The PhD Student Committee met regularly over 2020 to discuss the experiences of postgraduate students across the research groups in the Centre. It proved to be particularly important this year, as strict restrictions on attending workplaces and in-person meetings meant that there were several challenges commonly experienced by the cohort.

Many students found it difficult to stay motivated while working from home. For Anjay Manian, who is in the third year of his PhD at RMIT, travelling to the city would normally be a time to “psyche up” and plan the day. He found that he had to learn to find motivation to work “from nothing”. Michael Rinaudo, who is in the second year of his PhD at UNSW, also found it more difficult to focus when working from home but found that it became easier over time. Many students were able to adapt to their reduced lab access hours in other ways – for example, by developing their programming skills or learning a new field of study. Ben Tadgell, a third year of PhD student at Melbourne University, learnt to use the programming language Python and adapted his research to incorporate computer modelling that could be worked on from home.

Many students discovered that regular video conferencing was the best way to remain feeling connected to the Centre. Anjay had a regular coffee catch-up with others at RMIT every Monday morning. A daily virtual quiz was regularly attended by many in the Centre, including Ben Tadgell.

The committee also held several larger virtual trivia events over the year. These were a lot of fun and brought many PhD students from across the Centre together.