‘Musical Reflections’

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this article is to make a case of the role of validation in doctoral education. The purpose is to detail findings from three studies which explore PhD students’ experiences and perceptions of belonging in one UK university-ty, in order to hypothesise how validation and self-validation could make a difference in doctoral education, and what practices might support this. Background: The article draws on research into doctoral identity and work on ‘doctoral capital’ to explore how PhD students’ perceptions and experiences of not belonging to doctoral communities negatively impacts on their wellbeing. It extends this research by incorporating theories from Education and Psychology to build a theory of validation in doctoral education. Methodology: The article reports on three studies on PhD journeys and communities undertaken at one UK university. It draws on interview data from thirty doctoral candidates, which was thematically analysed using NVivo 12. Taking a qualitative approach to provide a rich and holistic focus on participant ‘meaning making’, the studies explore how PhD students understand belonging, where they receive validation and feel they need validation, and where self-validation can make a difference to their positivity about the PhD. Taking this approach to understand processes of ‘meaning-making’ paves the way to scaffold solutions through ‘reframing’ processes such as coaching and mentoring. Contribution: Thinking about PhD students’ belonging through the dimension of validation allows for practical support for developing belonging to be scaffolded, specifically through creating spaces to draw coaching skills into supervisory training and PhD student support (e.g., peer mentoring). This is significant as scholarship has shown that coaching has positive effects on wellbeing. This article contributes to understanding of where and how validation and self-validation manifest in doctoral education for PhD students. This contribution identifies ways in which external validation can help to scaffold internal self-validation; thus, offering a way of potentially mitigating risk factors to PhD students’ wellbeing. Specifically, validation can be understood as a ‘reserve’ that can be drawn on for ‘self-validation’. Validation is a solutions-focused theory. As a conceptual apparatus to understand doctoral students’ perceptions, validation theory also provides a frame for scaffolding practical ways for PhD students to build doctoral identity. Findings: The article focuses on challenges to PhD students building communities, supervisory relations and self-validation. It finds that supervisory feedback is a key area where PhD students seek validation. Two arguments are offered. First, that validation is a crucial process in (positive) doctoral identity work. Second, the argument is offered that making spaces for coaching skills to support PhD students can increase opportunities for validation (e.g., via supervisory training) and self-validation (e.g., via peer mentoring). Recommendations for Practitioners: Those who support doctoral researchers can potentially support the development of validation skills and self-validation skills. Some recommendations are included around supporting supervisory training in feedback and listening skills, peer mentoring as a way to foster a transition between external validation and internal self-validation for PhD students, and a worksheet for students’ self-validation is included as an appendix. Recommendation for Researchers: This article extends existing literature on PhD students’ emotion work by offering a new dimension to understand how belonging is developed amongst PhD students. Thinking about belonging through the dimension of validation shifts work on belonging towards possibilities of practical support. Impact on Society: Whilst the term ‘validation’ has been used in undergraduate educational research, and in Psychology (in theory and in clinical contexts) drawing these terms together to create a theory to understand doctoral identity work in higher education has larger potential applications. ‘Validation’ could potentially prove useful within doctoral education context to understand and scaffold PhD students’ development as they navigate transitioning identity positions during candidature. Thus, although the studies are limited in scope to the UK context, the findings could be more widely applied to other higher education contexts. Future Research: Two areas for future research are identified. First, to understand whether and how different groups of doctoral candidates (e.g., such as international students, LGBTQ+ students, etc.) have different validation needs and priorities in their doctoral identity work. The second is to understand the possible impact of using coaching with PhDs in different contexts (e.g., through peer mentoring schemes, supervision, and self-validation).

This timely volume conceptualises and applies the philosophical notions of wonder, wander, and whisper, serving as evaluative paradigms for objective assessment of quality doctoral research work and supervision in South African higher education. Written by one of the foremost academics in the field, the book combines the normative philosophical, educational, and moral notions of wonder, wander, and whisper with academic life and studies, focusing on doctoral work and supervision not just as cognitive or scientific processes, but also as existential, ethical, and political shaping of the self. By reflecting on three decades of doctoral supervision, the author gives an account of how his students have been initiated into moral discourses of democratic citizenship education and the intellectual adventures they have embarked upon through scholarly texts. The book also presents itself as a decolonial venture that repositions and resituates doctoral education in resistance to the hegemony of colonisation, inhumanity, inequality, unfreedom, and injustice in Southern Africa. Ultimately arguing for the relevance of wonder, wander, and whisper in academic culture, the book will appeal to scholars, researchers, and postgraduates in the fields of higher education, philosophy of education, and sociology of education as well as African education and doctoral studies more broadly.

ABSTRACTPhD social work education programs train students to become effective researchers. Less recognized are the potential opportunities for PhD students to develop in their role as educators and the possible benefits of honing doctoral students’ knowledge of research through their role as educators. This study explored these opportunities for social work PhD students who taught an introductory research methods course to MSW students. Findings suggest that potential strong, mutual benefits for PhD and MSW students exist, and institutional supports improved PhD students’ confidence as educators and researchers. Finally, integration of Kolb’s experiential learning theory and Feynman’s mental model in the doctoral social work curriculum may enhance the profession’s development of future leaders.

The PhD in CSD

The results and discussions in Chaps. 1, 2, 3 and 4 detailed the public understanding of nanotechnologies, their discussions, and their responses to various speakers in public engagement events. While these are useful and important insights with implications for future public communication, engagement events, and potential regulation of nanotechnologies, these events and the data we gathered from them also offer guidance for science communicators and public engagement practitioners. This chapter provides that practical guidance in a brief, straightforward way, using both details from the 11 public engagement events in this study and previous research on effective science communication and public engagement with science.

IntroductionFew studies are available on the health status of doctoral students. This position at the border between university studies and a professional activity presents specific risk factors, especially in terms of psychosocial constraints. The lockdowns implemented worldwide to control the COVID-19 pandemic are potentially worsening factors. MethodsAt Lyon 1 University, a systematic medical follow-up of first year PhD students had been set up by the occupational health service in 2019. In the context of the lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, a telephonic interview was proposed to the same PhD students in order to assess the impact of the lockdown on working conditions and health and to provide possible assistance. During this interview, a standardized questionnaire was used to collect information about the conditions during the lockdown, doctoral work during this period and the consequences on research progress, as well as possible financial difficulties due to the lockdown. In addition, questions were asked about the perceived general health conditions and consultation with a health practitioner during this period. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) were used to assess depression and anxiety. Questions on lifestyle during lockdown, changes in diet during the period, weight change, and changes in the quantity and quality of their sleep were also asked. Comparisons of perceived health status, the prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms at baseline and during the follow-up survey were made by MacNemar Chi2 tests, as the data were repeated ones. The students were informed orally and in writing that their data would be entered anonymously into a computer and that they could have access to their data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). They were all informed by e-mail about the study results at the end of the study. The data collection process was registered with the National Institute for Health Data (INDS) and with the university's register under reference no. 2020/002 by the university's data protection officer in compliance with the French data protection laws (CNIL). The protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the Lyon University College of General Medicine (notification number: 2020-10-29-02). ResultsOf the 161 PhD students initially interviewed, 149 underwent a second interview. In total, 89.2% of the students assessed their health as good or very good. Regarding the answers to the GAD-7 questionnaire, 8.1% had a score equal to or higher than 10, corresponding to moderate to severe anxiety. Regarding the answers to PHQ-9, 19.6% of the PhD students had a score equal to or higher than 9 corresponding to moderate to severe depressive syndromes. The prevalence of an anxiety disorder was significantly associated with the absence of an outside private access in the place of residence during lockdown (75% vs. 37%), an increase in coffee consumption (33% vs. 5%), an increase in the quantity of food consumed (50% vs. 12%), weight gain (50% vs. 19%) and a deterioration in sleep quality (75% vs. 28%). The prevalence of a depressive symptom was significantly associated with lockdown in an urban area (89% vs. 70%), the occurrence of financial difficulties (7% vs. 1%), the consultation of a health professional during the period (34% vs. 15%), smoking cessation (14% vs. 1%), changes in the quantity (31% vs. 9%) and deterioration (59% vs. 25%) of the quality of sleep, and diet changes (66% vs. 43%). GAD-7 scores were unchanged for 90% of participants between the two surveys, but they were higher for 6.8% of doctoral students and lower for 2.7 % (P=0.1). A deterioration of the PHQ-9 scores, i.e. higher scores in the second survey compared to the first, was observed for 15.5% of the PhD students while an improvement of the scores was observed for 1.4% (P=0.0001). DiscussionA number of studies have been published on the impact of lockdown on mental health, but few of them focused specifically on PhD students and even fewer were prospective studies. Their results are therefore difficult to compare with ours; they generally show GAD-7 and PHQ-9 scores that are similar to those of our population, or even higher. The impact of lockdown on the mental health of doctoral students highlighted in our study therefore justifies an appropriate follow-up of this population, particularly in the case of former psychiatric disorders.

Industrial PhD Students and their Projects

The University of Liverpool Evolutionary Anthropology Seminar Series is a long-running program of thematic talks for the Archaeology of Human Origins Research Group. The seminars explore the multi-disciplinary research of those working within various subfields, brought together under the broad themes of human evolution and behavior. The seminar series was established in 2006 and was traditionally hosted on Thursdays at 1–2 pm, with speakers traveling to the University of Liverpool to deliver their talks. The authors of this article took over the organization of the seminars in January 2020 and have therefore experienced the direct impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the series. In March 2020, the restrictions imposed by the UK Government, and enforced by the University of Liverpool, necessitated the cancellation of the seminars for the remainder of the semester. The series was then adapted to a remote format for the duration of the 2020–2021 academic year and was held on the Zoom Video Conferencing platform. The seminars were traditionally held within the hour time slot, with the talk lasting approximately 45 min and the remainder dedicated to a question and answers (Q&A) session. We retained this structure for the "webinars," which were hosted predominantly in the same time slot as done previously, although this was changed to accommodate speakers from different time zones. From October 2020 to June 2021, we hosted 31 guest speakers who presented on varied topics from Pleistocene rock art in Indonesia to tool-use in great apes. We have found that several benefits came from the reorganization of the seminar series into a webinar series, including a more diverse demographic of both speakers and audience participants, as well as a dramatic increase in participant numbers due to the accessibility of online webinars. As shown by Table 1, the Evolutionary Anthropology Webinar Series hosted 31 speakers from 24 different institutions in 11 different countries across four continents. Hosting researchers from around the world was an advantage of the online format, as it was previously unfeasible. The remote nature of our program also allowed us to invite speakers of varying career levels. Between October 2020 and June 2021, we hosted talks from three current PhD students, five Postdoctoral Research Fellows or Honorary Research Fellows, six Lecturers or Associate Professors, seven Senior Lecturers, Group Leaders, or Assistant Professors, and nine full Professors. This provided early career researchers with the opportunity to share their research in a webinar series with a global reach, but also enabled us to host world-leading academics from a diverse range of fields, thus giving our audience a chance to share in a variety of research. To gage the success of the Evolutionary Anthropology Webinar Series, we ran a survey through our mailing list and social media accounts after the final session. From the feedback provided by participants of the survey, we found that the majority agreed that our webinar program included a diverse range of speakers, both in terms of country of institution (87%), and career level (74%). We were also pleased to host an almost even ratio of male and female researchers, which we consider a success in a field that has been traditionally male dominated. Evolutionary Anthropology, by nature, is an interdisciplinary discipline, which is reflected in the diversity of speakers and in the topics they presented. The Evolutionary Anthropology Seminar Series has always aimed to host a varied program of talks, but moving the series online enabled us to create an even more diverse line-up than was previously possible. Some talks provided general syntheses of the current state of human evolution research and drew from multiple fields of research, such as those given by Bernard Wood and Chris Stringer. Other speakers focused on regional case studies, such as Cecilia Padilla who spoke on language use and ethnolinguistic reasoning in the Yucatec Maya, and Charles Musiba speaking on conservation efforts and research at Laetoli, Tanzania. We also hosted speakers who presented research outside the remit of our department's immediate research areas; for example, Lluis Quintana-Murci presented on the application of evolutionary genetics to the study of human-disease co-evolution. Such diversity highlights the multidisciplinary nature of the webinar series. 93% of survey participants agreed that the series covered a diverse range of topics, with participants praising the balance between different aspects of evolutionary anthropology across the program. Since the adaptation of the Evolutionary Anthropology Seminar Series into a programme of webinars, we have experienced a huge increase in audience participation, as well as in the diversity of audience members' global locations. We began collecting data on audience numbers from the first online webinar in October 2020, and recorded participant location during the Spring–Summer semester of 2021 (April–June). These data was used to assess the relative popularity and global reach of the series. As shown by Figure 1, audience numbers varied throughout the duration of the program period between October 2020 and June 2021. Each talk had at least 29 audience members present, with the highest number of participants reaching 167. Four webinars attracted over 100 participants: Chris Stringer on Middle-Late Pleistocene human evolution (167 participants), Bernard Wood on current gaps in human evolution research (129 participants), Zanna Clay on the evolution of empathy in primates (107 participants) and Rick Potts on environmental fluctuations during the evolution of Homo sapiens (105 participants). The total number of participants across the program was 1929, with an average of 62 participants per webinar. During each webinar of the Spring–Summer semester, we asked our audience members where they were joining the webinar from. This poll showed that participant location varied considerably throughout the webinars though, unsurprisingly, 57% of our poll respondents came from the UK. Nonetheless, the webinars regularly attracted participants from around the world (see Figure 2 for details on attendance outside of the UK). The majority of overseas audience members originated from Western Europe (30%) and the United States (19%) according to our poll, perhaps reflective of the time zone in which the webinars were scheduled and the language in which they were delivered. Despite this, we attracted participants from every continent except for Antarctica, which would never have been attainable in the previous format. We also found that certain talks concerning specific regions of interest engaged participants from that area; for example, James Blinkhorn's talk on the earliest expansions of modern humans into monsoonal Asia attracted the majority of our South Asian audience. Local participants often shared valuable insights and experiences during the Q&A, which was useful for furthering discussion and drawing attention to issues associated with the topics covered. The University of Liverpool Evolutionary Anthropology Webinar Series was free and openly accessible to anyone who registered. Webinars were advertised via a mailing list of predominantly Evolutionary Anthropology faculty and students at the University of Liverpool, which eventually expanded to participants from other institutions, and through social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Our survey found that around 60% of participants followed updates of the webinar series via the mailing list, 30% via Twitter, 6% via Facebook, and 3% via word of mouth. Of those who answered our survey, 60% were external to the University of Liverpool, though this figure could be much higher based on audience numbers of certain webinars. The process of open registration attracted a huge variety of people far beyond those within our immediate human-origins research group, who regularly attended the series in its previous format. For example, the online sessions welcomed members of the public, and many of these participants engaged in discussions with our speakers and other audience members during Q&As. We often found that these portions of the webinars ran over their allotted time, likely thanks to the accessibility of using Zoom's chat function to ask questions. Encouraging public engagement with human evolution studies is vital, not only because much of our research is funded by the public domain, but also because our discipline covers subjects that should be of interest to anyone interested in humanity. Such topics include religion, language and symbolism, but also biological topics such as anatomy and genetics. We aimed to make the series accessible to everyone by asking our speakers to ensure that they cover both the basics of their topic as well as the scientific detail. Indeed, an anonymous participant praised the blend of specialist expertise with non-specialist material, and our survey confirmed that 93% of participants thought that the series was accessible. We recorded 22 out of the 31 webinars and uploaded them to YouTube (see Table 1 for links to videos). Whilst speakers were free to opt out, we generally encouraged the recording of talks as it enabled viewers to watch the webinars asynchronously, thus further increasing the accessibility of the series. We received positive feedback from participants throughout the program that the recordings were beneficial and facilitated further engagement beyond the live sessions—70% of survey participants found having the YouTube channel useful for their research, studies, teaching and/or general use. Since October 2021, our YouTube channel has had 5202 views (as of 06/16/2021). Our most popular video is with Rebecca Wragg-Sykes on the process of writing her popular science book, "Kindred," which has 981 views (as of 06/16/2021). The University of Liverpool Evolutionary Anthropology Webinar Series was transformed by the restrictions of the global COVID-19 pandemic, yet also benefited from the remote model of working that resulted. Thanks to the power of social media, the 2020–2021 webinar program became widely and regularly attended by people all over the world, with 40% of our participants in the survey attending over 10 webinars. Whilst virtual webinars on this scale never truly replicate the intimacy and interaction of smaller face-to-face events, we have found that the online format of webinars generally encourages inclusivity and the development of a more diverse speaker and participant demographic. The participant survey also suggested that 68% of participants generally prefer online webinars to in-person seminars, and 97% said that they would consider attending the Evolutionary Anthropology Seminar Series in an online (or partially online) format post-COVID-19. We therefore propose that webinars should remain a key part of research dissemination beyond the COVID19 pandemic, and complementary remote elements should be incorporated into future seminar series; this is an approach we are adopting for the future organization of the University of Liverpool Evolutionary Anthropology Seminar Series. We would first like to thank the speakers in the webinar program, who all gave such interesting and varied talks. We are also grateful to our audience members for participating in the series, encouraging great discussions, and providing us with feedback through our surveys and polls. Finally, we would like to thank the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool for their support in running the webinar series and Matt Grove and Anthony Sinclair whose comments helped improve this news article. N/A

Theories are a fundamental aspect of the fabric of our lives. They allow us to understand the world more acutely. They guess at the way things are and offer ideas about how things in the world might be interconnected. Without them we would be unable to make sense of things and determine which aspects of reality are critical to us and which are unimportant. The same is true in doctoral work. The theories we use provide a lens for developing understanding. Although they are likely to be more abstract, nevertheless the theories we use in doctoral work will offer descriptions and explanations by putting into focus the phenomenon in which we are interested. Getting close to theory in doctoral study is exciting because it helps explain the phenomenon being studied. In a similar way that an optical lens improves our eyesight, the theoretical lens we use in doctoral work helps us improve our insight.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore doctoral students' engaging and disengaging experiences among a group of students whose doctoral processes had been prolonged for more than seven years. Design/methodology/approach – The participants were 16 doctoral students in the behavioural sciences. The data were collected with interviews employing a visualisation of their doctoral journeys, and were content analysed qualitatively. Findings – The results suggested that the students described their engagement in doctoral work in terms of dedication, vigour and occasionally absorption. In turn, disengagement was described in terms of insufficiency, cynicism and sometimes exhaustion. Interestingly, the source of engagement was typically a sense of belonging in the scholarly community, whereas the students often reported a lack of autonomy and a lack of belonging as sources for disengagement. Research limitations/implications – Further longitudinal studies are needed to explore the development of engagement in doctoral work among students from different contexts. Practical implications – In terms of developing more engaging learning environments, the findings imply that by enhancing students' sense of belonging to their scholarly community and their experiences of autonomy within it their engagement in doctoral work, and further, development as researchers can be fostered. Originality/value – This study extends the understanding of what may engage or disengage students from their doctoral studies and the essential relationship between the sense of autonomy and that of belonging in doctoral student engagement, in particular in the context of prolonged doctoral studies in the behavioural sciences.

The aim of this study is to learn how a series of 3-day international seminars, emphasizing networking, and an academic writing, reviewing, and leading discussions, supports PhD students’ professional learning and development by providing both a formal and non-formal context. The sample of this study consisted of PhD students from three countries – Estonia, Finland and Israel, and study was carried out in 2022 (in-person seminar; n = 20) and 2023 (hybrid seminar; n = 17). After the carefully designed 3-day seminars (including plenary lectures, workshops, and non-formal reflection sessions for PhD students), the feedback was asked from all participants in a format of questionnaire. In addition, interviews with two PhD students from each country were carried out to validate the outcomes from the questionnaire. Based on the results, non-formal activities were seen as supportive for getting to know their fellow PhD students and experienced academics in the field of science education. For many students, presenting their work or undertaking a review for another PhD student was a first-time experience and therefore gave them the opportunity to experience a wide range of activities supportive of being a researcher. In future studies, supporting PhD students long-lasting motivation to work on a doctoral thesis and to commit to PhD studies, can be used as one of the design principles in these types of seminars.

Efforts to make research environments more inclusive and diverse are beneficial for the next generation of Great Lakes researchers. The global COVID-19 pandemic introduced circumstances that forced graduate programs and academic institutions to re-evaluate and promptly pivot research traditions, such as weekly seminar series, which are critical training grounds and networking opportunities for early career researchers (ECRs). While several studies have established that academics with funded grants and robust networks were better able to weather the abrupt changes in research and closures of institutions, ECRs did not. In response, both existing and novel partnerships provided a resilient network to support ECRs at an essential stage of their career development. Considering these challenges, we sought to re-frame the seminar series as a virtual collaboration for ECRs. Two interdisciplinary graduate programs, located in different countries (Windsor, Canada, and Detroit, USA) invested in a year-long partnership to deliver a virtual-only seminar series that intentionally promoted: the co-creation of protocols and co-led roles, the amplification of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion throughout all aspects of organization and representation, engagement and amplification through social media, the integration of social, scientific and cultural research disciplines, all of which collectively showcased the capacity of our ECRs to lead, organize and communicate. This approach has great potential for application across different communities to learn through collaboration and sharing, and to empower the next generation to find new ways of working together.

The Early Career Immunology Digital Seminar Series is a vibrant online forum to showcase the work and careers of immunologists early in their career trajectories. The series was born out of a communcal need for early career investigators (ECIs) to come together and provide support for one another during the most challenging days of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the months since its inception, the series has hosted a broad array of talented new investigators working in all areas of immunology. The mission of the series is to bring the best of immunology research from ECIs to the broader community and to build an equitable forum that supports diverse ECIs. The field of immunology boasts one of the most vibrant and engaged communities in biomedical research. The prominence of the field has increased substantially in recent years due to its importance in the treatment and management of cancer and autoimmune, infectious and metabolic disease. Indeed, the immune system touches everything related to human health and disease. The investigators working in immunology research share a passion for discovery that is unique and inspiring. Groundbreaking discoveries have been made possible through the collaborative efforts of those at the bench and in the clinic, leveraging available resources to advance knowledge and build tools that have lasting impact on human health. Like most fields of biomedical research, the careers of immunology researchers in the academic space follow a particular trajectory. Graduate students receive their Ph.D. and go on to a postdoctoral fellowship, leading hopefully to a junior faculty position at a research institution. Those who fulfill requirements for tenure or promotion then join the ranks of established investigators. These investigators are typically seen as the pillars of the field, having established their competence, productivity, and ability to consistently make impactful contributions. As such, these established investigators are the most “seen” by the immunology community and the broader community as well. While in-depth discussion of this system and its implications is beyond the scope of this highlight, this structure clearly presents a challenge – how does one actually become an established investigator? This is the question that ECIs face and must address as they work to publish papers, secure grant funding, and be awarded tenure or promotion. A key for success in this process is to be visible in the community. Invitations to speak in seminar series or at national and international conferences are critical for visibility and success for ECIs. Getting these invitations can be difficult and is often a function of making connections with more senior investigators and leveraging networking opportunities provided by former mentors or collegues. This presents a significant hurdle for ECIs. While this was always the case, in early 2020, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic brought a whole new aspect to this challenge. With the shuttering of laboratories and a move to all-virtual interaction and instruction at most academic research centers in the spring of 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ECIs were faced with new challenges. If no one travels or sees one another, how do you make those connections that are critical for career success and speaking invitations? After it became clear that the pandemic was not going to subside quickly and that the academic community would operate in the virtual space for the foreseeable future, many institutions quickly pivoted to online activities. Teaching went online very quickly, and departmental and center/institute seminar series followed. Conferences, large and small, also moved to an online format. While there were growing pains, many of these transitions were successful, allowing researchers to continue to participate in their community, even in a modified way. Also, it quickly became apparent that online forums often garnered larger, more diverse audiences and had the potential to foster new conversations. Thus the idea for the Early Career Immunology seminar series was born. In early 2021, a group of ECIs came together to organize and plan a digital lecture series that would feature ECIs and their work, led by Tim O'Sullivan (UCLA) and including Nikhil Joshi (Yale), Gianna Hammer (Duke), Justin Perry (MSKCC), and Elia Tait Wojno (UW) on the organizing committee. The big idea was to create a space where ECIs would be visible and would have the opportunity to share ideas with the broader community, in a democratic online forum. The lectures would be free to watch and publicized online through social media. These lectures would specifically offer ECIs the chance to present their work for the broader community, with an eye to ensuring continued progress and visibility in the community that is so important for advancement. An early focus of the organizing committee was equity and diversity. With the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affecting women researchers and those from URM or first-gen backgrounds, there was a clear need to ensure that the Early Career Immunology series was inclusive and featured the work of diverse investigators. After careful deliberation, the list of speakers that was settled upon included an equal number of men and women, researchers of color, and investigators working across the spectrum of the field of immunology (Figure 1). In addition to working toward equity in the field, this approach was instrumental in creating a series that was exciting and cutting-edge. After much planning and organization, the series kicked off on April 13th, 2021 with Dr. Graham McVicker, followed in May by Dr. Tim Hand and in June by Dr. Keke Fairfax. Lectures are freely available on the Early Career Immunology YouTube channel, streaming live at 9 AM PST, 12 PM EST, 4 PM GMT (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHJ8SvaP2rlxbz1Jrk-YxOQ). The lectures can be watched anytime through the YouTube channel. The series is also on Twitter (https://twitter.com/EarlyImmunology), where the community can learn more about the upcoming speakers and topics of interest to the immunology community, specifically related to ECIs. Lectures are scheduled through summer 2022, with a fantastic lineup of up-and-coming investigators ready to share their most recent work. The series has been a huge success, with each lecture engaging hundreds of viewers across the country and internationally. The series has also marshalled a large following on Twitter, which amplifies the voices of diverse ECIs in the community. Importantly, this project serves the ECI community in a number of different ways. First and foremost, through democratic online engagement and social media, it makes ECIs in immunology visible to the community, while engaging trainees, other ECIs and established investigators. Thus, it provides the visibility that is so important for ECI career advancement. Second, it has provided a way for ECIs to meet institutional expectations for community engagment and speaking opportunities despite the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic. Third, the focus on equity in speaker selection has resulted in a stimulating, exciting, and inclusive series that can serve as a model for other series, both digital and in-person. Finally, as we emerge from the darkest days of the pandemic and return to at least some in-person activities, its success highlights a new way forward for the immunology community to support ECIs. Digital forums, in addition to more traditional invitations to speak at conferences and seminar series, can be a tool to promote ECI success all the time, not just during global pandemics. These forums are accessible to a diverse audience, do not require carbon-costly travel, and offer new ways to engage and continue the fascinating, fast-moving discussions in immunology that drive innovation and improvement to human health. Join us at the next Early Career Immunology event!

This article examines the pathway of those pursuing early careers in the cardiovascular sciences, both past and present, highlighting new challenges and the roadblocks they present. This article emphasizes the need for multitasking in today’s academic environment and provides information about career training opportunities offered by the American Heart Association. During the past 10 years in academia, we have heard terms like early career and early-stage investigator with increasing frequency. During my doctoral work and postdoctoral training in the early 2000s, career stage, or status, was less concerning to bench scientists. Now, however, the scientific community has come to the consensus that systematic training is integral to doctoral and postdoctoral studies, as students and fellows try to balance the requirements of their discipline with the exigencies of modern-day scientific professionalism. According to the National Institutes of Health, an early-stage investigator is defined as “those who are within 10 years of completing his/her terminal research degree or … within 10 years of completing medical residency (or the equivalent).” After the introduction of policies designed to assist early-stage investigators who are competing for funding with more established investigators, the number of competing R01 awards offered to those meeting that definition has steadily increased. In addition, special scoring consideration has been afforded to this group, along with enhanced emphasis on their proposed research projects. In fact, discussions geared toward supporting early-career researchers are hinting that steps should be taken to reduce the amount of time trainees spend in graduate school and postdoctoral training. As Chair of the Basic Cardiovascular Sciences Early Career Committee, I am privileged to write this article about the extensive training opportunities provided to early careerists by the American Heart Association (AHA). Early careerists are the innovators who will bring new ideas and technologies to the fight against cardiovascular disease. …

This study examined the applications and perceptions of AI tools in doctoral studies, focusing on their efficacy in enhancing research effectiveness. A survey found that most participants used AI tools in their doctoral studies (63%), with the majority of those users reporting some positive impact from their usage. The most indicated uses of AI were proofreading, researching scholarly articles for literature reviews, and the organization and structure of research. Future research may include a larger sample size and examine instruments for alignment with the program practices and curriculum to best capture responses that indicate participants' program-specific use of AI tools. The study concluded that AI tools have not yet been integrated into research within doctoral studies, and 47% of participants did not find them conducive to effectively communicating research findings in their doctoral work.