Hi there!

I’m Miriam, PhD student & half-time Podcaster.

PhD student

I am a joint PhD student between the University of Copenhagen in Denmark & and Ghent University in Belgium. As a PhD student I am part of the EU Horizon2020 project Nutri2Cycle, where we look at ways to increase nutrient efficiencies in agriculture.

My task is to conduct Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies on new technologies or management strategies and to provide holistic insights into the environmental implications of such technologies compared to the status quo.

I am quite passionate about LCAs because they go beyond looking at direct effects and can give clues of hidden impacts. Few improvements come at no costs and emission reductions can usually only be achieved through additional material and energy inputs. The question is – is it worth it?

Here you can have a look at two of publications : )

LCA on pig slurry acidification (me as 1st-author)

LCA on struvite recovery & wastewater sludge end-use (me as 2nd-author)

Podcaster

I am a very passionate podcast listener myself and sometimes, when I tell people about that
interview that I had just heard, that episode I listened to or that podcaster I had recently discovered they wonder whether I actually do anything but listen to podcasts. The answer is – yes of course! but still 😀

I think podcasts are a wonderful format to communicate thoughts, knowledge and news. I have always loved listening to radio shows too and I think that during my time in Munich I learned as much from listening to Bayern2 as I did by completing my Masters – just very different things 😀

During my time as a PhD I kept hearing that we need to create outreach, that we need to communicate our science, that we have to make ourselves visible, if we want to stay in academia or get a good follow-up position. But that is way easier said and suggested than done. First, most of the time few interesting things happen. I do modelling and the most interesting thing I could show are the different colours of my
coffee cups. Second, I find social media is too limited to actually tell stories and bring across what is studied… and for many – including me(!) – its awkward to communicate into that void and at the same overwhelming universe of posts, tweets and stories.

The PhD students

But I have met so many PhD students that are super knowledgeable about their field and enthusiastic about their research. They have stories worth sharing. So, I thought maybe, maybe it would nice, if there was a podcasts for and with PhD students. To give them space to share their stories. The thought development into action and action developed into me actually doing this! I am still amazed 😀

So, this is for PhD students to share their stories, to feel connected among each other but to also create a bridge to everyone else listing to this! To show ‘the outside world’ what the life of PhD students looks like.

Diversity

The agreed upon language in science is English.
We speak English during conferences, write English in our manuscripts and think English during meetings.
While this is really practical because it allows all of us to communicate with each other, it still makes a big part of many of us disappear. Many PhD students, including myself, have a first language that is a big part of our identity.
To give more languages room, the PhD students I interview first introduce themselves in their first language before we continue with English. That allows them to show another side of them, relate with people who speak that same language and to maybe say Hi to their grandma & grandpa🥰

The experts

Apart from PhD students, I interview experts in fields relevant to PhDs (but also any other student and person in and around academia). While our topics can be very different, our struggles and tasks are often very similar. How can we manage ourselves? How to get published? How to find a balance between work and private life? How to teach and communicate knowledge?

In this subsection of my podcasts, I interview people who master and are experts in fields such as academic writing, teaching, and stress management.

My learnings

Being a PhD myself, I have also learnt quite something that are worth sharing especially for PhD student at a rather early stage. You don’t have to figure everything out for yourself if others have done so before. Spare your brain capacity on other things 😀

Trailer

If you like, you can listen to the trailer of my podcast right here 🙂