The Career Sessions Podcast
The Career Sessions podcast aims to get to the crux of careers, from those people who are already in them. This informative, yet friendly and fun discussion asks successful Australians to reflect on their path to their current role, and to report back on the valuable lessons they have learned through work and study and how much of an influence their study has had on their current role.
The Career Sessions is the brainchild of friends and colleagues, Dr Stephanie Champion and Dr Tamara Agnew who first met at Flinders University in Adelaide. The idea was born over lunch, the details were ironed out over the next six months, and the first series of the podcast was published in August 2020.
Dr Tamara Agnew. BA(Hons). PhD
I am the co-founder, producer, and co-host of the Career Sessions podcast. I love research and I am very curious about what is going on in the world around me. This was the inspiration behind the Career Sessions; I want to provide an opportunity for people to learn from the insiders, what it really means to work in various careers. My friends would describe me as strong, friendly, inventive, altruistic, and intelligent. I am a tutor in health science, a mother of two very cool daughters (who would probably describe me as bossy), a wife of a Scottish husband, co-director of Alui Altum Consultancy, advisory board member of the Tisserand Institute, chair of my child’s School Governing Council, and now I can add podcaster to my list of career highlights! By far this is the most exciting idea I have had.
I have a first-class honours degree from Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland, and a PhD from the University of South Australia. After 16 gap years, a variety of jobs, travel, and a child, I undertook my first degree in the discipline of health science in Edinburgh, Scotland. My decision to explore the philosophies of complementary medicine was based on a long-time interest in traditional healthcare approaches. A research career was not on my radar (even though undergraduate research subjects just clicked with me) until I graduated with a first-class honours degree. I moved back to Australia and won a University of South Australia Postgraduate Award (USAPA) to study full time in the PhD program.
Dr Stephanie Champion. BA(Hons). PhD
I am the co-host and co-founder of the Career Sessions podcast. I have a few degrees from the University of Adelaide including Anthropology, Public Health, a first class honours degree in Health Sciences and a PhD where I explored how parenting, work and gender impacted overweight and obesity in children, through the lens of the social determinants. Sir Prof Dr Michael Marmot is one of my heroes, as is Prof John Coveney whom I had the pleasure of interviewing in the first series of Career Sessions.
Not going to University was never an option for me, and I hopped straight from school to university and aside from a short stint bottling wine in the Barossa, I have never really left academia. I have worked in research and as a tutor/lecturer for ten years, and my research experience has extended to coordinating and project managing research in 2/3rds of Adelaide’s public universities. While I am strong in project management, I love public health research and epidemiology; I want to make things better for populations, one community at a time. I am inquisitive and that is why I thought the Career Sessions podcast would be a good idea. Is there a PhD that does not include statistics? I cannot wait to hear about that!