Sharing my story with Nutan Limaye (CAL117, S6E11)

Changing Academic Life

In this episode the tables are turned and I'm being interviewed by Nutan Limaye who hosts the ‘Life of a Researcher’ podcast. Nutan is an Assoc. Professor at the IT University Copenhagen. We met when she was a participant in one of our residential academic leadership development courses in 2024.

We talk about my unconventional career path starting in social work, moving into nursing and midwifery, then finding myself in computer science and human-computer interaction, and now doing more leadership and academic development work. As with many career stories, serendipity figures a lot, along with a strong people-centred red thread that weaves through all the various turns.

Nutan also asks about how the academic leadership development courses came about, and how we facilitate learning experiences on hard topics like challenging conversations. And we talk about themes that have arisen in the podcast. Along the way we also touch on interdisciplinarity, and academic mobility and what is home. This is a slightly edited conversation from the version she released end of June 2024, shared with her permission.

I'm releasing this now as a complement to my careers article in the Feb 25 edition of Communications of the ACM

Overview

00:29 Introduction

02:41 Nutan's Introduction to the Podcast

05:09 An Unconventional Career Path

07:34 Transition to Computer Science

11:08 Shaping Interests around People-Centred Perspectives

14:21 How Research Evolved as Technology Evolved

17:14 Reflections on Changing Paths

23:12 The Challenges of Interdisciplinary Research

28:03 Supervision Serendipity

34:21 Leadership and People-Centred Academia

42:21 Designing Learning Experiences about Challenging People and Conversations

48:23 Insights from the Session

50:06 Motivation and Themes of the Changing Academic Life Podcast

55:41 Academic Mobility and the Concept of Home

01:05:13 Non-Rapid Fire Questions and Reflections

01:14:11 Outro

01:15:00 End

Related Links:

Nutan Limaye

Life of a Researcher podcast and episode A conversation with Geraldine Fitzpatrick

Nutan’s LinkedIn profile

My CACM article:

Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Fit for People, Fit for Purpose: Designing Tech that Matters, CACM, Feb 2025 Issue, Vol. 68No. 2, Page 7.

Other CAL Episodes mentioned:

Sarah Davies - two parts:

• On mobility, precarity and notions of excellence
• On luck, disrupting excellence, and cultures of care

Neha Kumar: On choices, authenticity and the power of the collective

Karen Stroobants: On changing research culture and reforming research assessment