Academia and the World Beyond, Volume 2 - by Christopher R Madan (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A common question posed to PhD students from friends and family is, "What will you do after?" But many students are too focused on the PhD itself and have not yet had a chance to sufficiently think about post-PhD life. This book is a collection of 31 interviews with those who have completed a PhD and are now in a non-academic role. Interviewees provide background into their PhD topic and discuss how they transitioned to their current position, including what additional training was necessary and how their PhD training has helped them succeed. In these interviews, two broad non-academic career paths are explored: academic-adjacent careers use research expertise through industry, policy, and publishing; and skill-transfer careers, applying transferable abilities like critical thinking. Recognising a PhD need not lead to a faculty career opens possibilities to leverage doctoral skills in impactful new contexts.

From the Back Cover

A common question posed to PhD students from friends and family is, "What will you do after?" But many students are too focused on the PhD itself and have not yet had a chance to sufficiently think about post-PhD life. This book is a collection of 31 interviews with those who have completed a PhD and are now in a non-academic role. Interviewees provide background into their PhD topic and discuss how they transitioned to their current position, including what additional training was necessary and how their PhD training has helped them succeed. In these interviews, two broad non-academic career paths are explored: academic-adjacent careers use research expertise through industry, policy, and publishing; and skill-transfer careers, applying transferable abilities like critical thinking. Recognising a PhD need not lead to a faculty career opens possibilities to leverage doctoral skills in impactful new contexts.

About the Author

Dr. Christopher Madan is Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham. He studies memory using a combination of cognitive psychology, neuroimaging, and computational modeling methods, with a particular interest in what factors makes some experiences more memorable than others (such as emotion, reward, and motor processing) and how these influences can manifest in future behavior, such as decision making. He also specializes in characterizing inter-individual differences in brain morphology, particularly with respect to aging, dementia, and cognitive abilities. Dr. Madan received a 2021 Early Career Award from the Psychonomic Society and a 2017 Rising Star award from the Association for Psychological Science. He is a Fellow of the Psychonomic Society and AdvanceHE and has been elected to the membership of the Memory Disorders Research Society.