Welcome to Blogging the PhD.
I am a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Imperial College London, where my research is on the development of statistical methods to use genetic data in the estimation of disease risk.
I started blogging after an essay I wrote, Birthday Surprises, won the Imperial College Science Challenge in 2008 and went on to be published in Nature Futures and to win the Daily Telegraph/Bayer Science Writer competition.
I blog about the PhD student experience in a multidisciplinary field. When I am not doing science I like, among other things, to swim, both inside and out.
Thanks for your inspiring piece in Nature’s Seven Ages of the PhD. I really enjoy the blog!
I keep a blog as well – on science and photography, called Photons and Neurons
Thanks for the comment Cynthia! I am glad you enjoyed the Nature piece – I think it offers insights across all generations and continents. I saw from your blog that you are about to start your PhD. Good luck!
Hi Erika!
Went through your articles “Birthday Surprises” and short write up in Nature’s “Seven Ages of PhD”. Both of them are very well written =) and really enjoyed reading them (will be sharing them with my friends too). *Thumps up!*
By the way, I am graduate student in Biotechnology and will be starting my dissertation in stem cells biology.
Thanks Puneet. I had fun writing both of those pieces. Blogging is a way for me to keep practicing my writing whilst I am studying. Best of luck with your dissertation!
Dear Erika,
I just want to say great work with this blog and I really enjoyed your contribution to Nature’s Seven Ages of the PhD. I have been thinking about starting up my own blog in Serbian for students from my university to write about my experiences as a PhD student abroad (I am from Serbia and will be starting my PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge this October). As I was ‘growing up’ at my university I felt that there was a lack of information about what our options were when we graduated and what it would be like as a PhD student. I’m hoping to change that by blogging about my experience and posting information about various opportunities. I was inspired by your blog so I think that I’ll definitely spend this summer researching how to get mine started!
Keep up the good work!
Cheers
Nikola
Hi Nikola
One of the reasons I started my blog was that I wanted to share my experiences with other PhD students. During your studies I imagine that you will face some of the same issues I did (and do), but that you will meet some different challenges because you are moving countries for your PhD. Starting a blog is easy (we like wordpress round here!), I encourage you to get started – and check back here when you have your URL.
Good luck with your blog, and the PhD.
Erika
Hi Erika,
Thanks for the reply and for telling me about wordpress. I’ll definitely look into it once I’m done with my Master’s thesis in a few weeks.
Best
N
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