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Catchup – Salon – Preparing for your Viva
October 23 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
A weekly gathering to discuss careers and research topics, inspired by 17th and 18th century salons from Paris, with a modern twist. These sessions combine livestreams, guest speakers and group chat to exchange ideas, challenge, influence, inspire and educate.
In this session we talk about Preparing for your Viva.
Facing your viva, the oral defence of your thesis, can feel like stepping into a gladiatorial arena where your years of hard work are scrutinised by experts. But what if we told you that the viva isn’t just a test of your knowledge, but a performance demanding strategic preparation and psychological resilience? Today in the Salon, we challenge the conventional approach to viva preparation, arguing that success lies not just in knowing your research inside out, but in mastering the art of persuasion, anticipating the unexpected, and turning the interrogation into a compelling narrative of your academic journey. We’re going to get into how you can transform this daunting ordeal into a triumphant showcase of your scholarly prowess.
Speakers
Dr Donald Lyall is a a Senior Lecturer in Population Brain Health. His research aims to understand how genetics, lifestyle and environment influence population brain health. That means dementias like Alzheimer’s Disease, neurodegenerative conditions like motor neuron disease, and aspects of cognitive and brain health – things like memory, reaction time, and how your brain changes with age. Donald is a big believer in open, transparent science, so you can find his Open Science Framework page here, which includes things like preprints, analytic ‘coding’ scripts for past papers, and poster presentations.
Dr Eleanor Conole started at University of Oxford in 2024 as a JRF in Applied AI affiliated with the department of Biochemistry. Previously she worked as a postdoc in the Lothian Birth Cohorts group at the University of Edinburgh researching the neurobiology of age-related cognitive change. Her PhD was funded by the Wellcome Trust and examined how chronic inflammation relates to brain ageing, with a focus on the utility of proteomic and DNA methylation surrogates of inflammation and their association with cognitive and neuroimaging outcomes across the lifecourse (Can you also believe that Donald was one of her Viva examiners – something we only discovered by by coincidence they were paired for the Salon). Prior to her doctoral studies, Eleanor completed a Masters by Research degree in Neuroscience and a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience.
