Wednesday 

Postgraduate Workshop: Sustaining your research

In this postgraduate lunchtime workshop, we’ll ask you to consider what sustains you and your research practice, what makes it fun. We’ll be joined by Dr Thao Phan (make sure you attend her Plenary talk!), who will help us think collaboratively about alternative outputs for our research and about the creative and exciting challenges that can emerge from engaging practically with your research object or your research process. 

Chair: Roberta Pala 

Thursday 

Inclusion and Diversity Networking Session 

It is not a controversial to say that academia was set up for and by a specific demographic. Despite initiatives to increase diversity by being more inclusive of marginalised peoples within academia, there remain entrenched barriers that limit full participation. These barriers make it difficult, and at times isolating for those from marginalised backgrounds to navigate the academic landscape – including for women, people of colour, First Nations scholars, people from various LGBTQIA+ communities, and those also living with disability or juggling carer responsibilities. While the types of barriers may differ by region and type of marginalised experience, each barrier supports an underlying structure of exclusion. 

In this networking session we’ll use the AAHPSSS Conference Wonder platform to start conversation(s) around experiences, share tips for navigating academia, and generally get to know each other. Eden T. Smith and Gemma Lucy Smart will be our hosts for the session. Conference attendees from one or more marginalised groups are invited to attend. 

Gemma Lucy Smart (she/her/they/them) 

I am a PhD Researcher in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at The University of Sydney, on Gadigal country. I’m working on the history of critical psychiatry in Australia and its relation to new religious movements and spirituality. Currently I am part of the Re;Minding Histories Lab conducting qualitative lived-experience research. In 2019 I completed a MSc by research in Philosophy of Psychiatry on the proposed Psychiatric category ‘Internet Gaming Disorder’. I am also a disability advocate and representative, along with being the current Vice President of AAHPSSS. 

Eden T. Smith (they/them) 

As a postdoctoral fellow within the field of History and Philosophy of Science my research focuses on the goal-directed uses of concepts in practice. I am currently working part-time in the interdisciplinary MetaMelb Research group at the University of Melbourne, on Wurundjeri Country. In this context I contribute to developing and implementing reliable qualitative research practices to support a range of mixed-methods projects, as well as organising the curation of resource sets intended to support collaborations between philosophers of the sciences as practiced and practicing scientists.