This week’s guest, Dr. Michael Nevradakis shares a Stony Brook connection with Andrew and Adam. Dr. Nevradakis is also a former podcaster, and so it’s no surprise that their interview quickly finds a rhythm to talk about some of the real vulnerabilities faced by graduate students and early career academics… especially when it comes to their relationships with those who are more established in their careers.
Dr. Nevradakis’ interview acts as a sort of “Professor Is In” case study. He opens up about what to do when your academic advisor falls off the map, and how to figure out a fulfilling academic pathway when the odds are stacked against you. He gets into the dreaded sense of imposter syndrome and paranoia that PhD students are faced with and how to work through this.
When you hear someone tell stories like this, you often look for the common denominator and discover that the storyteller is that common denominator… and you wonder what it is about them that seems to invite the terrible things in. You’ll find that isn’t the case with Dr. Nevradakis. As you listen to Adam and Andrew talk with Dr Nevradakis though, you’ll hear more about the lack of accountability that can exist in academic environments, the precarity of being an outsider, the challenges of existing in that graduate-students grey area, lacking the backing and support that faculty are often accorded while still taking on many of the same tasks that faculty are doing. And you’ll hear what happens when decorum or collegiality seem to be forgotten.