Vitamin PhD Podcast Boston University

This episode features a chorus of BU graduate school alumni who share how they leverage skills from graduate school to find success in their post-graduate careers. Guests represent sectors ranging from consulting to public history and from arts administration to science writing. They bring varied experience levels, ranging from newly-minted PhDs who recently entered the workforce to mid-career and recently retired professionals. In a culmination of our season’s focus on management and leadership, they touch on management skills, transitions, and the qualities of good leadership. 


Guests include: Bridget Muckian, Marty Blatt, Chenguang Peng, Rebekah Beaulieu,
Kelsey Gustin, Deboki Chakravarti 

In this episode, the hosts talk with Dr. Joyce Wong about an approach to leadership, which foregrounds collaboration, power, critical self awareness, and relationships. How does identity intersect with approaches to leadership? Especially for minoritized groups such as women and BIPOC working in STEM? And, how is the pandemic affecting leadership in those spaces?

In this episode, Aly and Emma explore power dynamics that affect learning and working in groups and institutions with Harvard Lecturer Houman Harouni. The conversation addresses topics including group dynamics, power, leadership, social change, self-awareness and relationships in a wide variety of countries and contexts.

In today's episode, hosts Emma and Aly talk with independent global consultant Debra Wahlberg about project management. Everything from adaptability, interpersonal skills, problem solving, and leadership is discussed. 

Debra Wahlberg is an independent consultant who has provided strategic leadership on international development programs in culturally diverse and politically sensitive environments. She has managed teams across a range of technical areas, including administrative reform, taking market systems approaches to economic growth, strengthening civil society, youth development and more. Debra earned her MSc in Energy Management and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania. 

In this week's episode, Emma and Aly speak with Joshua Finkelstein, Executive Director of the Boston University Biological Design Center. They speak with him about collaboration and creativity, identifying a gap, risk/reward, and more. They dive into some of the structural problems with innovation, and how these issues tie into leadership.

In this week's episode, Emma and Aly start off their season with a conversation with Dr. Shari Tishman. Dr. Tishman is a Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on the teaching of thinking, the role of close observation in learning, and learning in and through the arts. This week's episodes discusses how to utilize tools within the field of metacognition in teaching and leadership, along with how to continue your personal learning and growth in the teaching field. 

Shari Tishman's Projects/Work:
Arts as Civic Commons
Out of Eden Learn
Agency by Design
Visible Thinking
Artful Thinking
Slow Looking: The Art and Practice of Learning Through Observation