This month, The Applied Ecologist is amplifying the voice of early career ecologists from around the world working in the field of applied ecology to help inspire the next generation. In this post, Sarah Golding, a Knowledge Exchange fellow at the University of Surrey and part of the ACCESS Fellows, shares her story below.
My background
I am a mixed-methods social scientist, and my passions lie in interdisciplinary, applied projects. I explore how interactions between psychological, social, and environmental factors can influence public, animal, and ecosystem health. I have collaborated with veterinarians, hospital clinicians and people in government agencies, as well as academics from various disciplines. Through this post, I’d like to share a bit about my non-traditional academic career and provide some tips for interdisciplinary and cross-sector working.
Life before research
In 2020, I qualified as a Health Psychologist – but this wasn’t always the plan! I grew up in a working-class household and didn’t really know anyone who had gone to university, let alone completed a doctorate. After my A-levels, I took a year out to earn money, before going to Art School for a year – but then decided I didn’t want to pursue a career as an artist. I went back to working in a high-street music shop (which I loved and might still be doing now, if we hadn’t all been made redundant when the business failed!).
During my 20s and early 30s, I worked in various retail management, banking and customer service roles. At the same time, I studied part-time in the evenings and weekends for my Psychology BSc with the Open University. I also completed my MSc part-time, as I couldn’t afford to take a year out of work.
While I loved some of my pre-academia jobs and detested others, they all taught me something valuable about working in teams of diverse people with different views and needs. I also developed vital skills such as teamworking, negotiation, self-discipline and time management – skills that are not always explicitly taught in academic settings.
Where am I now?
As a researcher, I have worked on various health-focused projects. My PhD work examined the psychological and social influences on antimicrobial usage by farm veterinarians and farmers, and beliefs about antimicrobial resistance among veterinary students. Other project topics have included breastfeeding, stress in emergency call-centres, infection control in hospitals, and how nature supported wellbeing during Covid-19.
These projects are bound together by an interdisciplinary thread and an emphasis on applying social science expertise within a One Health paradigm. Humans are embedded within complex physical and social environments – our health and wellbeing is intrinsically linked to the health and wellbeing of all other life on our planet.
I now work as a Knowledge Exchange Fellow for ACCESS (Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science). This is an unusual role for an Early Career Researcher (ECR) – instead of conducting new research like most other ECRs, I help researchers be more effective at sharing their work with people from outside their academic disciplines. This might be through facilitating interdisciplinary training, offering space for reflection, or – as in this blog – sharing insights from my own journey as an interdisciplinary ECR.
Tips for ECRs on interdisciplinary working
Working with people from different academic or professional backgrounds can be both challenging and rewarding. People with different backgrounds see and understand the world in different ways. This can be frustrating when we don’t take time to understand different perspectives – but when we engage and listen with empathy and curiosity, interdisciplinary working can be fun, exciting and creative.
I don’t claim to have the definitive guidebook for navigating the challenges of interdisciplinary working! I simply offer a few tips based on my own experience and hope they will be useful points of reflection.
- Have confidence – know what you bring to the table. You might have topic or methodological expertise, understanding of organisational culture, or vital network connections.
- Be humble and curious – know what you don’t bring to the table. Recognise where your expertise ends. Actively invite contributions from others. Ask questions early on. Keep asking questions.
- Ditch jargon – different disciplines and workplaces have their own specialist languages and acronyms. Sometimes, the same phrase means different things to different people. Use everyday language and check shared understandings often.
- Reflect on your assumptions – what theories, concepts and methodologies do you take for granted that people outside your discipline might be unfamiliar with?
- Be patient and open to challenge – interdisciplinary working takes time, to allow everyone to learn from each other and to integrate new ways of thinking. Expect to be asked questions and be prepared to answer in a way that does not assume prior knowledge.
- Make your insights relevant – learn what motivates people in different disciplines or sectors (Short timelines? Policy relevance? Economic benefit?). Learn to frame your work so others can more easily see the potential for application – e.g. can you align your research to the Sustainable Development Goals or Conservation Standards?
- Simplify your message – develop short summaries of your skills and projects. Don’t try to share all your findings or insights – focus on the most important ones.
More details about the ACCESS project
Read this blog post to find out more about the people behind the ACCESS project I’m part of and follow us on @_ACCESSnetwork.
You can also follow me on Twitter: @SarahEGolding
Discover more posts from our ECR Journeys blog series here.
