This week's bitesize episode focusses on the topic of Psychology and you'll hear highlights from three interviews with our role models who all work in different
branches of Psychology. Each of these women explain what a typical day in their job looks like, what research they do, the favourite aspect of their work and they pass on some advice to the students who interviewed them.
Featuring:
Dr Megan Kenny, a lecturer at Sheffield Hallan University specialising in Forensic Psychology
Dr Megan Sumeracki, a Cognitive Psychological Scientist and Co-Founder of The Learning Scientists
Charlotte Pitt, a Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist
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If you know a group of students who would like to interview one of our role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com
Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com
Follow us on Instagram @STEMUntapped
Connect with us on LinkedIn @STEMUntappedCIC
Check out our website
Dr. Megan Kenny 00:07
Hi I'm Dr. Megan Kenny, and I'm a lecturer in psychology at Sheffield Hallam University. I'm a forensic psychologist, and I've been working within the forensic sector for about 10 years. So I worked in a secure unit when I graduated. And then I worked in substance misuse for a few years after that, and I've worked for Community Mental Health. And then I worked for rape crisis, that were my last sort of practitioner role before I finished my PhD and started working as a lecturer. And although they were really difficult jobs at times, because you're working with people who are going through the hardest things that they will probably ever face or are going through a really difficult point in their life, particularly in substance misuse. I think that doing that gave me a real opportunity to actually see the merits of psychology as a discipline because I got to put it into action.
Dr Megan Sumeragi 01:01
My name is Megan Sumeragi. I have a PhD in cognitive psychology. And my work is all about trying to understand how we think and process information, and specifically how we can use that knowledge of how we process and think, to figure out the best ways for students to learn and for teachers to instruct in their classrooms, just to try to maximise student learning in a way that is effective, but also efficient, because we know that students have a lot going on. And time is not limitless. And so my role really is to, to teach and to try to gain new knowledge and disseminate that knowledge to as many people as possible. That's my role as a professor, cognitive psychologists can really do a lot of different things. Some of them might be in industry working on creating apps for students or even understanding perception and you know, working with people who tried to improve their, their ability to perceive hearing aids, cochlear implants, those types of things.
Charlotte Pitt 02:17
Hi, my name is Charlotte Pitt. I'm a child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist. I currently work in a child and adolescent mental health unit in Birmingham. The first thing that I do in the morning is join a team called the multidisciplinary team. So we come together, and there's people from all different disciplines, and professions who come together to gather for the day, think about any risk, any cases that needs thinking about, anything that's happening on site or any, any changes to the normal running of the day. So in that team, there would be psychiatrists, psychologists, family therapists, team leads, psychotherapists, then I move on to, my day can be quite varied. So, I meet for individual therapy with cases. So I work with any age from nought to 25. And if a young person is accessing therapy with me, once weekly therapy, then they, they might have a therapy session.
Dr. Megan Kenny 03:32
I love research, it's my favourite thing to do. And I feel really lucky that I get to do that as part of my job now. So when I was studying, you do your dissertation and, and I always really loved that bit. And that's what made me go on and do my masters and then do my PhD because I wanted to be in academia, so I could be a researcher. And so that's definitely the most exciting part, I think, getting to set up projects, and then speak to people about their experiences, even doing all the reading around it to find theory, and it's just endlessly fascinating. I've just done some research with people who've been involved in false memories of satanic ritual abuse, which I'm not going to go into, because it's quite bleak. But that was very interesting. And now I'm doing some research into people's paranormal beliefs. So I'm interviewing people to find out what their beliefs are and sort of what the impacts and consequences of those beliefs are. And that's been really fascinating because now I've talked to a lot of people have told me gore stories and things like that.
Dr Megan Sumeragi 04:31
I think I have enjoyed my work on the learning scientist project the most. The learning scientist is I've mentioned it, I just haven't named it. It's the work that we do a couple of colleagues and I, where we take the information about the science of learning from cognitive psychology, and we try to make it as freely available to students and teachers and other educators as possible.
Charlotte Pitt 04:58
Highs are knowing that that actually, I'm really helping young people. And some people really benefit from this way of working and this way of thinking. Yeah. And then hopefully they are given the tools to be able to go on and live fulfilling healthy lives, both physical health and then mental health.
Dr. Megan Kenny 05:22
Having the opportunity to see people speak, guest lecturers at University have been involved in solving cases. I've spoken to people from, who’ve worked on some quite high profile investigations, and even their story about how, how they got justice for families and things, I think it's really important. But I think the thing to bear in mind with forensic psychology as opposed to any other branch of psychology is that you are obviously dealing with quite dark topics a lot of the time. And it's important that within that you have a really strong support network and an ability, the tools to look after yourself in that so that you don't become burnt out and overwhelmed.
Charlotte Pitt 06:07
You can't always know. And the best way of learning is by exploring and being curious. And I was very curious about the children that I've met along the way and why they are behaving like they are and what they're communicating through their behaviour. And that's what led me to this line of work.
Dr. Megan Kenny 06:23
I think that taking time to study and understand what makes us human, and also through I think studying psychology, you get a better understanding of what makes you you, you can start to apply all that learning to yourself. And I think anything that gives you an understanding of human interaction and human nature is always going to benefit your relationships, both interpersonal relationships, professional relationships. I think it gives you more compassion towards people because you have a bit more of an understanding about why they may be doing the things that they do.