In 2025, we introduced a new CPD workshop series aimed at helping our Early Career members and other Early Career researchers in the sector with their development and career. The series was designed to help ‘Unearth Your Potential’ and identify areas that early career scientists can work on to help them progress further in their career. The topics of the three workshops were around ‘Building a Brand’, ‘Communicating a Brand’ and also tackling the PhD viva process.
Building Your Own Brand
In the first session of our ‘Unearth your Potential’ CPD webinar series, Diana Chrouch OBE discussed how to Build Your Own Brand as a science professional.
Learn how to stand out, get noticed and become the ‘go-to’ science professional for that dream opportunity. This workshop is designed to help you to learn the key skills that you need to enhance your personal brand; if you need to nail your next career move or generate lucrative customers and referrals for your business, this session is for you. Understand how to maximise your reputation, sharpen your image, and network like a pro, both face-to-face and within the digital sphere.
Diana Chrouch OBE is an award-winning Diversity and Inclusion Specialist. She chairs the Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the Worshipful Company of Constructors in the City of London and was instrumental in hosting a summit at the House of Lords in 2018 on women’s underrepresentation in leadership roles within the construction sector. A special advisor to the All Party Parliamentary Group for BAME Business Owners, Diana is a Lead on the UK Economic Blueprint for women business owners.
Communicating Your Brand
In our second workshop of our ‘Unearth your Potential’ CPD series, Dan Lambeth discussed how to Communicate Your Brand as a science professional.
Dan Lambeth is a member of the BSSS Board and is a Senior Leader in policy, public affairs and communications. His career spans public and private sectors, including leadership roles at global institutions and advisory work on complex, high-impact issues such as sustainable finance, digital innovation, and geopolitical risk. He has over 20 years’ experience in government and the financial services industry, most recently at J.P. Morgan, where he led the firm’s sustainability agenda in Europe, advising and reporting on the management of sustainability risk across all asset classes and sectors.
How to thrive in the viva
In our final workshop of 2025, we welcomed Prof. Bob Rastall from the University of Reading as he discussed how to thrive in the viva.
The session aimed to demystify the PhD viva, why do we have one? What are the examiners looking for? How do you demonstrate the skills needed to qualify for a PhD? It drew on extensive experience of examining students to look at the type of questions that are frequently asked and consider ways to answer them. We will consider some of the potential pitfalls and discuss specific case studies to learn from past experiences.
Bob Rastall is Professor of Food Biotechnology in the department of Food and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Reading. He has taught food chemistry and biochemistry there for 32 years and has supervised 48 PhD students. He regularly contributes training courses to the university’s Doctoral and Researcher College and to the FoodBioSystems DTP. He has extensive experience of examining PhD students both as internal and external examiner. He is also the Senior Tutor in the department and is committed to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of both undergraduate and postgraduate students.
