An essential dimension of doctoral study is the involvement and input of supervisors. This blog post discusses the nature and purpose of doctoral supervision, and introduces the supervisors involved in the WAIT-UP SLT project.
What is doctoral supervision?
Guarimata-Salinas et al. (2024) define a doctoral supervisor as:
"the person who accompanies the doctoral candidate throughout the thesis development process, taking an active role and fulfilling the following functions: they oversee and provides general direction to the doctoral candidate’s research process, ensuring that thesis objectives are met and maintaining work quality. They offer guidance and leadership during thesis development, ensuring adherence to guidelines and desired outcomes. Additionally, they provide advice and support in research design and execution, ensuring the doctoral candidate stays on track. They also take a leadership and motivational role, inspiring progress and ensuring efficient resources and time management. Furthermore, they offer expert recommendations to enhance research quality and relevance. They guide and support the doctoral candidate’s academic and professional skills development, showing concern for their well-being and fostering success in research. Moreover, they give specific instructions and guidance on technical and methodological aspects of the research work. They are responsible for supervising and directing the doctoral candidate’s work, making decisions, and providing guidance to achieve research and academic goals. Additionally, they provide professional advice to improve the focus and quality of the thesis. They communicate and share research progress and results with the doctoral candidate and other stakeholders, while ensuring compliance with academic and research standards. Finally, they guide and direct the doctoral candidate throughout the process, assuming responsibility for their actions and protecting them during the learning period."
Who are your supervisors?
I am fortunate to have three doctoral supervisors; Dr Anne Robbins, who has been with me since I started the doctorate in 2022, and Professor Kerry Gaskin and Dr Sereena Raju who have joined the team in 2025. You can read more about each of them below.
Dr Anne Robbins
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to Gill's blog. As already mentioned I have supported Gill since she embarked on her Health Doctorate in 2022, from being her Personal Tutor to Director of Studies. Despite leaving my position at Birmingham City University last year my engagement with Gill’s supervision will continue.
My professional background has been in both public health practice at a local and national level, together with 20 years experience as a public health academic at Birmingham City University. I have experience of conducting a wide range of qualitative public health research projects in practice at a local and international level across a range of health institutions, utilising the strengths of co production. As a researcher I have always been committed to ensuring the participants remain central to the research from inception.
In relation to supporting the research of others, as a university academic I have developed research and dissertation modules for level 7 students, supervising a large number of students level 7 and 8 students studying across various professional health specialisms, for over 18 years.
Drawing on my academic experience and conducting research in practice culminated in my favourite academic role, that of being involved in the development of the Health Doctorate. In devising and delivering a number of the modules on the programme enabled me to be in the privileged position of sharing the journey of a wide range of public health and health professionals as they move from nervous students to novice researcher then onto confident researcher. As they transition from the supportive module phase to the growing independence of thesis stage, the development of confidence in the student is key.
In my belief, as participants are central to the research process, the development of the students’ confidence is central to the supervision process. The result being the growth of professional researchers thoroughly grounded in research and practice.
I am a Registered Children’s Nurse and Adult Nurse, with experience of working in Children’s Cardiac Intensive Care, Paediatric Intensive Care and High Dependency Care at several specialist Children’s Cardiac Units and Children’s Hospitals in the UK before moving into academia in 2005. I have 20 years of senior academic experience, leading departments (Midwifery, Paramedic, Advanced Practice/CPD) and managing academic teams, leading undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD courses, coordinating research and knowledge exchange within the School of nursing and midwifery and empowering academic, clinical staff and students to engage in academic and research professional development. I have supervised many master's student dissertations, and I am currently supervising 7 PhD/Doctoral students.
I am a mixed-methods researcher with a particular focus on congenital heart disease (CHD) and congenital cardiac nursing. My personal research interest relates to the experiences of parents and carers of infants with complex CHD, specifically home assessment using an early warning tool called the Congenital Heart Assessment Tool (CHAT). This was co-developed to enable parents to identify signs of deterioration in their infant and to make prompt contact with the appropriate health care professionals.
I have led numerous pedagogical and clinical research studies and received funding through SPARK The Midlands, NIHR Wessex ARC, NIHR i4iFAST, The Health Foundation and Heart Research UK. I lead the Paediatric and Congenital Cardiac Research network, which is a sub-group of the Congenital Cardiac Nurses Association (CCNA) UK and affiliated to the British Congenital Cardiac Association CHD research group. I am an Associate Editor for Evidence Based Nursing and on the Editorial Board of Journal of Paramedic Practice providing paediatric expertise.
I’m delighted to be supporting Gill through her doctoral study. This is an important project exploring the experiences of waiting within children's speech and language therapy services in England. I hope that together we can support Gill to influence service provision, guidelines and policy, with a positive impact for parents, children and professionals.
Dr Sereena Raju
In my role as a Research Assistant, I support several projects and publications across the department, including those related to patient and practitioner barriers to the management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and the prevention of gestational diabetes in South Asian women. I am also working on a pilot follow-up study of my PhD. All of this aligns with my passion for deep inquiry to understand health behaviours and practice, and inspire change in healthcare and decision-making.
WAIT-UP SLT is a fantastic project that is timely given the recent increase in the number of children and young people waiting for speech and language therapy (SLT). It has the potential to fill an important gap in our understanding of perspectives in SLT. It is a real privilege to be a supervisor on this project!
References
Guarimata-Salinas, G., Carvajal, J.J. & Jiménez López, M.D. Redefining the role of doctoral supervisors: a multicultural examination of labels and functions in contemporary doctoral education. High Educ 88, 1305–1330 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-023-01171-0
About WAIT-UP SLT
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