Brain Matter Chatter (BMC)
Welcome to Brain Matter Chatter (BMC), the #AcademicMentalHealth podcast. Our mission is to raise awareness about issues surrounding mental health in Academia. As graduate students, at various stages, studying neuroscience, our hosts bring a unique experiential and scientific perspective to discussions on mental health and illness. To provide a holistic picture of mental health in academia, we aim to bring a diverse set of guests to BMC. Some of our episodes will serve to highlight the experiences of current graduate students. Others will invoke perspectives from our very own faculty advisors, mental health experts, and special guests who will add professional insights to the discussions. Conversations surrounding mental health can be difficult. With this podcast, we hope to make the conversations easier and more accessible. A podcast platform is personal, on-demand, and varies in degree of engagement; listeners can choose when and where they listen, suggest topics that they want to hear discussed, and even appear on episodes as guests. One episode at a time, we hope to begin planting the seeds for change. There isn’t a single, simple solution to the on-going state of mental health in academia. Cultivating a platform for open conversations about #AcademicMentalHealth is the first step.
Brain Matter Chatter (BMC)
Episode 1: Supervisor-Supervisee Relationships with Dr. Melanie-Anne Atkins
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A SONGS Production with Ruby, Olivia, Julia, Niveen & Hayley
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Season 1
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Episode 1
Mentor-mentee relationships are dynamic & often complex, especially when discussing mental health. In this episode, Dr. Melanie Anne Atkins, a mental health advocate and researcher & Acting Associate Director at Graduate Programs at the Center for Teaching & Learning at Western University, takes us through ways to establish expectations and a positive relationship on both ends. Additionally we chat about how to talk about mental health with a mentor/supervisor. Episode 1 highlights the rate of graduate student success and how supervisor-supervisee relationships are a crucial source of support for graduate students.