30 June 2025

PhD Supervisor Talk: Impostor Syndrome in Higher Education and Strategies for Addressing It

Aim and content

This Talk is for PhD supervisors at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. Other faculty members are also welcome.

In this interactive session you will learn:

• What the impostor phenomenon is and how it differs from low self-esteem
• Key sources of impostor syndrome
• How academic culture fuels self-doubt in students, faculty, and staff
• The role of competence distortions
• Behaviors associated with impostor syndrome
• Individual and organizational costs of impostor feelings
• Differences in male and female students’ perceptions of ways faculty advisors
can help to raise confidence
• Steps faculty can take to mitigate impostor feelings in their students and themselves
• Steps the department/university can take to address needless impostor feelings in students and faculty

About the speaker
• Valerie Young, Ed.D. is a global thought leader on impostor syndrome. In addition to speaking at over 100 universities in the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, and the UK including Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Oxford, and University of Copenhagen she’s spoken at such diverse organizations as JP Morgan, Google, Pfizer, Boeing, NASA, and the National Cancer Institute.


Time and date: Tuesday 28 October 2025, 15:30-17:00.

Registration: Please register here no later than 21 October 2025.

Venue: Panum, Blegdamsvej 3B, building 16, 6th floor, room 16/Faculty Club, (16.6.16).

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