{"id":3307,"date":"2020-09-15T12:56:40","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T11:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/?p=3307"},"modified":"2026-09-15T13:55:03","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T12:55:03","slug":"beyond-academia-a-pgr-alumni-journey-from-research-to-social-impact-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/2020\/09\/15\/beyond-academia-a-pgr-alumni-journey-from-research-to-social-impact-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Academia: A PGR Alumni Journey from Research to Social Impact Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>PhD Programme:<\/strong> Social Policy<\/p>\n<p><strong>Completed:<\/strong> 2018<\/p>\n<p><strong>Research focus:<\/strong> In my PhD thesis, I explored why women&#8217;s access to top position is not only different to men&#8217;s, but why the gender gap in managerial and senior professional jobs also varies between European countries. To understand this variation, I applied multilevel modelling and examined to what extent family policies and labour market institutions have an impact on women&#8217;s underrepresentation in top positions.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>What has your career path looked like since completing your PhD?<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"ff266244 ba80a01c a1aea63d fb022f66 _771d9bf0 _9e17102a e60c410c _76c2f7d1 ae20c373\">\n<ul>\n<li>Senior Research Officer &#8211; The Scottish Government (Jun 2018 &#8211; Mar 2020)<\/li>\n<li>Principal Research Officer &#8211; The Scottish Government (Mar 2020 &#8211; Oct 2022)<\/li>\n<li>Principal Social Impact Consultant &#8211; AECOM (Nov 2022 &#8211; May 2024)<\/li>\n<li>Associate Director for Social Impact Research &#8211; AECOM (May 2024 &#8211; Present)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>What is your current job title?<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Associate Director for Social Impact Research AECOM<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>How would you describe your current role in one sentence?<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Associate social impact director at AECOM with strong focus on research and evaluation and commitment to sustainability. Strong expertise in social impact assessments for low-carbon energy generation.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>How did you find your career opportunities, and what application or interview tips would you like to share?<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The application process started by a couple of interviews about my background, followed by an interview with my line manager, technical questions and programming tasks.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>What advice and reflections would you like to share with current students, particularly those considering a transition from a PhD into a non-academic role?<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Whatever you learn in your life, try to learn deeply.<\/li>\n<li>Self-train and self-educate yourself.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: inherit;font-family: inherit;font-size: 24px\">Which skills developed during your PhD do you use in your current role?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Programming skills<\/li>\n<li>High level mathematics used to develop data driven models<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PhD Programme: Social Policy Completed: 2018 Research focus: In my PhD thesis, I explored why women&#8217;s access to top position is not only different to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/2020\/09\/15\/beyond-academia-a-pgr-alumni-journey-from-research-to-social-impact-leadership\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65655,"featured_media":3309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[312383,312387],"tags":[312393],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65655"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3307"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3311,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3307\/revisions\/3311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}