“Messed Up!” is a live seminar series in a talk show format where our SECReT hosts will engage with budding and established academics to discuss mistakes, failures and the less glorious aspects of academia that do not necessarily make it into research papers.
That’s right, we’re interested in failure.
All of the Messed Up episodes are also available through podcasts on Spotify!
Messed Up! 22: Messing up is in the PhD job description
5 February 2025 | Dr. Louise Baron is a tutor in transferable skills courses for research students since 2001. She has designed and presented these courses at UCL, Imperial college London, Oxford University and several other Universities. She is also the tutor for the award-winning workshop “Finish Up, Move On”. The two-day workshop is designed to help PhD students prepare for their next career plans after finishing the final stage of their PhD.
In this episode, Louise will give insights on the not so fun part of the PhD journey. She will talk about the messed up aspects of the PhD and how to navigate the blunders . Using her expertise in tutoring different students over the years, she will share some strategies to maintain our motivations and resilience throughout our PhD journey. This episode will be a great ‘How to’ that will help any PhD student understand the misfortunes we all face and how to over these difficulties.
Messed Up! 21: How to train manage your dragon supervisor
4 April 2024 | Enrico is a lecturer in Information Security at SCS and is the current Deputy Postgraduate Tutor. He is passionate about research topics such as malware, cybercrime, and machine learning, applied to a diverse range of disciplines (e.g. computer science, forensic science, social science). The wide scope of his expertise has enabled him to supervise over 15 PhD students across three departments at UCL.
In this episode, Enrico will share experience of being a supervisee, and his journey on becoming a supervisor. He will discuss the intricacies of conducting interdisciplinary research and navigating different attitudes and expectations on research and academia from both perspectives. This is an opportunity to understand the inner workings of a supervisor and gain some insight into how to get the most out of your next supervision.
Messed Up! 20: Bringing change from within; a decade at UCL
4 April 2024 | Johanna is the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator for UCL Engineering at UCL and Executive Assistant in the Engineering Faculty Office. Since joining UCL in 2011, Johanna has championed for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, creating and delivering the Bite Size EDI series throughout the faculty, covering subjects like pronouns, microaggressions, fatphobia, and EDI in recruitment interviews.
Messed Up! 19: Asking the hard questions: is academia right for you?
22 November 2023 | Patricio obtained his PhD in Security and Crime Science in 2020 and was a member of staff at the JDI from 2019 to 2023, first as a Teaching Fellow and then as a Lecturer. In late 2023, he left UCL for a position in the private sector. In this episode, he will be sharing advice on how to critically examine your career choices in academia and beyond.
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Messed Up! 18: Imposter syndrome
28 June 2023 | Sarah is a final year PhD student who researches novel ways to help people detect online scams. To this end, she combines methods from cognitive science with technical development. Her Messed Up session will focus on imposter syndrome – what it is, how to identify it and how to get rid of it.
31 May 2023 | Lorenzo is Deputy Director of the UCL Dawes Centre for Future Crime, and a Principal Research Fellow in the Department of Security and Crime Science. He has a background in legal studies, and his recent research focuses on corruption and globalisation, and their impact on crime prevention and criminal justice. In this session, Lorenzo will be talking about his experience of writer’s block and how to push through it.
Messed Up! 16: Navigating Gender and Discrimination in Research
15 March 2023 | Marie is a lecturer in the computer science department – our first guest speaker from outside SCS! Her work focuses on cybercrime measurement with a particular interest in cryptocurrency fraud. Before UCL, she had been at 4 institutions in the US over a span of 10 years. She will talk about gender and how it has shaped her career, be it from overt discrimination or otherwise. From working in a field where she is one of the few female PIs, she will tell stories about how gender intersects with research. Some of these are particularly topical to time spent in the American South where she spent 5 years as a PhD student.
Messed Up! 15: Coping with stress in PhD research
14 December 2022 | Mohammed is a recent PhD graduate in the Department of Security and Crime Science, and his research investigated the sources and impact of stress in forensic decision-making. Mohammed will be talking about his experiences of specific stressors during the PhD journey that he learned to manage with time and experience.
Messed Up! 13: Disseminating controversial research
25 May 2022 | Sherry graduated from the Department of Security and Crime Science and is now a Lecturer in Crime and Forensic Science. Throughout her PhD and research career, Sherry has published and presented research that has introduced new and disruptive ideas which has since reshaped the field of Forensic Anthropology. She will be sharing her experience and the do’s and don’ts of presenting controversial research.
Messed Up! 12: Adapting to new environments
06 April 2022| Alina is a lecturer at the Department of Security and Crime Science. She is broadly interested and uses spatial crime analysis, social media mining, predictive analytics, safety perception, neighborhood disorder, GISciencea and urban informatics. Alina joined us to talk about her experiences moving around the globe for her academic career.
Messed Up! 11: Common PhD pitfalls
19 January 2022| Vas is the Business Development Director at the Department of Security & Crime Sciences. He will be sharing his stories and experiences in helping our department over the past 16 years, focusing on what makes or breaks a research grant proposal and what can cause PhD student meltdowns.
Messed Up! 10: Finding jobs through rejections
20 October 2021 | Patricio is a lecturer in UCL’s Security and Crime Science Department. His research is mostly focused on organised crime in Mexico, particularly extorsion. He obtained his PhD in Security and Crime Science in 2020. In this episode, he shares his experiences of and advice for finding a job in academia.
Messed Up! 9: Tackling procrastination
21 July 2021 | Alex is a PhD student at the Department of Security and Crime Science. Next to his PhD on migrant smuggling and trafficking networks in West and Africa, Alex is a Senior Analyst at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime specialising on armed groups, terrorism, migration, and sub-state political dynamics. Alex and our hosts will be discussing his experience and failures with procrastination, and how to increase productivity.
Messed Up! 8: Early Teaching Mistakes
30 June 2021 | Toby Davies is a lecturer at the Department of Security and Crime Science. His research interests include complex systems, networks, crime, and riots. Toby and our hosts will be discussing his experience and failures with teaching and how to learn from early mistakes to become a better educator.
Messed Up! 7: Paper rejections
19 May 2021 | Jyoti Belur, Associate Professor at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science, will be discussing her experience and failures with publishing, and how to deal with paper rejections and unsavoury reviews.
Messed Up! 6: Ethics proofing your research
21 April 2021 | Kartikeya Tripathi, lecturer and chair of the Ethics Committee at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science, discusses his experience and failures with ethics. Specifically on getting ethics approval and what it means to produce ethically sound research on the field.
17 March 2021 | Ella Cockbain, associate Professor at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science, discusses her experience and failures with media relations. Specifically, about handling media as a researcher, the do’s and don’ts of social media and how to successfully disseminate research through this channel.
Messed Up! 4: Painful Presentations
24 February 2021 | Professor Kate Bowers, director of UCL’s Jill Dando Institute and Department of Security and Crime Science, discusses her experience and failures with presentations. Specifically, about the anxiety of talking about our research, the importance of striking a balance being complex yet succinct and how we can improve our presentations skills.
13 January 2021 | Professor Paul Gill, senior lecturer at the Department of Security and Crime Science, discusses the hacks, successes and failures behind research funding applications
Messed Up! 2: Failing the Viva
9 December 2020 | Recent PhD graduates Dr Michael Frith and Dr Chris Lin discuss what to expect (and not to expect) during the final viva – and how to handle it
Messed Up! 1: Effective Writing
11 November 2020 | Professor Richard Wortley, the former director of the Jill Dando Institute and UCL Department of Security and Crime Science, discusses his experience and failures with effective writing.
