News Archive

The School of Agricultural and Resource Economic's PhD student Isabel Arevalo-Vigne recently attended a professional development camp organised by Plant Biosecurity CRC and Invasive Animals CRC.

The student camp gathered 14 PhD students from the 21 ^st to the 29 ^th October, at the Australian National University field station at Kioloa on the south coast of New South Wales.

The main purpose of the camp was to develop skills that industry needs in graduating PhD students and that are not necessarily part of a traditional PhD program. Focus was on building skills in leadership, communication, team building, giving and receiving feedback, commercialisation and media skills.

Among the activities was an exploration of personality types and how this can influence the way a person leads others and how they blend together in a team. These new skills were then put into practice when the students were asked to work in teams to prepare a research project proposal. "The merit of this is that it makes you reflect on your own capabilities and weaknesses and tune them with other people's to find common ground and help develop better researchers" Isabel explained. Students were also encouraged to liaise with other teams to find areas of collaboration, to increase chances to maximise budgets and resources.

Media references

The Plant Biosecurity CRC and Invasive Animals CRC support PhD research projects across Australia, and more information is available on their websites. https://www.crcplantbiosecurity.com.au/ https://www.invasiveanimals.com/

Isabel Arevalo-Vigne (ARE PhD student) (+61 8) 6488 1495