Thesiswhisperer.com has been offering advice to early career researchers on the internet since 2010 and is one of the most trusted sources of advice on research education in the world.
One of the reasons The Thesis Whisperer so trusted is that I am a professor and active researcher at The Australian National University. This page showcases my research work in progress and ways you can participate.
Neurodivergence and PhD candidature
I’m currently working with a number of people about the experiences of PhD students who are neurodivergent with a view to writing books and making resources for PhD students and academics. If you are interested in following this research, there’s a special mailing list here.
The Distracted Academic
I’m currently writing a book on productivity for academics with Dr Mark Carrigan, Dr Jason Downs and Tyler Shores. This book will be underpinned by research on the working lives of academics. If you are interested in following this research, there’s a special mailing list here.
PostAc®
The PostAc team is a multi-disciplinary team from ANU with strengths in research education, sociology, machine learning and business development. Above is a photo of the team from 2022, from left to right: Assoc Prof Will Grant, Dr Lindsay Hogan, Prof Hanna Suominen, Prof Inger Mewburn (@thesiswhisperer), Dr Chirath Hettiarachchi, Dr Chenchen Xu and Dr Ran Cui.
Until Feburary 2024, we built and operated the PostAc app, which was a job search engine for researchers. We closed this commercial enterprise in February 2024 and are currently working on new projects and product development, individually and collectively.
We’d like to acknowledge the foundational work of Dr Rachel Pitt from University of Queensland, who first had the idea of looking at job ads, and the assistance of Lightcast Technologies, who have generously supplied data that has made the continuation of this project possible over a number of years.
Do you offer lectures about this work?
Universities can request delivery of a free one hour lecture called ‘So you are finishing your PhD in uncertain times’, which draws together key insights from this research.The lecture is suitable for PhD students, PostDocs and doctoral advisors. We can also deliver a range of half and full day workshops, for a fee.
Email inger.mewburn@anu.edu.au if you’d like to discuss this offer.
PostAc team publications
Exploring the demand for Skilled researchers in 2024 – published on the centre for public awareness of science website in February 2024.
Job market demand for Psychology graduates. A collaboration with the University of Canberra
Pitt, R. & Mewburn, I. (2016) Academic superheroes? A critical analysis of academic job descriptions, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 38(1), 88 – 101.
Mewburn, I., Grant, W., Suominen, H. & Kizimchuk, S. (2018) A machine learning analysis of the non- academic employment opportunities for Ph.D Graduates in Australia, Higher Education Policy.
Xu, C., Mewburn, I., Grant, W. J., & Suominen, H. (2019). PostAc®: A visual interactive search, exploration, and analysis platform for PhD intensive job postings. In: Proceedings of the The 57th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). Stroudsburg, PA, USA: ACL. https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P19-3008/
Mewburn, I, Grant, W and Souminen, H (2016) Tracking Trends in industry demand for Australia’s advanced research workforce, Department of Industry, Canberra, Australia.
Mewburn, I, Souminen, H and Grant, W (2020) Matching PhD graduates with industry jobs, Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, ANU, Canberra.