A PhD Council has just been formed. It includes seven PhD students representing several groups within WASP and they are now making plans for their coming work. “There is a need for more active student engagement and organised ways for communication between students and management”, says Alexandre Martins, industrial PhD student and member of the PhD Student Council.
A forum for all WASP PhD students to make suggestions for improvement. Likewise, a bridge between them and management. These where the reasons that the WASP Management took the initiative for a PhD Council, and Professor Warwick Tucker, member of the Graduate School Management Group, sent out an invitation email to all PhD students. He received several interesting replies, one of them from Alexandre Martins, industrial PhD student in the AS track.
“During your doctoral studies you are very focused on your work. It can be hard to keep track of what’s going on in the rest of the organization. Through this council I get to engage in a group that is assigned to see the bigger picture, to influence decision making, and lift the students’ point of view.”
During the WASP Winter Conference, the seven members of the PhD Council were presented to the rest of the students. Since then, they have started to establish their teamwork.
“We are setting up our internal communication and a plan for our future work. It should be easy for students to contact us, so we are thinking of different solutions for that. We have identified some areas within WASP that doesn’t have enough student influence and engagement today. That’s something we will investigate further”, says Alexandre Martins.
The PhD Council consists of seven PhD students from different tracks, batches and universities. They will have close contact with the Graduate School Management Group. Alexandre Martins is convinced that a more formal student organisation is needed in an organization as large as WASP.
“There is a need for more active student engagement and organised ways for communication between students and the management. I think that a PhD student will find it easier to tell another PhD student if something isn’t working out. And from a management perspective, it can be hard to find a PhD student who can speak for many. I’m sure that our work will be appreciated.”
We want your voice
Are you a WASP PhD student? Don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions or ideas. You can use our official email adress or contact anyone of us in the council.
Email: phdcouncil at wasp-sweden.se
The PhD student council consists of:
- Martin Andersson, martin.andersson at math.uu.se
- Alexandre Martins, alexandre.martins at axis.com
- Chen Shuangshuang, chen.shuangshuang at volvocars.com
- Christopher Blöcker, christopher.blocker at umu.se
- Georgia Tsaloli, tsaloli at chalmers.se
- Timotheus Kampik, tkampik at cs.umu.se
- Matthias Mayr, matthias.mayr at cs.lth.se
Published: February 26th, 2019