New talk for PhD students and PhD supervisors announced
Thanking while thinking: How gratitude can enhance inspiration and supervisor-student relationships in the PhD context
Time and date: 20 March 2025, 15.30-17.00
Deadline for registration: 10 March 2025
Who can come? This talk is for PhD supervisors and PhD students at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. Other faculty members are also welcome.
About the talk
The presentation will draw on research-based practices that enable gratitude to be accessible and sustainable when faced with challenges within the context of PhD supervisors and students. We will explore a conceptual framework of the dimensions of gratitude that relate to effective relationships and one that addresses underlying complexities as we consider gratitude in this context. Participants will gain strategies that they can immediately apply to both the research and teaching process.
We will examine why this is important in light of recent studies in neuroscience which point to the positive impact that gratitude can have on the thinking process. Research also shows that gratitude is a powerful force in building and maintaining relationships. Investigation in the HDR context has demonstrated that gratitude can contribute to a positive supervisor-student relationship – an area that is increasingly seen as pivotal to PhD success. However, the presentation will also delve into common questions raised about what do we do when faced with difficult relationships, or when expectations are perceived to be broken? How do we access gratitude when we feel negative or demotivated?
About the speaker
Dr Kerry Howells is based in Australia and has spent nearly three decades researching, teaching and practising gratitude.
She is currently a visiting professor at Tallinn University having visited twice in 2022 to offer public lectures and workshops on gratitude to academic staff as well as PhD students and their supervisors. She now teaches an online postgraduate course there called Gratitude in Practice. Prior to this Kerry worked in the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania for 16 years, where she implemented her pedagogy of gratitude in the Master of Teaching course and in Graduate Research programs.
Kerry’s work is underpinned by a deep philosophical exploration of gratitude and its practical implications for researchers, educators and leaders, and she has published widely in this field. She has a particular interest in cross-cultural lenses of gratitude and their implications for communication. Kerry’s award-winning book Untangling you: How can I be grateful when I feel so resentful? explores the dilemmas of accessing gratitude in difficult relationships and includes a case study from the research student-supervisor context. This work has won three prestigious international awards and is available in six languages, including Estonian. You can discover more about her offerings at www.kerryhowells.com
Sounds interesting? Register for the talk here.