Rosalind is on the Sport and Exercise Sciences Pathway at the University of Birmingham. Her research topic is: “The use of health behaviours (such as diet and physical activity) to counteract the negative effects of stress on our health”. During April and May 2023 she undertook an Overseas Institutional Visit (OIV) to Orygen, University of Melbourne, Australia.

At Orygen, Rosalind had the opportunity to disseminate her own research, analyse patient data and establish research networks. To begin with she was given the opportunity to present an overview of her PhD to her supervisors and members of their mood and anxiety research group. Following on from this she worked with her supervisor analysing the patient data set. This task improved her multi-level modelling skills, and she developed her knowledge of dealing with missing data and EMA data collection, through meetings with her supervisor, a Post-Doc and the PhD student who was responsible for data collection. Through meeting with this PhD student, Rosalind was able to appreciate the challenges of collecting data in a patient population and during the pandemic and understand the different steps necessary when working with a clinical population. She is now working on writing this up as a paper. Rosalind established many research connections. She contributed to a weekly mood and anxiety research group and also attended a weekly seminar series and lunch, which gave her the opportunity to hear about research taking place outside of the mood and anxiety group and meet different people at the Orygen.

Rosalind comments:

“I believe my visit has had a very positive impact on my PhD research. It gave me a different perspective on my research so far and helped me to appreciate the vast differences between collecting data in healthy and clinical populations. The data I analysed provides an interesting comparison to data I have collected in a healthy population during my PhD, which adds depth to my thesis and research. I also hope to publish a paper of the findings from analysing this data. I have no doubt the research connections I have made will have a positive impact on my future career. Furthermore, having attended the University of Birmingham since my Undergraduate degree, my visit gave me some perspective on different research institutions and improved my understanding of research in other populations. I also believe I have improved my ability to work with other researchers, and will continue to work with these researchers, which will have a positive impact on my future career.”