Ep66: Notes from a Mental Health Workshop (Bonus Episode)

This episode shares informal conversations with the attendees of a recent workshop: “An open and frank discussion about mental health in an academic setting”, hosted by the UK Chapter for the Marie Curie Alumni Association.

This episode is not a complete discussion of mental health in academia. If you’re interested in learning more, here are links to both those featured, plus resources I’ve found useful.

Links to workshop speakers featured in the episode:

• Dr Joanna Waldie, Research Fellow, University of Cambridge (read Joanna’s post “Opinion: how mental health problems can affect early-career researchers” on her personal experience)

• Dr Ben Bleasdale, Policy Adviser, Wellcome Trust

• Dr Luigi Martiradonna, Senior Editor, Nature Materials (listen to Luigi talk more about being an editor, and his personal experience in episode 39 and episode 40)

• Dr Judita Vivas, Actress/Physical Theatre Artist, Acting Now

Further reading:

• Prof Dave Reay’s post: ‘I’d whisper to my student self: you are not alone’, a widely-shared and discussed personal story. See below for embedded video, where Dave talks about the reaction to this post.

• Nature journal’s collection of commentary and articles on mental health in academia

• Dr Sara Shinton’s blog post, which summarises the issues, advice for improving resilience, and links to other resources, including a useful slide deck of the issue, what the University of Edinburgh is doing, and suggestions on how to improve

• Dr Mattias Bjornmälm’s blog post commenting on mental health in academia, plus providing links to further resources

• Read RAND’s report ‘Understanding Mental Health in the Research Environment’

• Read Levecque et al.’s study into the mental health of PhD Students (paywall / preprint)

• Read about the Wellcome Trust’s Science Review, led by Professor Jim Smith

Advice and tips summarised by Dr Zoë Ayres on Twitter:

A special thanks to Gonçalo Rosas da Silva, Dr Donata Iandolo and Maria Laura Greco for the invitation to attend this event, and to all attendees who contributed to this episode.