Grad Chat PhD Balance

Dr. Roo Steinberg of Dragonfly Mental Health discusses her experiences with disabilities in graduate school.



She earned her Ph.D. in cellular and molecular medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2020 and has worked in the mental health in academia advocacy space for over 10 years, aligning with her passion for writing and community building. Roo is also the editor-in-chief of dragonfly digital diaries, dragonflies monthly newsletter, which exists as a safe space for academics to share their lived experiences in academia and/or with mental health, and invites academics to be vulnerable to help fight the stigma in academic spaces.

You can click the link to learn more about Dragonfly Mental Health.



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This week, we will be joined by Brittney Hauke (she/they). Brittney Hauke is a 3rd-year Ph.D. Candidate in Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State University. She previously got her Master's in Materials Science and Engineering from Arizona State University and their BA in Physics and Studio art at a small liberal arts school called Coe College. You can find them on Twitter @SuperSparticle.

A full-text transcript of this episode is available via google doc.

Grad Chat episodes are posted every second Saturday at 9 am Eastern Time; check out the PhD Balance YouTube Channel for all the videos!

Want to be a guest or know somebody we should be talking to? Fill out our google form!

Follow our host Niba on Twitter: @NotesByNiba

This week, we will be joined by Emeline Beltran (she/her). Emeline is a Master of Arts Candidate from California State University, Los Angeles studying Communication. The main subfields in this discipline that she focuses on are intercultural, global, and health communication. Her research interests are in crisis communication, specifically how emergencies and social injustices affect diverse populations and their intersectional identities. Long-term, she hopes to pursue a research or communication role in social and human services.

A full-text transcript of this episode is available via google doc.

Grad Chat episodes are posted every second Saturday at 9 am Eastern Time; check out the PhD Balance YouTube Channel for all the videos!

Want to be a guest or know somebody we should be talking to? Fill out our google form!

Follow our host Linda on Twitter: @LindaCCor

This week, we will be joined by Eleni Routoula (she/her). Originally from Greece, Eleni moved in the UK 6 years ago to pursue further studies. Her educational background has been in chemical engineering, but after 10 years of chemeng studies including a PhD on the topic, she realised that my passion was not about the practice of the profession as a researcher or industrial engineer. During my PhD in chemical engineering, Eleni discovered an interest in teaching, researchers’ development, science communication, networking, and employability, through participation in numerous extra-curricular activities. Her non-research interests ranged from teaching assistance and participating in outreach, to chairing committees and an editorial placement in the journal Nature. She decided to pave her way in a sector different than originally intended, by pursuing further experience and employment in areas of interest. Currently, her main focus is educating students and researchers on the realisation and development of transferable skills and extracurricular experience as a means to shape and pursue conventional and unconventional careers. You can find her on Instagram @curleni.

A full-text transcript of this episode is available via google doc.

Grad Chat episodes are posted every second Saturday at 9 am Eastern Time; check out the PhD Balance YouTube Channel for all the videos!

Want to be a guest or know somebody we should be talking to? Fill out our google form!

Follow our host Linda on Twitter: @LindaCCor

This week, we will be joined by Kamille Harris (she/her). Kamille is currently serving as a Psychology Intern at the University of Memphis Counseling Center where she provides individual and group psychotherapy, as well as crisis interventions and campus outreach. She completed her Master of Science in Clinical Counseling at Radford University and received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at North Carolina A&T State University. She is studying Black women's well-being and experiences of gendered racial microaggressions in higher education. Throughout the course of her clinical training, she's provided mental health services to college students, veterans, adults, and children. This Philadelphia native hopes to spend her career providing clinical supervision, consulting, and developing community-based programs to improve the well-being of adolescent Black girls. In her free time, Kamille enjoys playing The Sims and creating content for @Blackgirlsnoysters on Instagram. To learn more about Kamille, follow her on Twitter @almostdrharris.

A full-text transcript of this episode is available via google doc.

Grad Chat episodes are posted every second Saturday at 9 am Eastern Time; check out the PhD Balance YouTube Channel for all the videos!

Want to be a guest or know somebody we should be talking to? Fill out our google form!

Follow our host Niba on Twitter: @NotesByNiba

This week, we will be joined by Ti'Air Riggins (she/her).  

Ti’Air Riggins is a current Biomedical Engineering PhD researcher at Case Western Reserve University who just became the first Black Biomedical Engineering PhD recipient from MSU.  She received her bachelors in Biomedical Engineering from The Ohio State University in 2011, also becoming the first black undergraduate student to receive a bachelors in science in BME from OSU, and proceeded to earn a master’s from the University of Cincinnati in 2013. Beginning her PhD at Purdue in 2014, she transferred to Michigan State in January 2019. Her research focus is integrating tissue engineering with implantable electrodes to tune immune response in the brain, in the REIL lab under the direction of Dr. Erin Purcell. She is a co-founder for Black In Neuro, serves as the Academia Chair for the Health Innovations special interest group of the National Society of Black Engineers, is a local organizer for Com Sci Con MI, and is in the speaker’s bureau for the Rape And Incest National Network.  She has also served in the community under her platforms of sexual assault awareness and exposing underrepresented students to STEM as Miss Indiana United States 2015 and has received awards for her Social Justice in 2016 and Humanitarianism in 2018.  She was named a fellow in the Society for Neuroscience from 2016 – 2018 and is also a NIH F99/K00 fellowship awardee. She just accepted a postdoc position in the Capadona lab at Case Western Reserve University where she will do her K00 funded research. Her future goals include managing her own lab exploring neurodegeneration and foreign body response to brain computer interfaces and being a successful educator and mentor for students who are underrepresented students in neuroscience and engineering.   

A full-text transcript of this episode is available via google doc.

Grad Chat episodes are posted every second Saturday at 9 am Eastern Time, check out the PhD Balance YouTube Channel for all the videos!

Want to be a guest or know somebody we should be talking to? Fill out our google form!

Follow our host Courtney on Twitter: @CApplewhiteX

Check out the PhD Balance website for more info on Grad Chat.