The Knowledge Mill features PhD researchers and the work they do. Each episode is a longform conversation covering the guest's journey to doing a PhD, the nature of their PhD life, the ideas they're currently swimming in, and their non-academic passions.
Mohsen Loghmani is a PhD candidate at Griffith University. Show Notes: https://bit.ly/tkm011 -- Mohsen Loghmani is a Work Design Consultant, Sports Management Researcher, and Educator. His work draws on top-down and bottom-up job design practices to increase the productivity of volunteers and professionals who work at various levels (i.e., community-based level to high-performance level). Mohsen graduated from the University of Guilan, Iran with a master's degree in Sport Management and joined the Department of Sport Management at Shafagh Institute of Higher Education in 2014 as an "Instructor". He taught Sports Management and Development related subject areas such as organizational theory, human resources management, organizational behaviour in sports, research methods in sports management, and seminars on undergraduate and postgraduate degree pathways. In July 2019, Mohsen moved to Griffith University as a "Visiting Scholar". After two years, in July 2021, he became a "Research Assistant" and "Sessional Tutor" at Griffith. At the same time, he started in the PhD program in Sport Management there. As his most important academic achievement, Mohsen, alongside Associate Professor Popi Sotiriadou and Dr Jason Doyle, was awarded the 2023 SMAANZ Industry Engagement Grant to undertake research around volunteering in community sports clubs. Outside of academia, Mohsen has worked in the sports industry within sports organizations and events. He was Head of the Sport and Recreational Department at Shafagh Institute of Higher Education, Iran between 2015 and 2019 and organized several coaching and refereeing courses and sports events for students. He was also appointed as "Voluntary Football Clubs Development Consultant" by Football Mazandaran, Babolsar, IRAN in November 2021. He is currently providing some advice to the president and executive board in terms of how to establish voluntary football clubs across suburbs in Babolsar County. On the other hand, Mohsen started his refereeing career in 2005 in Iran, and he became a Football Australia Referee in July 2019. He won the Referee Of The Year Award in 2021 from Football Gold Coast, Australia. By the time we sat down to record this episode, Mohsen and I had enjoyed a number of conversations (in the absence of microphones) that always seemed to veer into the philosophical. We indulge in that tendency a bit here, as well, in pondering the future of our shared field of sport management, though the questions we try to answer have implications for researchers in all fields. -- This episode of The Knowledge Mill was recorded on December 1, 2023 on the campus of the University of Canberra during the 29th Annual SMAANZ Conference.
Dan Ferguson is a PhD candidate at Swinburne University of Technology. Show Notes: https://bit.ly/tkm010 -- As a public servant turned consultant, and now as an academic researcher, Dan Ferguson has been lucky enough to combine his education in sport science and urban planning to forge a decade long career within the government sector. Having worked in private consulting, two Victorian Councils, Victorian State Government, and a YMCA managed aquatic centre, he has a unique combination of experience in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. During this time he established a firm belief in #CollaborationOverCompetition. That's why he founded the boutique planning consultancy theCommunityCollaborative: to act as a vehicle to harness the collective power of industry – mainly servicing local government clients. Dan is a keen supporter of industry and the broader sport and community sector. He is currently the Executive Officer of industry association Parks and Leisure Australia (Vic/Tas), as well as a member on the partnerships committee of the Australian Society for Physical Activity (ASPA). He has previously held the role of chairperson of the SouthPort Community Centre and has been involved in various other community organisations. Dan has worked across diverse areas including sport, social development, and public health. However, the majority of his career has focused on creating healthy communities through the built environment - from negotiating multi-million-dollar stadium upgrade contracts on behalf of the State government, to planning where footpaths should go in a local park. This has led to Dan embarking on the PhD journey within Swinburne University’s Sport Innovation Research Group with a research focus on the provision of public infrastructure that supports physical activity. -- This episode of The Knowledge Mill was recorded on December 1, 2023 on the campus of the University of Canberra during the 29th Annual SMAANZ Conference.
Olivia Bramley is a PhD candidate at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Show Notes: https://bit.ly/tkm9 -- Olivia Bramley is a PhD Student at RMIT University and a member of the Sport Innovation Research Group, specializing in the area of Sport Ecology. Prior to undertaking her PhD, Olivia completed a Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science with honours at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. Olivia’s PhD studies explore the role of sport organisations to operate within the planetary boundaries, and to respond to climate change. Specifically, she aims to bring together and engage all stakeholders in sport to develop regenerative sport that is harmonious with the natural environment. Olivia’s current research interests centre around research that enhances the positives of sport. She has been involved with multiple research projects as a research assistant across a range of topics including sport performance, mental health in sport, and sport for development. Outside of her academic career, Olivia is a full-time professional footballer, playing in the WSL2 Women’s Championship in England. Her signing with Durham FC occurred after we spoke, and so it’s fun to hear her discuss her hopes for her football career in this episode. Owing to her dual career, Olivia describes herself as being somewhere between surviving and thriving. Her journey is a unique one, but she notes that she is a true believer in creating your own path and owning all that goes with it. -- This episode of The Knowledge Mill was recorded on November 29th, 2023 on the campus of the University of Canberra during the 29th Annual SMAANZ Conference.
Claudia Speidel is a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney. Show Notes: https://bit.ly/tkm008 -- Claudia Speidel is a marketing strategy consultant and educator. Through qualitative research methodologies, she draws on consumer insights to advise businesses in communication strategy, market positioning, and product development. She has extensive experience in cross-cultural communications throughout Europe and Australia, engaging with a wide range of industries including Fast Moving Consumer Goods, education, pharmaceuticals, and tourism. During her career, she participated in various multi-national communication campaigns and international product launches. Claudia has also worked as a business, marketing, and communication lecturer, developing and delivering subjects at a bachelor’s level. Originally from Germany, Claudia has lived in six countries and travelled the world for her work and studies. Each country move introduced her to a new culture and language that was not her own and taught her about the challenges and intricacies involved in cross-cultural communications. She often witnessed cultural and linguistic misunderstandings and/or missed opportunities to engage a culturally diverse audience because the messages were not sufficiently nuanced to resonate with specific collective sentiments. It was these migrant experiences and her liminal position between cultures and worldviews that sparked her interest in cultural identities and their impact on attitudes, values, and behaviour which is the focus of her PhD research at the UTS School of Communications. Claudia is currently investigating the impact of the Australian Indian diaspora’s cultural identity on their perceptions and preferences in sustainability. -- This episode of The Knowledge Mill was recorded in my office at UTS on October 5, 2023.
Kristyn Maslog-Levis is a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney. Show Notes: https://bit.ly/tkm007 -- Kristyn Maslog-Levis is a marketing and communications coordinator for a non-profit organisation, author, ghostwriter and former journalist. She has previously worked as a TV reporter in the Philippines and a radio broadcaster with SBS in Sydney, where she still occasionally does voice-overs. Several of her stories have landed in The New York Times and Al Jazeera. While working as a broadcast journalist in the Philippines, Kristyn covered bomb threats, rebel insurgencies, and political rivalries. She finished her masters degree in communication at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore under the ASEAN scholarship. Kristyn self-published two children’s picture books prior to the release of her first young adult novel, The Girl Between Two Worlds, with Anvil Publishing in 2016. Her second book, The Girl Between Light and Dark, and third book, The Search for Adarna, were released by the same publisher in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Kristyn is represented by Annabel Barker Literary Agency. She started her Doctor of Philosophy candidature in 2021 with the University of Technology Sydney for Creative Writing under the Australian Research Training Program, focusing on cultural diversity in children’s literature in Australia. Her thesis, The Missing Books in Children’s Literature in Australia: An Australian-Filipino Author’s Journey to Representation, is a creative and critical work that questions the limited opportunities given to children’s and young adult (CYA) authors from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities in the traditional publishing industry in Australia. The thesis argues that CALD authors face barrier after barrier, first within their own personal circumstance, then from the wider community – as well as the barriers within traditional publishing houses. For CALD authors to have a chance of being represented in the CYA space, big changes are needed from the industry and its adjacent spaces. -- This episode of The Knowledge Mill was recorded in my office at UTS on September 15, 2023.