Periods of isolation can be very productive, even revelatory. Just ask former UNE PhD student Katrina Grasby.
For a large part of her PhD Katrina lived in Sydney, hundreds of kilometres from her peers and supervisors. It was long before COVID-19, and it has proven an empowering and enlightening experience that has put her in good stead since.
"I work in behaviour genetics, so a large part of my PhD came down to the statistical analysis and interpretation of data," Katrina says. "When based in Armidale, I had the support and encouragement of others, someone to pop next door and ask a question or commiserate with when I was really frustrated."
However, learning very complex programs "from the ground up" on her own proved a blessing in disguise.
"It was a really challenging time and I had to figure out many things myself, but that gave me a great foundation," she says. "I had to embed the learning in my bones, and now I find I can solve many problems much faster."
Katrina's PhD research contributed to the long-term NAPLAN-twin project, based at UNE, into how behaviour genetics influences literacy and numeracy among Australian schoolchildren. Her supervisor William Coventry, one of the project's lead researchers, believes Katrina's experience of working alone - as many people have had to do in recent times - proved the making of her.
Katrina was not only smart but extremely devoted. However, she didn't have direct supervision or fellow students to work with and bounce ideas off.
"There were times when she was so frustrated she was in tears, but I assured her that once she completed her PhD the doors would fly open because she had not leaned on anyone: she had learned the complicated scripting and methods systematically and exhaustively herself."
And so it came to pass. The first door to open, right after she finished, was every PhD students’ dream: a postdoctoral fellowship, this one at the prestigious Psychiatric Genetics Laboratory of the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, where she currently works.
The next, within three years of completing her PhD, was an invitation to teach at the international workshop on the main statistical program used in behavioural genetics. Then, in 2019, Katrina was awarded a prestigious National Health and Medical Research Council fellowship. She has already published 20 scientific papers, four of them during her PhD and one in Science, no less, as first author.
"Katrina's made a meteoric rise in science and I think she has earned those accolades because of the hard yards she did at that formative time, when she was working largely alone," William says.
Katrina agrees: "Not everyone will flourish in these circumstances; I suspect getting through it had a lot to do with my personality. However, the PhD taught me that I could persevere, I could figure it out, and it gave me confidence that I can learn anything."
