Leading medical journal boosts PhD student’s research

UniSA’s new Dean of Graduate Studies, Professor Phil Weinstein, certainly knows how to launch a research student on the right path - for the third time, he has just co-authored a paper in the world’s leading medical journal, The Lancet, in which the first author is one of his PhD students.

The paper, titled ‘Childhood pneumonia – a neglected climate-sensitive disease?’, has just been accepted for publication, providing a great boost to PhD student Stuart Paynter.

“The key is to steer the student into uncharted territory, but to do so in a supportive research team so that the bread-and-butter part of the PhD is never at risk,” he said. “These papers invariably have three or more authors, but the student is always first.”

Stuart’s work shows that childhood pneumonia is sensitive to seasonal variation, a fact previously only considered in the context of temperate climates. Childhood pneumonia is responsible for 17 per cent of childhood deaths globally, predominantly in developing countries in the tropics, but the potential impact of climate change on this disease has largely been neglected by the major advisory bodies.

Prof Weinstein started as the new Dean of Graduate Studies in October, and will lead the newly structured Graduate Research Centre from refurbished offices at 27 North Terrace, City West. He is strongly focused on providing a supportive environment to research students at UniSA.

Prof Weinstein says UniSA’s Research Concentrations strategy is the perfect approach to helping research students to start their research careers with a bang.

“These concentrations create fantastically supportive research environments that allow students to thrive,” he said.

“Several supervisors with complementary skills is an ideal formula – they should of course be research-active, and that generally means that the necessary infrastructure is already in place for the student to share.

“It is by working in such environments that students are able to produce early publications in high-ranking journals to kick-start their research careers.”

Prof Weinstein says it can take some time to build a thriving research concentration, and that the ideas and energy of early career researchers and research students is invaluable in doing so.

“On top of that there are of course always new skills to perfect, and an early task of mine will be to work closely with the Research Education Support Activities team to provide both supervisors and research students with training opportunities to develop these skills – from writing collaborative Lancet papers, right down to which form to use when traveling overseas on a research collaboration.”

For more information about undertaking a PhD at UniSA, visit the Graduate Research Centre’s temporary website (currently under revision)