Welcome to Brazen Careerist!

About Me

I'm a happy postgraduate student with half a PhD and a passion for neuroscience.

I plan to write every day for the rest of my life or for as long as my brain allows.

I'm ready to ramp it up to finish the remaining half of my PhD this year. My thesis is about the brain and emotion and I have learnt a lot about that in the past 3 years. Surprisingly I have learnt much more about myself as I have struggled to complete my studies.

My plan is to complete a clinical masters and work in private practice until well into my 70's.

I am a Generation Xer but I love the Y's and I wish my generation was having the type of conversations that we have on Brazen Careerist. Social media makes connecting so easy. I wish more of my contempories would embrace it.

Work History

• Arthritis Foundation of Western Australia
• Project Officer/Research
• January 2000 to December 2005

• Implementation and evaluation of an Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis Self Management Program. I facilitated groups (apprx 20) in disease management programs. I collected data, evaluated and revised the program accordingly. Each program ran over 6 weeks and I followed participants for 12 months to evaluate changes in their pain levels, quality of life and health staus. My communication, presentation, organisation, writing and interpersonal skills really improved as a result of this experience. I got over my fear of public speaking and learned to enjoy teaching and facilitating groups.

• Murdoch University
• Psychology Tutor and Guest Lecturer
• January 2006 to December 2009

• Lecturer and tutor in Biological Bases of Behaviour. I presented a series of lectures on neuropsychology. I also tutored groups of students for this and other courses. I learned how to get students talking to each other in tutorials and how to present complex information in a simple and interesting way. I discovered that students learned better if they managed their own learning. I had them rate each other's participation in classes and their own. I combined these scores with my own evaluation. This was very effective but more importantly it highlighted significant communication problems in some non-english speaking students. This is something that is completely ignored in many Australian university classrooms. In some cases I was able to connect students from various backgrounds with other students who had successfully navigated language and culture problems. My experiences in academia showed me that despite my successes- it was not for me.

Education

• Murdoch University
• Doctor of Philosophy (Psychology), Neuropsychology
• 2006 - 2010

• Murdoch University
• Bachelor of Arts (Psychology), Neuropsychology
• 2000 - 2004