• Question: can you explain your current job?

    Asked by anon-203823 to Vassilis, Matthew, Dawn on 2 Mar 2019. This question was also asked by anon-203819.
    • Photo: Matthew Longo

      Matthew Longo answered on 2 Mar 2019: last edited 2 Mar 2019 11:45 am


      As a university professor, my job consists of three main types of responsibility: teaching, research, and administration.

      My teaching includes a range of different things. I give lectures to undergraduate and masters students; I mark and provide feedback on submitted pieces of coursework and exams; I supervise research projects for undergraduate, masters, and PhD students; and I am the personal tutor for a number of students too.

      My research includes running a research laboratory (the Body Representation Laboratory); supervising the research of research assistants, PhD students, and postdoctoral fellows; designing and conducting experiments; analysing the data; writing papers about my studies for publication in research journals; and putting together applications for grants to fund this work. A lot of my research also involves collaborations with colleagues around the world, so I also spend a lot of time discussing our joint projects by email and Skype meetings. Finally, I also travel a fair bit to attend workshops and professional conferences to discuss my research with colleagues, and also to give talks about my research to colleagues working on similar topics. In fact, I’m writing this right now on the train back from Durham, where I gave a talk yesterday.

      My administrative work contributes to the everyday functioning of my department (the Department of Psychological Sciences) and the entire university. I am a member of several committees that manage different aspects of departmental and university activities. I am also the director of a Masters course in Cognitive Neuroscience, organiser of two specific modules for this course, the department’s representative for gender equality, a designated mentor for two colleagues, and a representative for members of the department with parenting responsibilities. In addition, I am periodically asked to sit on one-off panels considering specific issues, such as hiring of new staff, interviews of prospective students, and student appeals panels. I also attend university open days to discuss the courses we offer with prospective students.

      In addition to these responsibilities, I also do a range of other activities that don’t neatly fit into any of these three categories. I am regularly asked by research journals to be a peer-reviewer for research papers that colleagues at other universities have submitted for publication, as well as by funding agencies to review grant applications they are considering funding. I also periodically serve as an examiner of PhD theses. I also have roles in several external organisations, including being on the editorial boards of two research journals, sitting on the executive committee of a professional society for psychology in the UK (the Experimental Psychology Society), and sitting on the assessment panels for PhD and postdoctoral fellowships for a research council in Belgium. Last, but not least, I also participate in a range of public engagement activities (like this!) to discuss psychology and my work with people who are interested, like you.

    • Photo: Dawn Rose

      Dawn Rose answered on 4 Mar 2019:


      Research, research, research!
      I read a LOT of other people’s research and try to figure out which questions still need answering and how best to do that.
      Then, depending on the questions, I might devise an experiment, or a questionnaire, or work with some other people to find things out.
      Then I have to write it all up and explain it to people.
      Sometimes that can be really fun, like on live radio (where you have to be careful not to swear accidentally!).
      Quite often I give talks about what I have done and found out and I get to meet interesting people from all over the world. I do a lot of travelling which is fun but tiring, and it can be quite pressurised because one of the main things I have to so is get money from people to do the research – that’s the really hard part.

    • Photo: Vassilis Sideropoulos

      Vassilis Sideropoulos answered on 8 Mar 2019:


      I am involved in various things ranging from research, teaching to sometimes even helping colleagues with grant applications or consulting the university as to how to provide the best facilities for students.

      When I am involved in research, I have chats with the students or my colleagues as to what we want to achieve and whats the best way of getting there – they sometimes come up with the design and then I programme the experiment or vice versa. I also support PhD students with their research by providing the most appropriate materials in order to conduct their research, such as training in specific software applications or training in statistical analyses.

      Sometimes I do work on my own projects which are focused on the understanding of problem-solving, recently I’ve started working on a project around how we perceive the world around us and how this help us to solve problems!

      When it comes to teaching, I am running a number of different classes, again ranging from statistics to research methods to programming classes. In these classes Undergraduate, Postgraduate and PhD students attend and I am teaching them through interactive means how to do things. Sometimes we even have Group Skype meetings where I explain to them how to programme experiments.

      A part of my job is also my personal development which requires a lot of administrative tasks,I help colleagues with grant applications or I attend seminars to get informed around various issues such as Ethics and Health and Safety around Research laboratories. It’s a big part of my job to check that everything runs smoothly in the Psychology Laboratories – I am getting updated on the last Alcohol Laws as we have a Bar Laboratory (check my profile for pictures of it) and other times I am attending workshops on how to use the latest bespoke equipment such as brain scanners.

      Overall, it’s a very broad job and it sometimes resembles the academic posts, but the difference is that I do not supervise student projects!

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