FEATURE For many years, the PhD Day was organised at the department previously known as Radiation Sciences. The concept now lives on in the new Department of Diagnostics and Intervention. It is a day where PhD students and supervisors can meet across disciplines and learn about each other's research.
The day began with an AI lecture with Satish Strömberg from HUM Lab who inspired and showed how to use different AI tools in their research.
After lunch, it was then time for the PhD students to present their research projects to each other. Something that can be both challenging, interesting and rewarding.
"It was fun to hear and be inspired by my doctoral colleagues' research, but also fun to get a chance to get to know them better," says Jessica Lindberg, one of the doctoral students who was present during the day.
Jessica was also one of those who presented her research, which was rewarding as she got a chance to practise presentation techniques.
"It was perfect to practice presenting my latest manuscript, which I will also present in poster format at a conference in Milan this March," says Jessica.
In addition to the day being about practicing presenting your research, the day also came with some insights.
"I lesson I take with me is the fact that a good presentation slide is incredibly time efficient and educational, and I am impressed by how good we PhD students were at having good presentation slides," Jessica explains.
Mikael Källman
ImageIdah SandqvistOne person who travelled a long way to attend was Mikael Källman, who lives in Gävle. He took the opportunity to participate on site.
"It is always much nicer to be able to attend physically instead of digitally. Being able to meet physically facilitates relationship building and participation in discussions," says Mikael.
The day included presentations from preclinical and clinical doctoral students, which meant that there was a diversity in the research presented and appreciated by the participants.
"I enjoyed presenting my research because I have a slightly different topic compared to the other interesting presentations, which were mostly more technical than my field. As I jokingly said, "a cat among stoats". However, I received a lot of interest and many questions about my field," Mikael explains.
In addition to the scientific presentations, the purpose of the day is for the doctoral students to meet, make contacts and network.
"We want to give the PhD students an opportunity to verbally present their research in an easily understandable way, to discuss scientific issues and to meet other PhD students and network and create contacts now and for the future," says Jonna Wilén, Deputy Head of Department for PhD Education at the department.
The PhD students themselves are also satisfied with the day. This is shown by the questionnaire they filled out afterwards.
"The feedback from the PhD students is super important for us to be able to tweak and shape the day even better according to the wishes and needs of the PhD students. We have received several good ideas for future PhD days. One decision we have already made is to try to organise the day once a semester instead of once a year. So for those who are disappointed to have missed the day, the opportunity will come again this autumn, says Idah Sandqvist, research education administrator at the department.
