It’s been awhile. I’ve been on medical leave, just focusing on my health and wellbeing. I’ve been mostly resting. Slowly, at my own pace, I have also been tinkering away at some personal projects. Something I started before I went on leave is a collaboration with a colleage on the sociology of race.
Continue reading “New Project on COVID-19”
As part of this month’s focus on sociology and activism, The Sociological Review has republished my previous work on Indigenous Sociology for Social Impact.
Continue reading “Indigenous Sociology for Social Impact”
Research doesn’t just involve collecting and analysising data, or writing reports. It involves endless admin and negotiation. I returned to work on a data request, accessibility, public communications, plus equity and diversity planning.
Continue reading “Research Admin”
I had a really great outcome I am eager to share with you. I will also encourage you to explore public information and accountability avenues, and discuss how you can get a job in a specialist policy team. Finally, how much do you know about Sydney? Test your knowledge on the quiz at the end of this post!
Continue reading “Meetings, Accountability and Careers”
When you get a PhD, no one tells you how much of your research career will be spent doing admin, planning, and meetings! Today was a day filled with an abundance of these auxiliary tasks that keep research projects running on time and within allocated resourcing. From ethics, to stakeholder meetings about our research, to public communications, and getting ready for our intern, it was a packed day.
Continue reading “Planning Research”
To explain the analysis planning that we’re doing at the moment, I’ll tell you about our broader methodology that we use for all our randomised control trials.
Continue reading “Methodology for Running a Project”
I drafted the email it’s going up to our executives seeking endorsement of our latest randomised control trial. It’s one of many steps that we still need to take before we can proceed and it’ll probably be two months before we get secretary sign off (the final approval before we can begin preparing to go into the field).
Continue reading “Writing an Executive Email”
My team and I are working from home, but today, I was required to go into the office. I conducted a mini visual ethnography of my travels. Even though it’s early days of COVID-19 lockdown, there was a lot of positive observance of the Public Health Order, though signs and physical cues can be improved (‘change architecture’).
Continue reading “Visual Ethnography of Lockdown”
Today was packed with challenges, met with valiance. Applied research is never easy. Sometimes compelling data and a statistically significant result aren’t enough to drive change. Instead, we may need to create a case to have findings and recommendations actioned.
Continue reading “Making Research Stick”
Today I reflect on an important meeting for one of our projects. We’ve had a lot of setbacks because we don’t have useful data sources or infrastructure to enable us to run a proper randomised control trial. I discuss one example of how we assess the viability of our projects, and what this activity looks like in the context of a typical day as an applied researcher.
Continue reading “Assessing the Viability of an Applied Research Project”
Social Science Insights 