And the winner of FameLab Australia 2025 is ... Tammy Lee! 🎉 👏 🏆 Tammy Lee, an embryologist representing @uwanews, is the winner of the FameLab Australia 2025 science communication competition. Kenya Fernandez, a microbiologist from the @Sydney_Uni, and Caitlin Dudley, a plant scientist representing Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), were named runners-up. Congratulations to all finalists, who showcased their science communication skills and delivered outstanding talks! A big thank you to all FameLab partners for their support throughout the year: the @wamuseum, @cheltfestivals, @commitaus, Community Broadcasting Foundation, @CurtinUni, @ForrestResearch, @MurdochUni, @WaInspiring, the Wellspring Group & Foundation and @uwanews. Find out more 👉link in bio.

I have a 1hr mini communication session coming up on 24 September (online). ⭐️Presenting with punch: from ramble to remarkable⭐️ More info or book here - atem.org.au/events/event/pre… Or if you’d like a private session - get in touch via here or via my business @commitAUS

#FameLab’s #scicomm training is packed! In 2024 @em_sci from @commitAUS invited brilliant guest speakers @DrEmmaBeckett, Dr Vivien Rolland and Dr Naomi Koh Belic. @DrShaneRRR delivered masterful media training. #fFameLab Australia 2025 will be a truly rich and rare opportunity for participants again. Applications for FameLab Australia 2025 are now open. Don’t miss out! fwam.com.au/the-foundation-s…

Seminar refreshments

Pretty stoked to win an ASBMB poster prize at @bmh2024Melb, alongside fellow eye CRISPR PhD candidate and friend Lachi Staker 🧬✂️👀

Strong evidence showing that getting a PhD is extremely bad for your mental health. A new paper uses Swedish medical records and matches them to the full population of PhD students for which the authors could get gender and birth year data from 2006 to 2017. After some exclusion criteria, they end up with a sample size of 20,085 individuals. The paper compares PhD students to those who have masters degrees and don't start a PhD program. Before starting a PhD program, people who stop at a masters and those who go on to seek a PhD have similar rates of psychiatric medication use and hospitalization. A few years into a PhD program, however, 40% more individuals are on psychiatric medications, before the number falls off as people leave or finish their studies. You see the same pattern with psychiatric hospitalizations. PhD students are up to 150-175% more likely to be hospitalized after starting a program! These are incredible numbers, too massive to be the result of chance or a flaw in the methodology. This is comparing the same people over time. If you're considering a PhD program, and the terrible job prospects and waste of time aren't enough, here's yet another reason to stay away.