Dr Fiona Bright,the Bill Gole Motor Neurone Disease Research Australia Fellow from Macquarie University, spoke with around 25 EMCAs and HDR students in the College about her post-PhD journey today (30/8/23).   She stressed the critical importance of having mentors who encourage and support the development of your research career and indicated that you may have many mentors over the course of an ECA period, and beyond. Mentor relationships can be formal, or informal, you can seek peer mentors, or you can obtain mentoring via workshops, like this one. Other tips included the recommendation to publish, publish, publish….and then publish some more. It’s a key contributor to your future success, and you can’t lose focus on the metrics that keep us all in an Academic career. Further, Fiona herself demonstrates that moving research fields post-PhD is not a career killer. Some of the characteristics she credits for her success to date include building your own ‘brand’, saying yes to opportunities, and putting yourself out there – sometimes that’s uncomfortable, but do it anyway.

For those who couldn’t attend in person, Dr Bright kindly has agreed to share the slides from the presentation. Click here to view.