When the Classroom Gets Heavy: Finding Hope Amid Crisis
Dr Connie Gan
Griffith Institute for Human and Environmental Resilience (GIHER)
School of Medicine and Dentistry, Griffith University
Walking out after watching the documentary “Corals’ Last Stand” and conversations with frontline activists, I felt my heart sink with a mix of emotions. Ongoing proposals to continue destructive practices like seismic blasting, gas flaring,
Educating in Real Time: How to Stay Up to Date in a Dynamic Policy Environment.
Holly Wild
As educators in public health, we are all too familiar with how unwieldy the field can be to teach. There are no neat, linear career pathways, no black-and-white answers, and not even a universally agreed-upon definition. While this ambiguity can feel overwhelming at first, students often come to appreciate the vast grey areas of public health.
One Year As An Indigenous Early Career Researcher.
Sharna Motlap
NAIDOC Week 2025 marks a powerful 50-year milestone of honouring and elevating Indigenous voices, culture, and resilience, its theme, “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy,” resonates deeply with my personal journey.
The journey into academia, particularly as an Indigenous researcher, is paved with unique challenges and rewards. As I reflect on my first year as an Early Career Research Fellow (ECMR),
Expression of Interest: Guest Contributor – Early Career Academics Blog & “Catch Up Cafe” 28th April
The 2025 CAPHIA (Council of Academic Public Health Institutions Australasia) Early Career Academics Committee is excited to announce the continuation of our monthly virtual “Catch Up Cafe.” Building on the success of our informal gatherings in 2024, we are evolving this initiative to provide more structured learning and networking opportunities for early career public health academics and professionals.
This year,
Bridging Continents: Teaching Master of Public Health in Bangladesh and Australia
Dr Sheikh Mohammad Alif
Teaching the Master of Public Health (MPH) courses in two vastly different contexts, Bangladesh and Australia, has been a transformative work experience for me over the past decade. With five years of MPH teaching in Bangladesh, followed by over five years in Australia, I have encountered unique challenges and insights that have deeply informed my classroom approach to public health education.
Don’t forget to stop and smell the roses.
Dr Nathan Dawes
Starting out as an early career academic was both exciting and challenging, a journey that, looking back, I realise could have been much smoother with a few key insights. When I first transitioned from a decade-long career as a clinician to an academic, I approached it with an intense determination and a detailed roadmap. I had mapped out timeframes for every milestone: the completion of my PhD,
Failures, I’ve had a few
Senior Academic Perspective
ECA Blog: July 2024
Professor Richard Franklin
Disipline of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, James Cook University
It is not easy to write about your failures, let alone make them public. However, I believe that for every failure I have had (and there have been a few), I have learnt and grown, both as a person and an academic.
Empowering Students: Tailoring Course Content Through Active Engagement
ECA Blog: June 2024
Dr Mikaela Wheeler, Early Career Academic Committee
Lecturer, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland
As I sat at my desk planning for the semester ahead, I wondered: what skills did my students want to learn this semester? What motivated them? And how could I connect the two to deliver a fun, meaningful, and impactful semester?
Learning how to be a good PhD candidate!
ECA Blog, Senior Academic Perspective: May 2024
Anonymous Senior Academic
School of Psychology and Public Health
As experts in our chosen field, often we are doing a PhD because we are experts in our chosen field. This is particularly so if we are mature-aged with years of work experience – not academic experience. That was me. The first thing I had to learn was that doing a PhD is a whole different world to the one in which I work,
Move Forward To Find Opportunities To Have An Impact
ECA Blog: May 2024
Helen Scudamore, Early Career Academic Committee Secretary
I tossed up between doing a GOAT (Greatest of All Time) experience or a failure. The tendency is to want to talk about what went well in the past and accomplishments, but for a little bit of fun let’s consider a “failure”.
One that jumps out in my mind is when I was not successful in renewing a contract.