Uncovering the Human Side of Research Gesa Kappen

In this episode, I talked to two professors of Wageningen University, Rumyana Karlova and Maria Barbosa.

Starting out with questions around leadership, we took a deep and broad dive into academic live at Wageningen (and other places in the world), covering diverse questions like: what's the basis of trust, what are important skills for tenure trackers to develop, how to approach your assessment committee, how the system could be improved and many other topics. 
Guest Contacts:
rumyana.karlova[at]wur.nl
maria.barbosa[at]wur.nl
Send us your feedback and thoughts regarding this episode to podcast@downsideup.nl
We would also love to hear from you if you would like to speak on the podcast or if you have suggestions for future topics and guests.



If you need help improving the work culture in your team, check out our website for ways we can help. Until next time!

Today we talk about psychological safety, diversity, and inclusivitiy with professor Giovanni Bertotti, Professor in Applied Geology at the TU Delft and also Diversity and Inclusion officer of his Faculty.
We hear about his role as Diversity and Inclusion officer in the complex environment that is a University. We talk about the difficulties of addressing micro aggressions, about the challenge to measure progress with regard to building a safer culture, about the resistance that you encounter when you want to put difficult topics on the table and his attempts to improve the culture from the bottom up by opening up conversations about behaviour on all levels.
Enjoy.
Send us your feedback and thoughts regarding this episode to podcast@downsideup.nl
If you need help improving the work culture in your team, check out our website for ways we can help.
https://scholars.downsideup.nl/
If you want to contact Giovanni, he is happy to exchange thoughts with you: G.Bertotti@tudelft.nl

In today's episode, Lauren's and I talked to Calvin Rans who describes himself as a teacher, storyteller and engineer being also an associate professor at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the TU Delft.

We originally approached him with questions around workload, satisfaction and balance. As you will hear, Calvin connects these topics to personal skills, culture, and the academic system as a whole. Working on these three levels with authenticity and creativity, Calvin really is a changemaker. Listen to this episode if you want to know how he turns around the impostor syndrome, how reframing failure is central to his teaching and personal well being, why research funding might be more efficient as a lottery and more. Calvin also talks about an ongoing restructuring in which his department got rid of old hierarchical structures.

Enjoy.

Send us your feedback and thoughts regarding this episode to podcast@downsideup.nl
Find Calvin's website here: 
https://www.calvinrans.com/
If you need help improving the work culture in your team, check out our website for ways we can help.
https://scholars.downsideup.nl/

Laurens and I talked to Fulvio Scarano, professor of aerodynamics, at the TU Delft. We dive into topics like: the influence of fragmentation of one's time and attention on work and health, the balance between choosing your own path and checking the necessary boxes, the role of supervisors in achieving work life balance, what to do when we experience that our work life balance is threatened, and more. Enjoy.
Send us your feedback and thoughts regarding this conversation to podcast@downsideup.nl

https://scholars.downsideup.nl/
If you need help improving the work culture in your team, check out our website for ways we can help. We are here to make sure our researchers can do their work well.

This episode is all about research visions. On Octobre 12th this year, I spoke to social psychology professor Johan Karremans, about his view on research visions. The questions I asked him were inspired by questions we received from Tenure Trackers of Wageningen University and Research. Amongst many other things, we talk about Johan's experiences with not having a vision, how a vision is a work in progress, his very democratic approach to leading and more. 

This first episode is a live, uncut recording of a conversation that took place at Wageningen University and Research, on april 20th this year. The conversation was the kick off event of our Tenure Track Development Program at Wageningen. A one-year Program that supports assistant and associate professors in their personal development. 
The guests you hear are the rector Magnificus prof.dr.ir. Arthur Mol, Chairholder of Biochemistry prof.dr. Dolf Weijers, Associate professors Ilona de Hooge and Sjouke Kingma and assistant professor Wouter Kohlen. The conversation was led by Downsideup director Simon Douw. You will hear the guests talk about their personal experiences when it comes to topics like: Juggling too many balls and how to chose what to spend your time on, what to do when you feel stuck, how the scientific landscape has changed over the last twenty years, and more.
Music by Zen_Man from Pixabay