In this episode, I welcome Jackie Hoermann-Elliott for a conversation about first-generation university students, supporting students throughout their academic journeys, and a pop of pop culture!We talk about how educators can help students feel welcome and supported, and why understanding their lives beyond the classroom matters. Join us for a conversation about education, belonging, and the people who make a difference.

Thank you so much, Jackie - I am so grateful to you!

If you want to read more of Jackie's work, look at the following resources:

• Parenting While PhDing: Surviving and Improving the Working Conditions of Graduate Student Parents, co-edited with Jenna Morton-Aiken - experiences and advice for graduate student parents and those supporting them. rutgersuniversitypress.org
• Running, Thinking, Writing: Embodied Cognition in Composition -explores connections between physical movement, thinking, and writing. parlorpress.com
• First-Year Composition: Writing as Inquiry and Argumentation, with Kathy Quesenbury - a free online textbook covering writing, research, argumentation, and revision, with practical activities for students.

In episode 23, meet Dr. Omnia Ibrahim, a speech scientist and Lecturer in Speech Technology at Alexandria University. Her work explores how people adapt their speech across different social, cognitive, and technological contexts.

Bringing together phonetics, linguistics, and language technology, she studies speech production, acoustic analysis, information theory, and multilingual corpora. Her research has included developing Arabic speech corpora and examining how people adjust the way they speak during both human-human and human-robot interactions.

Teaching is also central to her work. She is passionate about helping students!

Beyond research and teaching, she is committed to academic service, community building, and science communication. She has led international student initiatives within ISCA, organized workshops and doctoral consortiums, reviewed for journals including JASA and Speech Communication, and shared her expertise through media appearances and public outreach.

In this episode of Meet the PhDs, we learn more about her academic journey, her experiences as a researcher and educator, and what Omnia does in her current career!

You can follow her YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/@omniaabdo4171

In this episode of Meet the PhDs, I am joined by Edgar Huitema, PhD, a senior lecturer, postgraduate research leader, and creator of The SuperAdvisor, a platform dedicated to helping doctoral students navigate the often-unspoken challenges of supervision and academic life.

Edgar has spent more than fifteen years supporting PhD students and training supervisors, giving him a unique perspective on what helps research relationships thrive - and what causes them to break down.

We discuss the hidden expectations that shape the PhD experience, common communication pitfalls between students and supervisors, academic agency, feedback, progress, and practical strategies for building a productive and supportive supervisory relationship.

Whether you are considering a PhD, currently working on one, supervising doctoral students, or simply interested in the realities of academic life, this conversation offers valuable advice and honest reflections from someone who works at the heart of doctoral education.

Thank you so much, Edgar!

Links:

• The SuperAdvisor
• Edgar Huitema (University of Dundee)