Spotlight on Research!

There’s so much going on around the campus, and as we all squirrel away on our research, it can be easy to lose sight of what other people are up to. So to keep connected with what other researchers are doing, we’re starting a new blog feature called ‘Spotlight on Research’!

Name: Jay Culligan

Year: 2^nd

 Department: School of Life Sciences

Thesis title: A quantitative and qualitative analysis of Sepia officinalis (the common cuttlefish) patterning and camouflage

When I’m not writing my thesis I: take care of my cuttlefish down at the Sea Life Centre in Brighton, and I take care of the zebra fish on campus. With the little free time I find, I spend it with friends and other researchers and make time for the gym and a good long run. As an American, my travel through Europe hasn’t been too extensive, but I’m taking advantage of England and seeing as much of the world as I can.

My PhD is about: My research focuses on the remarkable colour changing capabilities of cuttlefish species. They’re amazing creatures. With their skin connected to their brain, they are capable of changing their whole body colour in less than a second. This is faster and can produce more patterns than the chameleon!

This capability becomes even more fascinating when you consider that cuttlefish possess a visual system similar to vertebrates. Cuttlefish are mollusks, making them more closely related to a clam than humans. Studying this similar visual system opens up interesting questions about how evolution crafted such a similar visual system in a species so alien to our own. They have blue blood and three hearts, so they’re as alien a species as you can get to humans!

So what do I do exactly? Well, I take pretty pictures of cuttlefish and do some statistics on the images. What I do with those statistics is the cool part. Research over the past few decades has shown how altering environments can produce a range of patterns. I am investigating the full pattern capability. What is their full pattern repertoire? What can they produce that we haven’t seen yet?

Finding new ways to manipulate their environment not only helps me understand how their patterning system works, but answers unique questions about their visual system capabilities and how well they camouflage to a large diversity of environments. Vision and camouflage research is great and has wider application than the military. We can answer questions on evolutionary pressures to visual systems, hypothesise how evolution has shaped animals body patterns based on the visual capabilities of their predators and prey, and how the cells and neural systems can encode the large amount of information from our environment through the eyes.

I'm lucky to work with these animals and I can convince you they're the coolest things on the planet over a pint any day!

Would you like to share your research with our wide readership in a ‘Spotlight on Research’ post?

Just email a profile in the same structure as the one above to researchhive@sussex.ac.uk. The description of your PhD should be in a conversational style that is easy to understand for non-experts, and the whole thing should be under 500 words.

Spotlight on Research!

There’s so much going on around the campus, and as we all squirrel away on our research it can be easy to lose sight of what other people are up to. So to keep connected with what other researchers are doing, we’re starting a new blog feature called ‘Spotlight on Research’!

Name: Lana Harper

Year: 2nd

Department: School of English, Centre for Early Modern and Medieval Studies.

Thesis title: Moving Indoors: Repositioning Theatrical Practice in Seventeenth Century Politics.

When I’m not writing my thesis I: Wheeze through my marathon training, edit Sussex’s interdisciplinary journal ‘Excursions’, try to learn French, eat vast quantities of chips and drink too much wine. Oh, and I dabble with running this blog! So you might have seen me at some Hive events in my role as Hive scholar.

My PhD is about: My research is a broad sweep of the way that theatre changed from the 1560s to 1700, both as an industry and as an art form. I’m doing this by looking how the buildings that plays were performed in changed across that time, and how this affected the types of plays that were written to be performed in them. Since the first permanent commercial playhouses were only built in London in the 1560s and 1570s, I’m really talking about the birth of English theatres. One of the main shifts I’m looking at is how playhouses changed from large, open-air theatres such as the Globe to much smaller, indoor theatres. I also look at how they were originally built in the outskirts and suburbs of London, and then started to move into the city centre and form the origins of the modern West End, particularly after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660.

My main focus is on English theatres – and this actually means London theatres as no other city had a big enough population for a permanent theatre at the time. But I also have a brief look at the drama in neighbouring countries, such as Ireland, Scotland and France. Scotland had very little theatre after James VI and I left for London when he became King in 1603, because the Kirk was hostile to it. Ireland had a short-lived theatre in the late 1630s, just before the outbreak of the English Civil War. It catered to the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and seems to have been a form of cultural imperialism by the English. And France had its own rich and different tradition of theatre that the English borrowed many elements from. But because the Monarchy were closely associated with French courtly life, the French elements that were absorbed into English drama (which originally grew from a much more home-based tradition)  ran roughly in parallel to the gentrification of theatre as a form.

Overall, I argue that the move towards small, indoor, central London theatres began to turn theatre from a popular and accessible form of entertainment to the elitist one it still is today.

 
Would you like to share your research with our wide readership in a ‘Spotlight on Research’ post? Just email a profile in the same structure as the one above to researchhive@sussex.ac.uk. The description of your PhD should be in a conversational style that is easy to understand for non-experts, and the whole thing should be under 500 words.

February in the Hive

As term starts to take its toll we’ve got a few bits and bobs on to help you slog through the last of Winter!

Love tweets

As Valentine’s Day approaches we think it’s time for us all to make a declaration of love. Sure, any relationship is hard, it has its stresses and its ups and downs, but let’s face it: none of us are ready to quit on our significant others just yet. There’s a reason we’re all still here and it’s because deep down, we love them.

So declare it to the world! (Well, us.) Throughout February tell us why you love your PhD @sussexreshive and include the hashtag #lovemyphd. We want to know what makes you two tick, and we’ll share the love by retweeting you to our followers.

February Shut Up and Write

As always, Shut Up and Write will be here to rescue you from procrastination on the 13^th of the month, 2-4pm in the Quiet Room in the Meeting House.

It's a great way of removing distractions and getting some words down on the page: after a chat and a hot drink everyone sits down, shuts up and gets on with it! You’ll benefit from the collective silence and focus, and the knowledge that someone next to you might be able to see that tumblr of cute cat pictures over your shoulder…

Shut Up and Write will be run by one of our Hive Scholars, and tea, coffee and snacks are provided. Come along, all researchers are welcome!

Remind yourself by signing up to our facebook event here, and don't forget to invite your friends - the more the merrier!

We want you!

Could you contribute to our blog? Whether you’re at Sussex or not, and no matter what your research is on, if you’ve got something you think researchers would like to read we want to publish it! Or if you have your own research blog, perhaps you'd like a wider reach for a particular post? We can help!

We’re also always happy to hear from you, and take suggestions about the sort of thing you’d like to read on here so drop us a line on researchhive@sussex.ac.uk, twitter, facebook, or pop a note in our suggestions box.


Doctoral Discussions: Teaching
This event is just peeping through into March, but we’re all looking forward to Spring anyway and thought a little advanced warning wouldn't go amiss…
The next event in our highly successful Doctoral Discussions series will be 12.30-2pm on Monday 2^nd of March in Silverstone B325.
Faced with the challenges of teaching for the first time? Interested in developing strong communication skills? Come along to 'Doctoral Discussions: Teaching' to hear from fellow researchers, share experiences and pick up tips.
Lunch will be provided and it's all completely free! Just sign in to Sussex Direct and then sign up here.

REVIEW! Doctoral Discussions: Conferences and Networking

By Cassandra Wiener

The launch of the Sussex Hive Scholars’ new seminar series ‘Doctoral Discussions’ kicked off to a lively start last Friday with the inaugural session focusing on Conferences and Networking. Billed as ‘an exciting new series of peer led discussions on the things you need to succeed with research’ it was, actually, just that…

I arrived not at all sure what to expect – but was grateful to be greeted with a sandwich and some friendly reassurance from Lana Harper, (2^nd year English PhD student) Sussex Hive Scholar and our Chair for the session.  She introduced the afternoon’s three speakers: Michael Rowland (3rd year English PhD), speaking on ‘Giving a Conference Paper’; Elena Gorianova (2nd year Politics PhD), speaking on ‘Networking’ and Simon Davies (Postdoctoral Associate Tutor, English) speaking on ‘Organising a Conference’. I will run through the gist of each presentation – but if there are issues you are particularly interesting in, you might decide you would prefer to listen to the live recording of the event, which you can listen to here. If you have any questions, you can message the Research Hive scholars at researchhive@sussex.ac.uk.

Giving a Conference Paper

Conferences are something that we are all aware we need to engage with at some point, but the idea of presenting at one can strike fear into the heart of even the most confident early stage researcher.  Michael began by outlining his own experience – which was extensive – but his unassuming approach put us all immediately at ease. In fact, the best and most useful thing about this presentation, from my perspective, was that he answered all of the questions that I have never dared ask for fear that I should know the answer.  From the ‘standard’ length of a conference paper (twenty minutes), to whether or not you should read aloud (check with the conference organisers as different disciplines have different approaches), to how to ‘pitch’ your language (think about your audience’s background and experience): all of it was helpful.  Michael spoke for about ten minutes and then we had a number of lively debates and discussions; with everyone feeling able to chip in with detail from their own experiences, which gave the topic a helpfully multi-disciplinary dimension.

Networking

Elena spoke frankly about some of the difficulties generated by even a discussion on the topic of ‘networking’: clearly it is a necessary skill, and yet we are all – curiously? – ‘squeamish’ about the fact that we need to be able to do it.  At its most basic, ‘networking’ is simply about making the most of the opportunities for building up a helpful network of contacts across our discipline that come our way. Elena’s talk raised some interesting insights nevertheless.  Have you ever thought about whether or not to approach a group of people who are already chatting, for example?  If the group is already made up of four or more participants you could be wasting your time.  Similarly, if the group is ‘closed’ in appearance, key indicators being body language and geographical positioning, your interruption might be disruptive rather than productive.  The question and discussion session after Elena’s presentation brought up some agonising dilemmas – for example, how do you ‘exit’ gracefully if you have been stuck talking to the same person for too long?  Or – how do you mollify anti-social colleagues who view your burgeoning networking skills with suspicion? There were no easy answers but we enjoyed asking the questions…

Organising a Conference

As Lana introduced Simon she warned us that he had agreed to step in at the last moment and might therefore not have had much time to prepare. Her worries turned out to be misplaced as Simon managed to impart an impressive amount of practical information in a short space of time. He talked us through the various stages of conference management, beginning with the conference website and finishing with the all important conference dinner.  Key to the whole process is dealing with things in the right order: website and plenary speakers first (because your Call for Papers needs to direct interested people to an informative site) deal with catering and room arrangements while you wait for papers (they will arrive, but only at the last minute), choose Chairs once you have speakers, and Amazon is good for anything the university can’t supply…

I had to leave promptly and so missed the final part of the discussion – people looked quite happy to settle in to finish the coffee and sandwiches and continue to swap stories and suggestions. The next session is called 'Doctoral Discussions: Teaching' and will take place on March 2^nd in Silverstone SB325. If you login to Sussex Direct in a different tab then you can sign up for it here. See you there!

PhD pride: getting family and friends to understand and respect what you do

‘So what exactly is it you’re doing again?’

‘Um, research. I’m a researcher.’

‘Oh, that was it, research. When does it finish, this summer?’

‘No Nan, I’ve got another two and a half years to go.’

‘Oh. And then you’ll get a job?’

‘I... well, I’ve got a job really Nan. They pay me, it’s like having a three year contract.’

‘Hmm. Your mum said you were going to be a doctor?’

‘Yes, at the end of it I’ll have a PhD, which means I’m a Dr.’

‘But why did you spend all those years studying English just to go into medicine?!’

Even if your Nan isn’t quite as spectacular as mine, most PhD students encounter this in one form or another. Friends, family and acquaintances who just don’t quite get what you’re up to and, to be frank, don’t really care. On the one hand it’s quite funny, and most PhD students have an acute sense of how esoteric their work is. In fact, that’s one of the reasons Hive socials are so great: we can sit around talking about our tiny, detailed topic to people who know what it’s like for no-one to have a clue about your tiny, detailed topic!

But sometimes it gets disheartening to be met with blank incomprehension about the thing you work your butt off for. My boyfriend admitted to me the other day: ‘Yeah, I don’t really get what you do. I just assume it’s a bit like when I was an undergrad.’ Since my boyfriend mainly ate pizza and played FIFA when he was an undergrad, after ten hours slaving over a hot laptop it can be a tad difficult not to be curt when you point out that actually darling, it’s actually quite different actually.

Most of all, how much harder does it make maintaining that devilish work-life balance when people think you’re free whenever for a chat or a visit because you don’t have set working hours? How do you explain that often you’re a lot more busy than someone with a full-time job, not less?

But recently I’ve realised it’s partly my fault. I’ve never sat down and explained my research to my boyfriend in case he thinks it’s boring. But if I can’t make it interesting, how do I expect other people to think it is? If my response to the dreaded question is to mutter ‘oh, seventeenth century theatre, Shakespeare and a bit later’, how do I expect excitement in return?

So I’m resolving on some Research Pride. I’m going to talk about my research enthusiastically and in detail when people ask me, and assume that if they’ve asked, they’re interested. I’m going to explain what I do day to day to my friends and family, and tell them about new exciting stuff I find so they’re not stuck with my two-sentence sound-bite. Rather than bewailing everyone just not getting it, I’m going to try and make them get it.

...I’ll let you know how it goes with my Nan.

This post was written by Lana, one of our Research Hive Scholars. You can contribute to our blog too! Just send your post of between 500 and 1,500 words to researchhive@sussex.ac.uk and it could be the next one you see here. We welcome blogs on any element of life as a researcher. If you're at Sussex University and your post is accepted for publication before the end of the Autumn term you'll automatically be entered into our prize draw to win a £50 voucher!