Speaker 1: If I was starting my PhD today, I would be stalking the living shit out of all of the PhD supervisors that I was thinking about working with for my PhD. Here's the thing, is that they leave little leading indicators of success around the internet. And I'm gonna show you in this video which ones are the most important for you. Now, the first thing I would head over to is their academic profile on their website. So this is actually my PhD supervisor. And the first thing I would be doing is looking for this, supervision. I'd be clicking on supervision and the first thing I'm interested in is their group size, the number of PhD graduates they've recently graduated, and also any indication of culture in the lab. So the first one, PhD group size. So I'm looking down here and I'm seeing that, okay, they've commenced in one, two, three. So they've got three PhD students at the moment. Okay, so there's five, they're current PhD students. So that is a good number of PhD students. It's not too many, it's not too little, but it's just kind of that okay, nice Goldilocks zone. Because you want a PhD supervisor who has got some evidence that they've actually graduated PhD students and they're actively supervising students, but you don't want someone that's completely overrun by students, that has 20 or so students that are essentially fighting for their time. So that's the first thing I'm looking at. Look, here's another friend of mine, Dr. Cameron Shearer. And so he's a relatively new academic. He's recently got a permanent position, well done Cameron. But I'm heading over to the supervision tabs that all of these sort of like academic profiles have. And I can see that at the moment, he's got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine PhD students that he's currently supervising or it's masters as well. Okay, so he's got nine masters and doctoral students that he's looking at at the moment. But remember, these people are either co-supervised or primarily supervised by him. So I'm really interested in primary supervision. One, two, three, four, five. There we are, there's another five primary supervised PhD students by Cameron. Once again, not too many, but I'd start to really worry if that started getting past, you know, eight or nine or 10 PhD students. That's far too many. And quite often a lab of that size, you always hear the same issues, which is I can't get in contact with my PhD supervisor. He's away, they're doing all these things. I can't sort of like pin them down to look over my thesis or my peer reviewed paper. That is all of the big issues. So make sure you're not in that boat. That's the first thing I'm looking for. The second thing is any evidence of recent PhD graduation. So I would be looking down here at past higher degree research supervision. So this is a co-supervisor of PhD. So that's good, Cameron. We've got some evidence. You're a new academic, but it's great you've seen what the process of a successful PhD means. And then for someone like Erica, you can see she's got loads and loads of past supervisions. I'm even in there at one point. Where am I? Here I am. Nanoparticle-based organic photovoltaic devices. That's me. Bing, here it is. Ooh, nice. Anyway, so I'm in that list and you can see she has got so, so much evidence that she can be a successful PhD supervisor. And importantly, we've got one this year and then it was a couple years ago she had the last bunch through. So there is evidence they can actually graduate PhD students, which is exactly what you're after. Now, here's the thing, is that you need to now look at evidence of any lab culture. And this is a tough one to kind of weigh up because you're looking for evidence that their lab culture is actually a nice one. If you're in person, you can go and ask their PhD students, but a lot of the time we're international PhD students, we don't know. So I'd be looking for their independently run web pages for their labs. And this is why I think every academic should have a website which is specifically for their lab. So this is a laboratory that I used to work nearby. I was never in this, but this is what I'm looking at. I'm looking for any evidence of culture. So yeah, we've got Colin Raston, who's the head of the group. We've got meet the group areas of interest. Let's say meet the group. So I'm going to meet the group and I'm going to look at the current members. This is 2023. This is about a year old, but this is a little bit of fun. Plan your work around your work of plan. Favorite TV program, Game of Thrones. It's all of these little things that are like, okay, well clearly they're having some sort of fun. Then I'm heading over to their social media, such as Twitter, their LinkedIn profile, wherever you can stalk from the bushes a little bit more. This is what's going on. And you're looking for evidence that they celebrate things. They celebrate things like birthdays. They celebrate things like papers being accepted. They celebrate Christmas things. Whatever kind of lab culture you can gain from this social media presence is always good. If there's nothing, I would just be a little bit wary that maybe this person or this lab doesn't necessarily sort of value that cultural aspect. And that can, over the many years of doing a PhD, really wear you down as a PhD student. So those are the top three things that I'd really be looking for, whatever I'm deciding to do, but there are plenty more and some of them are very, very important. All of the points in this video are covered in my course, which is the Ultimate PhD Kickstart. If you want to start your PhD strong, this course is for you. I look at the 12-point success system that I have seen every successful PhD student go through, and there's even a smart supervision sort of spreadsheet where you go through, and you can also also populate this with all of the information from the master sheet. I've created it for you, so go have a look at this course, because if you're starting a PhD, this will almost guarantee that you are starting off in the strongest light possible. Go check it out. The next big thing you need to look for is money. Is there any evidence that this person is able to bring in money? Because money changes the supervisor experience so much. If you've got a supervisor that doesn't have very much money, they are scrimping and saving, and it is a completely different experience to a supervisor who is just flush with cash. So you want some evidence that this supervisor, your principal or primary supervisor, can actually bring in money. And you go to their supervisor page, and you're looking for grants and funding, and you're looking for this number, and you're looking for recent grants that are sort of like being awarded to them, and then you need to sort of like make a decision, okay, in 2024, they got this grant, which is great. That's a significant grant. So will I be working on this project? If I am, it means that I'll be able to kind of like relax a little bit, because they're going to have some money to support my experiments, my ideas, send me to conferences, all that sort of stuff. So you want someone with money. The next thing I'd be looking at is thesis titles. Head over to their thesis titles, and actually have a look to see whether or not the thesis titles are interesting to you, because this is ultimately what you will be doing. You're producing a thesis around a project that they are an expert in. So if you're looking through their stuff, and none of them really take you, that tells you this shouldn't be your principal supervisor, and in fact, maybe not even your supervisor at all. So have a look, and look at what they're actually researching. So here's some more research topics. Photocatalytic generation of hydrogen under extreme conditions. Oh, that sounds good. I like the word extreme. What else have we got? And then this one, reduced graphene oxide supported, no, that's not really interesting to me as well. So this is what you've got to go through. Have a look at their past PhD thesis, and say, could I actually be part of this group? Because this is what this group is all about. This is what they love. And if you don't at least have a small interest in those thesis titles, maybe it's not the right group for you. The next thing that I would be doing is having a look to see what their past PhD graduates are currently doing. Are they in academia? Are they in industry? Are they doing something else that you would like to do? Because ultimately, when you are working with this person, you are also connected to their networks. You're also connected to the people that they've graduated in the past. And if you can't see yourself in a position that their recent PhD graduates are in, then maybe this isn't for you. If you are wanting to go into academia, you need to make sure that a lot of their PhD students actually end up in academia. If you want to go into industry, make sure that a lot of their PhD students go into industry. This is where you get a little bit sneaky. So what you can do is take these thesis titles, do a bit of a Google, and quite often you'll find a name related to that thesis title. And you have to make sure that you're absolutely okay with where they've ended up and whether or not it's something that you want to do. I would do that with maybe a handful of their recent PhD graduates and have a look to see, well, if I was to graduate under this person, these are the sorts of things that are, you know, the doors that are open to me. So does that excite me? Does that make me happy? Does that interest me? And it's just part of that kind of getting a sense for what you'll do after your PhD as well, which is so important and not enough people think about it. The last thing I'd be looking at is institutional reputation. Is this university actually useful to have on your resume? If you want to go into academia, that makes so much of a difference because people do judge you on where you went to university and also the principal supervisor that you had for your PhD. So if you had someone super famous from Oxford, you're in. That's like a guaranteed future as long as you don't sort of like screw it up. Whereas if you're from a lesser known university, it's a much harder sell on your CV to get someone to employ you in academia afterwards. So make sure that you take into account institutional reputation when you are deciding on a professor to work with for your PhD. If you like this video, go check out this one, which is an old school video about how to choose your PhD supervisor. It's got loads of valuable, timeless advice. Go check it out.