Insights from an Embedded PhD: #5 - Dr Katie McGibbon
My Background
My name is Katie McGibbon and I am a Brit currently living in Brisbane, Australia. In July 2020 I completed my PhD titled ‘Achieving Marginal Gains: Perfecting the Pacing Strategies of Australian Swimmers’ at the University of Canberra. I completed my undergraduate degree in Sport & Exercise Science at the University of Bath in the UK, followed by a Master’s degree in Exercise Physiology at Loughborough University. Prior to moving to Australia to start my PhD early in 2017, I was working full time as a Performance Scientist for Scottish Swimming and then Swim Wales in the UK.
Why a PhD?
I didn’t plan to do a PhD, but I also wasn’t opposed to the idea. When the opportunity arose, I thought why not apply. This was just before the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and at the time I was working in Swansea with Welsh Swimming. I certainly wasn’t looking for new opportunities as I was really enjoying my work there, but it was the first time I saw an applied, embedded PhD advertised in a sport and a topic that I was really passionate about, so it caught my eye. I didn’t hear back on my application for months due to the Olympics being on but long story short, I got offered the PhD. It was a tough decision because I already had a job that I loved, but I considered where I wanted my career to progress to in the future and knew a PhD would help me get there. So, I took a risk and moved my life to the other side of the world, to a city that I had never visited before but to a country I knew I loved (I lived in Tasmania for 10 months while completing a placement at the Tasmanian Institute of Sport and had travelled to Australia for training camps with work). Choosing to leave a full-time job with a stable salary that I had worked so hard for to then go back to studying honestly felt like a step backwards. Looking back now I am so glad that I made this decision, sometimes you need to take a few steps backwards to move forwards.
My PhD setup
The funding for my PhD was a collaboration between the University of Canberra (UC, where I was enrolled as a student) and two industry partners: the Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) – Centre for Sport, Performance, Innovation and Knowledge Excellence (SPIKE) and Swimming Australia. Although the university was in Canberra, I was based in Brisbane where many of Australia’s elite swimmers live and train. The opportunity to complete an applied PhD within a high-performance environment in the QAS, was a major selling point for me. While I wanted to develop my academic and research skills, I didn’t want to lose that connection to the applied world that I had recently come from and ultimately wanted to pursue a career in after the PhD.
I was extremely lucky to have an amazing group of supervisors with a mix of experience in both the research and applied settings. I was supervised by Professor David Pyne, Professor Kevin Thompson, Dr Megan Shephard, and Dr Mark Osborne. Having four PhD supervisors has its’ advantages and disadvantages. Two of my supervisors were based in Canberra and the other two in Brisbane, so it was up to me to manage communication amongst the team and utilise each supervisors’ strengths. While I lived and worked in Brisbane out of the QAS, part of the agreement was that I was required to travel to Canberra to fulfil some of the university requirements as necessary. Outside the PhD, I was employed part-time by the QAS as a Performance Scientist to assist in the delivery of sports science support to Queensland coaches and swimmers. Although PhD was the primary focus, I was keen to use the opportunity to continue to develop my skills as an applied practitioner.
Embracing the challenges
1. LEARNING TO SAY NO
One of the main challenges of an embedded PhD is successfully managing competing demands. It is important to set out clear expectations from the very start in terms of what is expected of the you by the university and by the industry partner being the club or sporting organization. Often lines can get blurred between the two, and it can be tricky for the student to navigate. Excellent time management skills will help here in effectively balancing PhD and applied work. It is too easy to get into the trap of saying yes to everything, as you want to impress colleagues and coaches, and keep everyone happy. I found that early on in PhD this isn’t so much of a problem and you do need to establish yourself in a new environment, but it does set a precedent for your work going forward. If a coach knows you’re always going to say yes to a request no matter what because you are keen and willing to learn and be involved, some may take advantage of this which can get you into trouble later. It’s about knowing when you need to say no. For example, if you have a deadline or testing to prepare for, it’s probably not the best time to volunteer your weekend to help at a competition. It is important to remember what you are here for, but that can be hard to explain to a coach so that’s where your industry supervisor needs to step in and support you.
2. BALANCE & SACRIFICE
Finding the right balance becomes even more important in the final 6-12 months of your PhD when you really must knuckle down and focus on writing your thesis. I was fortunate enough to start working full-time at Swimming Queensland and then at the QAS in the final 9 months before submitting my PhD. This meant I had to complete my thesis outside of working hours, which were abnormal at the best of times. A lot of my thesis was written early in the morning, late at night and on the weekends. Although I wouldn’t recommend working full-time and doing a PhD full-time albeit for a short period of time, I had to make the most of the job opportunities when they came knowing how rarely jobs in high-performance sport come around. I had just finished my final data collection when I started working full-time, so I knew I could do it with some hard work and dedication. I had to choose PhD over having a social life, but the short-term sacrifices were worth it in the long-term. When I look back at that time in my life it is all a bit of a blur, but one thing that is really important is finding some time amongst all the chaos to do something for you, something that you enjoy. For me this was finding time to exercise – a swim, a bike ride, or a run. Prioritising time for this really aids productivity and although I wasn’t training as much as I would normally, finding even 30 minutes in your day for whatever it is you enjoy doing will make all the difference.
3. TARGETTING YOUR AUDIENCE
Another often tricky area to navigate is the balance between meeting academic requirements set out by the university such as submitting annual progress reports, presenting milestone presentations or publishing in academic journals, and also satisfying the needs of the industry partners who are looking for practical outcomes that can be applied in the real world. A big component of this is often related to coach education and the translation and dissemination of scientific knowledge into a format that is relevant to coaches across a variety of performance levels. Giving a coach a copy of your latest publication isn’t going to cut it, so ensuring your key research findings make their way to the coaches is not an easy task. Finding the most effective delivery method is important here and it will depend on your individual situation, but during my PhD I tried to do this in a variety of formats. Sometimes a face to face workshop or presentation is best, although it can be hard to get all the coaches in the same room at the same time – perhaps COVID-19 and the rise of Zoom webinars will help future embedded PhD students reach a large number of stakeholders with ease (luckily I submitted my PhD just before the pandemic really took hold in Australia). Whichever method you choose, the key is to ensure coaches, athletes and any other stakeholders receive timely feedback from any research they participate in. This can negatively impact your credibility and participant recruitment for future research. After all, would you volunteer your time if you knew you weren’t going to get a summary of your results or if it took 6 months to get them last time? This often gets lost amongst other priorities like finishing that chapter or publishing that paper, but this feedback should take immediate priority. After data collection for one of my later studies, I created a report for each coach with a summary of results for their swimmers and took the time to discuss these with the coach face to face where possible. The beauty about this is that you don’t need to complete your full statistical analysis before you can provide some results to the coaches. Consider what information the coaches want to know, they don’t need the p values or confidence intervals, most of the time they just want some descriptive summary data that can potentially help them now, not in 6-12 months’ time when the paper is finished.
4. PERSISTENCE
Coming into a new organisation not only as an embedded PhD student, but also from overseas came with its own set of challenges. While many of my colleagues at the QAS were aware of my background working full-time within the British high-performance system, many of the coaches were not. It was often assumed that I had come straight out of university with very little to no experience working in an applied setting. As a result, I found it difficult initially to establish myself as a practitioner in my own right and I felt that my 3 years’ experience working full-time as a Performance Scientist in the UK counted for nothing because they’d never heard of me. It took time to build relationships with coaches and athletes, to gain their trust and respect as a professional rather than being seen only as a student. By the time I was looking for participants for some of my later studies, several coaches were interested and intrigued in my research which ultimately made participant recruitment much easier. I need to say a huge thank you to all the coaches and athletes who participated in my research – I am so grateful for your openness and willingness to share your experiences, insights, effort and time for the advancement of science in swimming. It’s important to say here that some coaches or athletes might not be interested in your research initially and that’s ok, it’s not personal. They may ask you ‘how is this going to make me swim faster?’ and sometimes the answer is I don’t know. However, if you are persistent in your pursuit of finding the answers, don’t be surprised when more coaches and athletes start taking notice of your research as it gains momentum.
Tips for success
Have a clear plan for your PhD – this will take several months to develop but take the time to formulate a plan but also bear in mind this will inevitably change and be open to these changes - embrace them when the time is right but challenge them when it’s not.
Surround yourself with good people – you can’t do this alone so having a great supervisory team as well as supportive family and friends will help guide you through and keep you sane when things get tough.
Connect with other embedded PhD students who are in a similar situation to you – having someone to talk to who understands what you are going through can go a long way. If you don’t know of anyone in this position, find them – Twitter is a great networking tool.
Stay focused on the task at hand – try to focus on one study at a time where possible. Taking on too much all at once can be very overwhelming. Set yourself short-term goals and celebrate the little wins and milestones (these are just as important as the big ones!). Don’t focus too much on the big end goal of a completed thesis – just slowly chip away at it day by day and you’ll be surprised how much progress you can make.
Get better at saying no – you can’t say yes to everything all the time. It’s great to say yes and get involved but learn how and when to say no when other things are more important. People won’t judge you, sometimes PhD needs to be prioritised and they will respect you for that.
Take opportunities when they arise – don’t be afraid to take risks, sometimes these can lead to great things. It can be scary but also extremely rewarding.
Find yourself a good mentor – someone who can help guide and support you in research, work, and life.
Post PhD Life
I am currently working full-time as a Performance Scientist at the QAS providing physiology support to high-performance coaches and swimmers in Queensland. This is the same role that I started in towards the end of my PhD and in this role, I am still actively involved in applied swimming research. Throughout my PhD I established several international research collaborations which I hope to continue to develop. My goal with future research is to help answer the performance questions that coaches need answering to help inform their decision making and further enhance athletic performance.
List of publications during the course of the PhD:
Mallett, A., Bellinger, P., Derave, W., McGibbon, K.E, Lievens, E., Kennedy, B., Rice, H., Minahan, C. (2021). The Influence of Muscle Fiber Typology on the Pacing Strategy of 200-m Freestyle Swimmers. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance (Ahead of Print). https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2020-0725
McGibbon, K.E, Pyne, D.B., Heidenreich, L.E., Pla, R. (2020). A Novel Method to Characterize the Pacing Profile of Elite Male 1500-m Freestyle Swimmers. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance (Ahead of Print). https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2020-0375
McGibbon, K.E., Pyne, D.B., Shephard, M.E., Osborne, M.A., Thompson, K.E. (2020). Contemporary practices of high-performance swimming coaches on pacing skill development and competition preparation. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 0(0), 1-11. DOI: 10.1177/1747954120926643
McGibbon, K.E., Shephard, M.E., Osborne, M.A., Thompson, K.G., Pyne, D.B. (2020). Pacing and Performance in Swimming: Differences Between Individual and Relay Events. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 15, 1059-1066. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2019-0381
McGibbon, K.E., Pyne, D.B., Shephard, M.E., Thompson, K.G. (2018). Pacing in Swimming: A Systematic Review. Sports Medicine, 48, 1621-1633. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-0901-9
Wu PP-Y, Babaei T, O’Shea M, Mengersen K, Drovandi C, McGibbon KE, Pyne DB, Mitchell LJG, Osborne MA. (2021) Predicting performance in 4 x 200-m freestyle swimming relay events. PLoS ONE 16(7): e0254538. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254538
Podcast Episode:
Smart Athlete Podcast - https://solpri.com/katie-mcgibbon-swim-faster-with-science-smart-athlete-podcast-ep-64/
How to contact me
Twitter: @katiemcgibbon https://twitter.com/katiemcgibbon
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katie-Mcgibbon
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-mcgibbon-77696059/
If you liked this blog post - or at least learnt something - and would like to collaborate, please drop me an email using the contact form. I’m trying to collect as many interviews as I can!
