Profile

I live in London but I am originally from Slovakia. I have a greyhound called Rex and volunteer for a local greyhound rescue charity. I like going on long walks with my dog and listening to audiobooks.

I did my Bachelors degree in Psychology, Masters in Psychiatric Research and am currently completing a PhD. I host and produce a podcast called PhDeets where I talk to PhD students, their supervisors and other guests about all things relevant to completing a PhD in the UK.

I have previously produced a podcast that gave young people an opportunity to talk to researchers and ask them questions about their topic of research and have trained young people on how to start a podcast themselves.

My all-time favourite fruit is a blood orange and I am a huge fan of roasted chestnuts. I am a good cook but a terrible baker (despite all my efforts).

I am currently researching whether medications used to treat schizophrenia can help reduce the rates of self-harm and suicide in people with psychosis. I am looking at medical records of people who use mental health services to find out what medications they take and then look at whether they attended A&E due to self-harm or whether they, sadly, committed suicide. I can then compare how this differs between people taking different medications to find out whether some medications work better than others. I hope to use my findings to help reduce the rates of self-harm and suicide in people with mental illness.

The database where the medical records are stored contains a large amount of information on thousands of people, and is considered ‘big data’. Because it would be impossible for me to read all the medical records, I use Natural Language Processing (technology that allows computers understand human language) to obtain the information I need.

I am currently working from home. I wake up (or get woken up by my dog sniffing my face) at around 7 o’clock in the morning, get dressed and take the dog for a walk. I then make breakfast for him and for myself, switch on my computer and get ready to start my work.

I spend the day reading academic papers, attending meetings with my supervisors and colleagues, planning the next steps of my project, doing statistical analyses and similar activities. I also attend virtual lectures and workshops, learning new skills in, for example, computer programming. Sometimes, I attend virtual conferences where I present my own research and learn about research done by other people.

After work, I walk my dog again, cook, and then in the evenings I either go for a jog or simply spend time watching Netlix and knitting a blanket (or a scarf – haven’t mastered knitting anything else just yet).