When Health hosts its annual PhD Day in January it will be with special focus on diversity in academia. If you are a supervisor or just curious about PhD research, then join in on 21 January and support the upcoming researchers at Health.

2021.11.18 | Simon Byrial Fischel

When Health opens the doors to another installment of the PhD Day it will be with a focus on diversity in academia. Photo: Simon Fischel, Health Kommunikation.

On Friday 21 January, we are ready to go at it again. Hundreds of PhD and research year students gather in the Lakeside Lecture Halls for the biggest event of the year at Health.

True to tradition, the program is filled with poster presentations, flash talks and oral presentations – and of course a specially invited key note speaker to kick start the day.

This year, the choice has fallen on Associate Professor Christine Parsons from the Interacting Minds Center, Department of Clinical Medicine and Vice President of DANWISE (Danish Society for Women in Science), who will talk about the issue of inequality in academia and how to solve it.

Watch the video where a group of PhD students set the tone for this year's keynote presentation on diversity in academia:

According to Fábio Renato Manzolli Leite, Associate Professor and Chairman of the PhD Days' Organizing Committee, it is an obvious choice of topic to address when all the PhD students are gathered.

”Promoting diversity and creating equal opportunities irrespectively of e.g. sex, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, cultural and religious background, is important to many of our PhD students, who have just begun their academic careers and want to start on a level playing field. A lack of diversity, and therefore of diverse role models, can be frustrating and discouraging. It can make you doubt whether you really have a future in academia,”says Fábio Renato Manzolli Leite.

“Gender imbalance is one topic that the PhD students in the Organizing Committee found particularly urgent, so we decided to contact the organization DANWISE for a lead on a keynote to speak on the subject of ‘Diversity in Academia’. They led us to Christine Parsons, whom we are very excited, agreed to open the day with a keynote lecture,” he continues.

The JCD Award

At the PhD Day, the faculty's PhD students nominate the supervisor of the year, to whom they award the JCD prize. If you are a PhD student with a particularly dedicated and inspiring supervisor, you still have a chance to nominate her or him until 7 December 2021.

3R award

There is also an award for PhD students who along the course of the year have worked actively with 3R in their animal experiments (Replacement. Refinement. Reduction.). If you know a PhD student who has implemented more gentle methods for animal experiments, write your recommendation before 26 November 2021.

The Fogh-Nielsen competition

One of the absolute highlights of the PhD Day is the Fogh-Nielsen competition. Here, three of the faculty's brightest PhD students compete on both research and presentation techniques – at stake is the lion’s share of the scholarship sum of DKK 125,000. The names of the three finalists will be revealed on 13 January in the first issue of Inside Health in the new year. Here you can watch a short video with each of the three finalists.

See the entire program for PhD Day 2022

And read more about the event on the PhD Day website.

Contact

Chairman of the Organizing Committee, Associate Professor Fabio Renato Manzolli Leite
Aarhus University, Department of Dentistry and Oral Health
Mail: fabio@dent.au.dk
Mobile: 53 77 45 57