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. I give workshops and lectures about my research in collaboration with Dr Jason Downs over at On The Reg team
Can you supervise my PhD?
Probably not.
As there is no education department at The Australian National University, I cannot be a panel chair for any PhD students. I can be co-supervisor, but you will need to locate someone else willing to be panel chair within the ANU. However, as education is not a focus for ANU, you will probably find it difficult to find somebody.
If no one responds positively, and your interest is in doctoral education, I recommend you contact Deakin University, who have a team of researcher developers who can supervise candidates. If you are interested in studying at ANU, have a look at the ANU prospective student page.
The Neurodiverse Academy Project
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. I’m currently working in a larger team with neurodivergent members.
There is one literature review published about the experiences of Neurodivergent PhD students and you can access a slide deck of our research in progress here.
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.
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.