Alumni Profile: Matthew Robson
What is your favourite memory of St Catherine’s? What was the most meaningful thing you learned?
I have a lot of favourite memories from my time at St Catherine’s! The first one that comes to mind was the ‘Secret Friends’ Week’ in first year, where I went down the creepy route by handmaking a personalised storybook about scary bears for my secret friend. Another great memory I have was the Neon Foam Party that took place in the Jull courtyard, but it only occured once because it ruined the lawn. We also won two out of three Inter-College cups in 2014, so we set off a bunch of fireworks to celebrate. A final favourite memory was helping organise and semi hosting the Four Seasons Ball in my first year. Even though it was stressful, the event was so much fun.
Coming to St Catherine’s was a very memorable experience for me. I completed my undergraduate over East and then decided to take a year off. Afterward, I applied to UWA in Perth to start my Ph.D. and was fortunate enough to be able to stay at St Catherine’s. St Catherine’s enabled me to be immersed in an academic and social culture which I missed out on during my undergrad. Personally, this was very meaningful. Some words of wisdom for the current residents: Always get involved and throw yourself in and give everything a go. However, remember not to overload yourself as your studies are just as important.
You are currently completing your Ph.D. in Psychology at UWA. Tell us about your project?
My project is specialising in atypical face perception. Specifically, we are looking at people with congenital prosopagnosia, a condition that affects about 2.5-3% of the population. It is a specific face identity recognition impairment that prevents people from deriving identity cues from the face. This can affect an individual’s functioning throughout their life, as they can have trouble recognising friends and family or even following movies. It is important to note that I am not looking for a cure or treatment. The actual research is quite young, and it has only been reliably diagnosed since 2006. I am looking at other abilities related to face identification that those with prosopagnosia may or may not be able to do. This will tell us whether the impairment is specific to all face aspects or identity.
Tell us about your experience as a Ph.D. student? What advice would you give to our current residents about going into research?
Research is very different from your undergraduate studies. In undergrad, you have prescribed coursework and your professors and tutors have the answers. There is this idea that your Ph.D. supervisors will also have the answers, but this is not the case.
Your supervisors are there to mentor and work collaboratively with you. They don’t know the answers, and that is why you are working on your Ph.D. project. I changed my area of focus from social psychology in honours to neuropsychology for my Ph.D., as I was interested in perception. Most people tend to go into a Ph.D. based on their honours work, so shifting gears made it more difficult to get started.
My advice to current students who are wanting to go into research is to make sure you are statistics trained. I find a lot of undergraduates have inadequate statistics skills and to really engage in a lot of research, you will need to be proficient beyond the basics. This will open a new world of understanding for you. Secondly, I recommend that you should take the opportunity to learn specialised skills because you have a lot of opportunities that won’t be available to you after you finish your Ph.D.. These will help you get a job in the future. Remember a Ph.D. is a marathon, not a sprint. You are going to feel like an imposter and you may think you don’t know what is going on. It is a slow pace and you will see results over the years. Don’t lose sight, you will get there.
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