easy for me to sell as I am the person to work on this because this is what I've previously done and this is what I know about it. It could not have worked that way. Right. It could have been a different answer. So, I mean, yeah, you have to have good ideas, but even really good ideas are not always right, you know, so, don't know if that's great advice to give people, but it's how it's worked for me. I have been lucky. I mean, in a lot of places that I've worked, there have been people that work on more kind of metabolism and diabetes and body weight kind of things. And there are people that work on kind of pure neuroscience. And, and I work on how the brain regulates body weight and metabolism. So for me, it suits me to, to be that kind of person in the middle that has kind of some expertise on one side, some on the other, but I'm the person that has the specific, in the middle expertise. And that makes me useful to other people. There are enough people around me that there's enough overlapping expertise that I'm not completely isolated either. So that's really helpful as well.

Sandrine: 30:16

I mean, it's fascinating because it's really bringing, you know, all of these things together it's not like the PhD is behind and the postdoc is in that space. It's actually, how do I bring all of it together in a way that makes sense to me and in a way that I do want to contribute. Can you tell us maybe what it's been like then to set up your, your research group? Because again, for many early career academics, the transition to, actually running your group to, you know, starting to recruit, learning what does it mean to be a leader?

Rebecca: 30:50

I mean, that's a big question, right?

Sandrine: 30:52

yep.

Rebecca: 30:53

I mean, I think, well, okay, so let's start with leadership. So I think that I have been really lucky that I got some leadership training while I was a postdoc. So that's one of the things I benefited from. being employed by the, the MRC that they provided lots of training. And there are lots of people that go through their whole careers, they go to head of department, and they probably never have that kind of training. You train in research to essentially be a really good postdoc, and then you get a permanent job, and you're a manager, and a leader, and a teacher, and an accountant, and so on. So I mean, it's, it's really challenging because the job is like four jobs in one, right? And all of it is important to varying degrees, but to other people, certain parts are more important than others. I think if you're working in a teaching and research role, you're employed because you teach, right? And that's where a lot of the money comes from in the industry from the student fees. So that's, that is important. And you have to, you have to enjoy that and you have to be good at that. And it's very easy to kind of get caught in that and all the administration that's involved in that and just kind of, you know, just let your research kind of founder. For me, the research is why I'm here. That's my motivation. That's my driver. I enjoy the teaching and being good at research, being up to speed on that is what makes me good at teaching. So it's really important to me that that that continues. So that's. a big motivation for me. Leadership is a hundred percent important. It's really important and, and I aspire to be a good leader. That's hard. That's really hard. But I think, I think recognizing that is, is the first step in that. I think you've got to understand that you have a lot of different people working with you. So I've got a small group now. I have a PhD student, I'm gonna have a research assistant soon. And, and, and more students come and go during that time as well. And everyone has different things that they need to get out of that research work, right? You're all working towards a common goal, you want to get the data, you want to get papers, you want to keep going and so on. But for students, they want to get a good grade and they want to get their, their qualification, their degree. They need the training and they need the support. That goes along with that. And that's different for different people as well, because different people benefit from different management styles, different people needs more support at certain times than others. And I think for me, the thing that when I've kind of been needed support if I've been a student or a postdoc or whatever. The biggest issue, whenever there's been an issue, is always to do with kind of misaligned expectations and communication. So that's something that I try, I try hard with and I, you know, no one gets it right every time. But I think trying to be open and honest with your, you know, making sure that we've got same. You know, matched expectations of each other and where we want to go with things is, is really important. I think it's really important as a leader to be authentic. So, you know being honest, being open, and if, you know, things are going to go wrong, being able to deal with them without being too emotional and, okay, right, yeah, or sometimes admitting that, It's me that's made a mistake and actually I'm really sorry about that. What can we do to fix it? How are we going to move forward with this? That's the quickest way to solve things, I think.,

Sandrine: 34:30

It's a very different role than, than, you know, the one that, researchers have before as, as, as postdoc. One of the thing always comes up, you is this idea of, you know, allocating the amount of time that you have because of the diversity of demands, creating the boundaries so that things are manageable. I'm often interested in this idea of sustainability and sustainable life, you know, in research. So how do you make that manageable for you?.

Rebecca: 35:02

yeah, I think what works for me is, is trying to be as organized as possible. So it's different things, isn't it? So it's organizing my own time, but also organizing that within the team as well. And boundaries, you know, ways of working and communication and things like that. So something that I've started doing in the last few years is I set aside time every two or three weeks where I spend an hour reflecting on different aspects of my, of my progression, of my career. And I, I look at how things have gone in, you know, that last period of time since I last did that. I keep a diary and it helps to put things into perspective and set goals, you know, short term, long term goals. Okay, what do I need to achieve within this time? And so on. But it's also really useful to give yourself that time to look back and say, Oh, actually, in this time, it feels like I've done nothing, but it's going okay. I've done all this other stuff. And, you know, we're moving forward. And so that's useful for me. And in that time, I then usually take my calendar and I block out time, bearing in mind these long term and short term goals. Now, I'm not great at always sticking to these plans because, you know, things come up, but the more you do that, the stronger you are at sticking to that. And I think, you know, blocking out time compartmentalizing times to worry about specific things is really useful. You know, if you know, okay, at the end of the day, I've done all this and I'm going to do all of this other stuff on, Wednesday next week. Okay, so you switch that bit off in your brain and you come back to that later. that's why it is important to stick to those, you know, times that you've set out to do that. Within my group, we've started to put together like a lab handbook. Kind of like guidelines for how we work with different things. And one of those things is how we communicate as a team. Because, you know, sometimes you have people in the group who, who don't talk to you and then, you know, they don't tell you things when they, they need help, they're shy to ask. And it's like, well, here's your permission and this is how you do it. And then there are some people that, you know, want to WhatsApp you every five minutes and you're like, okay, but I need to not think about this right now. And that's a discussion as a team, how we do that as well. So we come up with, you know, an agreement. Okay, if there's an emergency, we use the WhatsApp or a phone number. But generally it should be by email or you can call someone on Teams, but if they don't answer, send an email kind of thing. That's a really good way of setting boundaries within your team because I want to be approachable and I want to be able to support them when they need me, but they also need to build that independence. And I need to be able to do other things as well. So at the moment that's working well for us. It's, it's a job that doesn't end, right? You could work, like you say, 24 7, and it would never be finished. I think, for me, that reflection is where that comes in really handy, because it helps you kind of put things into perspective. You know, you set deadlines for when you're going to start working on something, rather than just when it needs to be finished by, things like that. But it helps you. kind of keep things under control a little bit more. It's not perfect and I absolutely fall you know, foul of lots of things along the way but at the moment that's what's working for me.

Sandrine: 38:24

One of the final sort of concept I like to explore before we wrap things is this thing about research culture and the way that you feel that you're wanting to contribute to it now, because obviously as a lecturer, you experience research culture, you know, based on, your head of department, your faculty, your vice chancellor you're a recipient in a way of research culture, but as, you know, as a PI now, you are also contributing and shaping research culture. So what is your own ethos, what else do you feel That is your way of contributing to a positive research culture.

Rebecca: 39:03

Yeah, I think I would, I would kind of build on that idea of kind of openness and, and communication. I think something that I've really benefited from in working in, you know, previously smaller independent, independent, but kind of small research institutes rather than a broader university culture is that it has been very collegiate and very collaborative. So one thing that happened, for example, in one of those institutes is we would have once a week a work in progress talk, and it would be a 15 minute talk from PhD students and postdocs, like a lab meeting, but for the whole institute. So the institute had maybe 10 research groups in there, so not a huge, thing, but maybe that's comparable to a research centre, a research theme you know, for example, at NTU, and it was great because, because it was something that happened all the time, and it was normal, and you were presenting work that wasn't finished or polished. It gave people that experience of presenting their work and discussing it. And. not being defensive, when it was critiqued and, you know, people would offer really useful things that your group would never have thought of because you don't work on that kind of thing and you never think about it like that. And I think that kind of attitude where, you know, we're trying to find out how things work. It doesn't matter if our ideas, our initial ideas are wrong, because we might end up at a better understanding of it later. And that's not personal. I think that's kind of the ethos that I try to bring to things. I try to encourage you know, more junior researchers, PhD students and postdocs to really build their networks. Cause that for me has been The thing that's kept me going all the way through I've moved for every job, but I've always got that professional network that I've built up over the years who really their friendships actually. And these are now my collaborators that we've put in grants together and we,, examine each other's students and, you know, we proofread each other's work and things like that get that perspective then from someone who's outside of your bubble. And, you know, maybe you want to complain about your supervisor to someone who doesn't know them. Great. You've got that safe place to do that, you know? So there's lots and lots of benefits to kind of being open you know, some, some data you don't want to present outside of your institute until you've really got it locked down, fine. But there's going to be, you need to have a community where you can discuss ideas and move things forward because science is not done in a vacuum. At least successful science is not done in a vacuum. So you have to kind of find a way to do that and, and know. not get too upset about it if it doesn't go the way that you thought it would, because that's usually actually what happens.

Sandrine: 41:54

So that's your way. So is it something that you intend to promote in terms of more open communication? Because often, we expect departments to have, you know, seminar series where people come and talk regularly. But I've discussed with so many academics and researchers where actually, you know, the seminar series don't, and I don't know whether it's linked to to COVID and that sort of patterns got broken, but there are a lot of departments where you don't have a regular seminar series where people come and talk informally about their work, which is kind of strange.

Rebecca: 42:28

We're really lucky we do have an active seminar series. And yeah, I've invited lots of people along to those talks. So it's been, it's been really, really great, actually. Yeah. So absolutely really important. I think seminars they're usually more polished work. So it's a different thing. It's still, It's equally important, but I think those kind of work in progress talks are also really, really useful. And you know, if you're building your, your career and you're trying to, even if you're not building your career, you know, you want to workshop ideas and find the best way of doing things, you know, early on before you spend too much money. You know, that's, the best way of doing that, I think. Yeah.

Sandrine: 43:10

When you think about the, what's been the most significant in, in building your confidence, as a researcher, as a lecturer, as a research leader, what has been really the thread in term of this thing is building my confidence.

Rebecca: 43:25

Without doubt, it's having a really strong external network, and that's been built up, you know, starting as a PhD student, going to conferences and meeting people from different, different groups, different places, and staying in contact with those people. And a lot of them have been maybe one or two steps ahead of me in their career. and having that network to draw and, you know, if I've, if I've gone somewhere for a new job, there's usually someone nearby, either that I know, or that they know someone I know, so that helps you kind of when you're getting started somewhere new but also just You know, like, like I've been saying, you've got someone that you can have a chat to having an issue with this. What, how would you go about this kind of thing? It's a social network as well as a professional network. People are talking about the things that they're going through as well. And if they're at a different stage in their career to you, you learn from their experiences just kind of by being around it. And that. Is, I think, invaluable, you know, just being around people that are going through whatever they're going through and being part of that conversation. It just broadens your experience in, in a way that nothing else really can, I think. So, yeah.

Sandrine: 44:40

If you had to do this world research journey again, what would you tell your younger self to ease the research,

Rebecca: 44:48

so this is one of the questions that you sent through ahead and I thought about this a lot because I thought, oh, there must be something that I would do differently. But I, I actually don't know if, if I would have done it differently. I think. I think I would like to tell myself to worry less. To be honest, worrying is part of the process. That's kind of how some of my decisions have been made. I don't know why you have to have a backup plan kind of thing. Yeah, I think there are things that I could have done differently, I could have stressed less about. But, It's, it's like we come back to this the scary and the exciting are two sides of the same coin really, aren't they. And the things that I've done that have been the most scary and worrying are actually the things that have really benefited me the most. So moving abroad, you know, applying for certain grants or jobs and things like that. And Yeah, when I've, when I've pushed myself, that's been when it's stressful, but actually they're the things that I've benefited from. I'd probably tell myself to be a bit kinder of myself but I wouldn't listen. I know myself, I wouldn't have listened.

Sandrine: 45:59

And my, my final, final question is about joy. You know, what gives you the most joy in research?

Rebecca: 46:08

Yeah, I think. There's a couple of things, and, and, I mean, I really enjoy the kind of nerdy stuff, so like, when you have a hypothesis and you test it and you're right, there's nothing better than that, but you can't control that, right, so, you know. Just you just have to keep going. I really enjoy you know, the technical stuff in what I work on is very kind of physiological, and I think it's really a privilege when, you know, I'm looking at microscope slides of, you know, a mouse's brain, and it's just so beautiful and not many people get the chance to spend time, you know, doing this, you know, two differently, brightly colored neurons kind of interacting with each other. I think. The thing that gives me energy in my, in my career and in my job and keeps me going is seeing other people succeed and how I can contribute to that because when someone in your team or in your network succeeds, it lifts all of you. And I, and I, and I guess that kind of builds into where I want to be as a leader as well, because if one person succeeds, we all succeed and we kind of build, build that together. And that's, that's what I like to look for. In my career.

Sandrine: 47:22

Thank you so much, Rebecca. It's been really a pleasure to discuss with you. I wish you the best with, you know, the building of your team and for, you know, for years ahead.

Rebecca: 47:32

Thank you.