Prosper Project
Dr Fiona McBride is a Research Staff Developer on the Prosper Project in the Academy at the University of Liverpool. Fiona’s background is in chemistry, with a PhD focussing on the structure of water layers on plane and modified metal surfaces, she undertook two postdocs in different areas of chemistry at the Universities of Southampton and Liverpool. In total, she brings a total of almost 8 years postdoc experience to this role. Her understanding of the real-life challenges faced by postdocs in STEM fields allows her to offer insight into postdoc positions and to design interventions based on experience.
Lucy Williams is the Senior Project Manager on the Prosper Project in the Academy at the University of Liverpool. Lucy has a degree in Chemistry and prior to joining the University of Liverpool worked at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for twenty years. Lucy’s roles there included Head of Physics Programme, where she led a team of 4 responsible for developing and managing a national portfolio of Physics research and postgraduate training in Universities with a budget of £35M p.a. She then moved to take up the role of Head of Marketing and Communications where she developed the strategy for EPSRCs corporate communications and stakeholder relations and managed the team of 16 responsible for delivering them. Her final role at EPSRC was Head of the Developing Leaders Team where she was responsible for delivering and developing EPSRC strategy for supporting researchers in the external academic community - from PhD through to world leading researchers. Lucy joined the University of Liverpool just over 3 years ago as a Strategic Project Manager in the Research, Partnerships and Innovation Directorate where she was responsible for co-ordinating large strategic research funding and fellowship bids including the initial bid for the Prosper project. Lucy has also worked part time for the last 14 years, part of the time in a job share, to allow her to juggle family and working life!
Katie McAllister is the Stakeholder Engagement Manager on the Prosper Project. Before joining the Prosper team, she spent four years as a Development Manager at the University of Liverpool, where she worked closely with pharmaceutical companies, clinical societies and civil society organisations to expand the activity, income and clinical impact of UoL’s world-leading online prescribing support resources for HIV and Viral Hepatitis. Before joining the University, Katie worked as Development Manager for The Reader Organisation - a national charity which uses literature as a social intervention. In this role, she worked with Clinical Commissioning groups, NHS trusts and Public Health Bodies to develop the Reader’s work in health and social settings. With a humanities background (undergraduate degree in English and MA in Translation and Interpreting), before turning her focus to project management and development, Katie held various roles related to teaching and language, including copywriter, visiting lecturer at the University of Salamanca (Spain) and part-time lecturer at the University of Salford.
In this Making an Impact Special we discuss The Prosper Project, a model being developed by colleagues based in The Academy to enhance first-time postdoctoral career development and success.
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This podcast uses sounds from freesound: https://freesound.org/s/417560/ and music from Purple Planet: https://www.purple-planet.com