Past students: where are they now?
Below is a list of testimonials from previous students about their time within the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health.
Junaid 2011
Junaid completed his DPhil in 2011 and says that one of the reasons why he chose this course was “the outstanding and nurturing environment at the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health”. Junaid has stayed in academia, and after doing a postdoc in the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health, he moved to Cardiff for another postdoc degree. He is now still in Cardiff, after having received a Health Research Fellowship with the National Institute for Social Care and Health Research (NISCHR). For prospective DPhil/MSc by Research students, Junaid advises others to “be passionate about your research. Try to enjoy it as much as you can!”
Darryl 2012
Darryl, who finished a MSc by research in 2012, most enjoyed the freedom to build analyses and work with teams of great people. Darryl now works in the Market Analysis & Strategy group at Genentech, based in the USA. He found that doing an MSc helped in his current field as “the toolkit that you take from learning how to conduct legitimate research is constantly valuable. Having the ability to comb through large amounts of data/evidence and pull out insights has been a major advantage in my career”. Darryl advises prospective students to “pick a topic that really gets you going. Then, you’ll spend your time solving an interesting problem rather than ‘getting through’”.
Pilar 2013 and Michelle 2014
Pilar (left) and Michelle (right) both completed their DPhils in 2013 and 2014, respectively. After finishing her DPhil, Michelle worked within a contract research organisation that specialises in providing drug discovery services. As for Pilar, she took up a postdoctoral position at the University of Manchester. They have now both returned to the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health.
What Michelle enjoyed the most during her time as a student in the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health, was the people, as she “found it to be a very friendly and inclusive workplace where help would always be provided to those who asked for it.” Pilar says one of the enjoyable things in the Department is “the close interaction among the members of the Department, both inside and outside of the lab areas”, and that this has not changed over the years.
Suseela 2015
Suseela, who completed her DPhil in 2015, is now a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Malaya, in Malaysia. She says that doing the DPhil in the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health was an optimistic turning point in her life. She gained extensive theoretical and practical knowledge, and it enabled her to perform her duties confidently and diplomatically in her current role. Suseela saw the DPhil as “a golden opportunity for me to explore and maximise. Thus, I never missed any academic activities such as seminars, symposium and courses provided by the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health and the Medical Sciences Division.” Suseela predominantly attributes her success to the excellent coaching and supervision of her supervisor.