The Academic Life with Jessica Korte

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 0:12

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Router. Today I'm joined by Dr Jessica Korte to talk about life the life of an academic at our very own UQ. First of all, could you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Dr Jessica Korte: 0:27

Hi, Olivia, thanks for the introduction. Um, I am a, uh, TAS DCRC fellow at UQ. Um, the reason for a title like this is because my salary is currently being paid by a particular grant. Um, the one that I'm on is an Advance Queensland trusted autonomous systems, defense cooperative research center fellowship. Um, so obviously we shorten that to TAS DCRC. Uh, my background involves doing a lot of research with, and for the deaf community and my current research involves looking at, um, how to do sign language technologies.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 1:11

Awesome. Very cool. Um, so around kind of your current research, what's something that you've worked on that you were really, really excited about. Um, one of your more preferred projects.

Dr Jessica Korte: 1:26

Okay. So the new projects fairly new, so we're really just getting the ball rolling. Um, but I can tell you a bit more detail about my previous work, which is much more in the design space. Uh, so my PhD work involved figuring out how can you do participatory or co-design with young deaf children. So I had a design team of four deaf children who were all under the age of six, um, as well as some teachers and teacher's aides from their school and some of their parents and did a lot of work with them to identify how can I elicit the things that they're interested in, the things that are going to motivate them, um, and the important things that are going to inform the design of any technology for them.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 2:18

What did you end up finding was the main motivating factors for actually engaging them?

Dr Jessica Korte: 2:24

So the kids I was working with were really motivated by, you know, all the same things hearing kids are, they loved balloons and bubbles and modelling clay. Um, but I perhaps more importantly found that the big thing when you're working with deaf kids that young, as opposed to hearing kids that young is the approaches to communication. So obviously I couldn't say to them we're making a technology to help you learn sign language, and I couldn't sign it to them because their signing level wasn't up to such abstract communication, but I could do a lot of communication through demonstration. So I did an awful lot of, um, developing like what I call implicit tasks. So when I wanted to explore different characters, I would come in with like mask shapes and the kids took one, look at it and went, yay, we're decorating masks. Or I do lots of demonstrations, um, like using plastic spoons and drawing faces on them and showing the kids how you could use pipe cleaners, turn them into, you know, little dolls with ums and legs and something resembling clothing. Um, but also the fact that the children were really motivated to communicate to me, they were much better at, uh, making sure that they had my attention before they communicated. And I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that they're growing up in deaf culture, which obviously is a much more visual communication style. So they have norms that I, as a hearing person, had to adapt myself to that these five-year-old kids were already spectacular at.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 4:12

Hmm. Very cool. Um, how did you get, um, interested in this area of research?

Dr Jessica Korte: 4:18

So I knew when I was finishing my undergrad that I wanted to do honors, but I didn't really know what topic I wanted to do. Um, I'd spent a bit of time making some, you know, trying out some different approaches. Um, at one point I thought I might want to go into robotics. So computer vision, um, but the academic who ended up being my PhD supervisor approached me to say that she had a project idea put forward by her PhD supervisor. Um, so, uh, that's Dr Leigh Ellen Potter and Dr Sue Nielson back over at Griffith. Um, and Sue's grandson was born deaf and he had a cochlear implant from a very young age, but unfortunately the one he got was very buggy. So this meant that from the moment he could pull it off, he would pull it off and throw it across rooms because what they found out later was it was making horrible screeching sounds, so understandably he didn't like wearing it very much. Yeah. So Sue was, uh, basically going well, if he's not wanting to participate in oral learning, we're going to have to focus on sign language, but there's not much out there in terms of technologies to help kids learn Auslan, which is Australian sign language. So she wanted to sponsor an honors project around this. Um, and this started me down my path because I realized that there was actually no good approaches out there to figuring out how do we design good technology with and for these children.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 6:07

Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. Especially around Auslan and I imagine, is even more niche, um, in that case.

Dr Jessica Korte: 6:18

Yeah well, I mean, every country just about has its own sign language. Some countries have multiple. Um, and yes, there's definitely more discussion in the general literature around American sign language and some of the European sign languages. Um, I suspect it's partly because in America you've got such a very strong advocacy culture in their politics. Um, so you get things like deaf advocacy groups, um, and in Europe, some of the EU laws actually enshrined the rights of deaf people to have access to things like education in their first language, which happens to be a sign language.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 7:00

Yeah. That makes sense. Um, so how did you find your, when you were doing your PhD, how did you find the whole PhD process, um, given that you were originally just looking at doing honors?

Dr Jessica Korte: 7:15

So, um, I had a vague sort of idea when I went into the honors that I might like to do PhD as well. I know not everyone does. Um, I've certainly worked as a student myself and now that I'm a supervisor worked with students who want to have a research experience, um, but I'm not sure they want to keep going. Um, to me, the PhD experience was very interesting. I found that it was important to me that I was working on a topic that really mattered to me. Um, I really enjoyed working with the deaf kids, working with the deaf community and feeling like the research I was doing actually had a purpose and ideally was going to help somebody. Um, I had the advantage as well of doing participatory design work with kids. There was already a fair bit of literature that suggested that children gained from involvement in participatory design. Um, I was able to do a bit more research on that, but found that early on, there's actually a fair bit of nervousness, anxiety, in some cases fear from the kids, especially if they're not fully clued into what's going on. Um, but longer term, I did get to see the development of the children's skills and abilities and confidence. Um, so to me, I can see that even if no one ever looks at my thesis, again, the four kids I worked with had some positive experiences. Um, and the sort of motivation for me was really important because you're spending three to four years on a full time PhD, longer on a part time PhD. Uh, it's super important that you're picking something that you're going to be not necessarily fully passionate about because it can be hard to keep up a passion based drive for three to four years. Um, but having something that matters, something that is going to motivate you to see it through to the end.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 9:35

Yeah. I feel like I've definitely had like similar things from friends that I have who are currently doing their PhDs. Um, in terms of finding a topic it's very much about finding something that you can do can sustain for that period of time, because it is quite a long, like the three to four years is quite a decent amount of time on one topic. Um, it is for, for people who are, I guess, on that point where they might be think like about to do that honors or, um, their like during their honors and then not sure if they want to do a PhD or not. Um, do you have any maybe advice for like the, the decision process and when you think it might be the right thing to do?

Dr Jessica Korte: 10:22

Yes. So, uh, the important thing is to make sure you've had some sort of research experience. Usually this is going to be either a honors or a masters with a research component. Um, because the important thing is to start by figuring out, do you actually like doing research? Um, I've certainly got friends who got through whole PhDs and figured out they don't actually like doing research, which is a little bit awkward.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 10:49

Yeah.

Dr Jessica Korte: 10:50

U m, one particular friend found that he absolutely loved the teaching aspect of the academic lifestyle, but really didn't actually enjoy the research. Didn't enjoy the pressure to publish. U m, and so he is now a high school teacher and loves his job. So yes, y es. S o i t's having that, u h, research experience gives you a bit of an idea about whether or not this is something you like now, obviously a n honors or masters by research is not the same as a PhD. U h, c ause it's only going to be one year up to two years I think if you're doing it part time, u m, but it gives you that taste of it. And so having that experience figuring out is this something you enjoy, or not, early on is probably going to be helpful. U m, there's also just on purely economic terms, u m, to consider whether or not you've got the financial support to do a PhD and/or the ability to get some sort of scholarship to see you through. U m, in Australia, if you are an A ussie citizen, I believe i t's citizen, not resident. U m, you don't have to pay fees for doing PhD research, u m, because it will be covered by a government scheme. At least I believe this is still the case. It was certainly the case when I went through. U m, but I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to give me a bit of a living allowance while I did my PhD. U m, because this is one of the things where in choosing to do a PhD, you will not be earning the same amount of money as someone who goes out into industry. U m, and if you cannot afford to do the PhD, you will run into trouble. And I've had friends who did not finish their P hDs for financial reasons, or did not finish their PhDs because they got jobs and put more time and energy into the job than t hey did into the PhD and fell behind in that research.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 13:06

Um, around like scholarships and, um, like the, the, cause it's also like grants, right? For PhDs how, how, I guess, how do you go about getting one? And they often feel like specific topics and that kind of stuff. Can that kind of limit your research as a result?

Dr Jessica Korte: 13:31

Yep, so there's a couple of different sources. Um, the most general ones, uh, the ones provided by the government, um, they've changed the names of everything and, and like tweaked all the scheme slightly. So I, since I went through, um, but the Commonwealth government does offer PhD scholarships, which usually have to be applied for through a university. Um, and so UQ, for example, runs several scholarship rounds for domestic and international students, um, which allow you to apply for various scholarships. Um, the Australian government one provides what's called a stipend or living stipend. Um, there are also some companies that will offer PhD scholarships based on like them having a project, usually in some sort of collaboration with an academic. Uh, and you also get individual academics who have grants that have PhD scholarships attached. So in the case of an academic or a company, you will be limited to what sort of topic you're interested in based on trying to align with the company or academics goals. Um, but usually within that, there's a little bit of scope. So I, for example, don't have funding for a PhD scholarship, but I'm looking to recruit PhD students who want to work in the field of deafness, Auslan, and at the moment, particularly anything around Auslan sign language technologies, so anything to do with sign language recognition, sign language processing, sign language production, and some of the natural language processing that's out there.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 15:26

Alright?, yeah that clarifies a bit, I think.

Dr Jessica Korte: 15:30

Glad to help.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 15:38

So what about like any challenges? I know you that like going through a PhD can famously be very difficult. What do you think were the main challenges at least that you found?

Dr Jessica Korte: 15:52

Yep, so obviously we've talked a bit about motivation and how not having motivation makes doing a PhD really hard. Um, other problems that you can have is that a PhD can be really lonely, um, because you are focusing on something that is very important to you, quite important to your supervisor, but not so important to just about anyone else in the world. Um, so in some ways it can be quite lonely because you are working by yourself on a particular topic. Um, so my, I personally had a really positive experience because I came through in a cohort with other PhD students and honors students who were supervised by either my PhD supervisors or, um, their colleagues and friends. And so we had a regular meeting group, um, which allowed us to, even though we were looking at very different topics. So, you know, I was looking at design with deaf kids. We have someone who was looking at E-government in the Saudi Arabian context. We had people looking at virtual reality and people looking at augmented reality, but even though we had these diverse topics, we were all going through the PhD journey together, um, or at similar stages. Um, so this meant that we could sort of commiserate, we could share our woes and our successes with other people who would understand. Um, and so I felt like that's a really useful thing for me and helped me to get through, um, that I was working with other people that I could still have conversations with about the PhD stuff. And they would understand, um, like obviously, you know, my family loved me, but if I started complaining about, Oh, how hard it is to recruit participants, they would say, Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, Jess. And clearly didn't actually understand why it was so frustrating.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 18:08

Yeah.

Dr Jessica Korte: 18:09

Yeah. Um, I do know that most universities, if you are doing PhDs with them, we'll provide usually a shared office for PhD students. Um, this has some pros and cons. I found that I really struggled to work in the shared environment, but the flip side was when I was in the shared environment there were also other people around. So that was also an opportunity to make some connections, get to know other people who again, are going through a similar life stage and a similar phase of the PhD journey.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 18:46

Okay. So I guess like about the PhD journey, how, how does it compare to like undergraduate studies?

Dr Jessica Korte: 18:56

Uh, it's very different. Um, so obviously undergrad studies, your courses are going to be relatively short, you know, a semester is three months or so slightly more. Once you count an exam block. So maybe four months, um, maybe if you're doing a two semester subject add in a bit of break time, you're looking at nine months, 12 months. If you're doing something over summer, it's a very different time commitment. Um, and it's a very different amount of focus because if you're doing a full time undergraduate load, your probably doing four subjects, they're probably four relatively diverse subjects. Um, as you try out, you know, early years, different aspects of the degree, um, and in later years you might've narrowed down a bit, but I know I certainly always had relatively diverse course loads in any given semester. Um, usually, you know, a bit of programming, maybe a bit of databases, um, bit of networking stuff, you know, the usual thing, um, versus again, PhD very much focused on just the one topic. Um, you don't have courses. So a lot of PhD students, if they're not teaching will tend to feel kind of divorced from the academic calendar. Um, it's fairly common to hear from a PhD student talking to an undergrad or post grad student doing coursework:"Oh, what week of the semester is it again?""Have we hit exam block already?" I feel like you only just started and things like that, um, because you don't have those milestones the same way undergrad does. Uh, it's also of course, a lot more self directed. Um, you personally are doing your own research. Your supervisor will help you to say on topic, uh, you know, keep an eye on you. You know, you should be reading literature at the moment. You should stop reading literature and go collect some data. You need to stop collecting data and do some analysis, things like that. Um, but it is very much you personally going through a journey.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 21:22

What do you feel is, is next for you? Is probably, probably the last thing that I'm interested in. What are the next steps in, um, your like your research journey?

Dr Jessica Korte: 21:57

Okay. So I'm actually gonna go back to the end of my PhD to sort of fill in the picture so far of how I got to where I am now. And then talk a little bit about what's next. Um, cause I think that'll help to give context. Yeah. So, um, I finished my PhD back in 2017 and my first job out was a teaching-focussed position. Um, so this meant that I did a lot of very intense teaching for just under a year. Um, and then, uh, I found that during this period, it was quite difficult to get research done, um, or to get novel research done, but I was able to focus a little bit more on trying to publish things from my PhD. Um, I, now that teaching focus position was only a one year contract. So towards the end of it, I was applying for jobs. Um, I ended up getting a postdoc position here at UQ, um, which I was doing for the last two years. I got a three year contract. Um, but at this two year point I was able to get the TAS DCRC fellowship. Um, so what this means is the source of the funding for my position changed. Um, and with it came a change in the focus of my research because TAS DCRC was not particularly interested in designing with young deaf children, but they were very interested in sign language recognition and gesture recognition and the sorts of language technologies that I'm, uh, trying to develop now. So that brings me to now I'm relatively early in what should be a three year fellowship working with TAS DCRC, um, and also DST group, which is my industry partner. Uh, what I'm trying to do now is across three years, come up with the Auslan communication technologies pipeline. So my idea for this is a module-based Auslan in Auslan out communication system. So I'm spending a bit of time looking at how can we process and recognise Auslan, sign, video, and live stream as an input? How can we process, um, what is signed and generate a response? And then how can we produce human-like virtual sign, whether that's via an avatar or something like a generative adversarial networks. Um, so that I'm essentially describing it as creating Siri for sign language, uh, because one of the problems that we do see in technology for deaf people is it's often created by hearing people who don't know much about sign language. So you get a lot of, you know, gloves that will recognise letter signs. The idea being that a deaf person can finger spell and it will translate. But the problem is that's not the whole picture with sign language, sign language is a full expressive and multimodal language. Um, and a lot of deaf people will look at these finger spelling, gloves and go, you know, I can write, I don't need a glove. I can just write things down and that's probably going to be quicker and easier for everyone involved. Um, so my hope is to come from an Auslan first perspective, looking at what makes us unique, how do we differentiate signs from a linguistics perspective, um, and to kind of work with the deaf community to embed that into the technology from the start.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 26:11

Yeah. I guess it's like a culmination of like the, the, the learning, I guess, that you saw or the beneficial ways of communicating that you saw in like previous research and then actually applying that to make something pretty cool.

Dr Jessica Korte: 26:28

Yeah. And I think, yeah, I think it's important to me that even though I'm not technically working in participatory design in this project, I'm still wanting to ensure that I've got that user-centred design and still have user participation because I will be working with deaf people and interpreters to make sure that their language and the way they use it and what they actually want technology for is going to be embedded in the technology that we produce.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 27:05

Awesome. I think, yeah. I think definitely having the, the interaction with like all of the different, um, like actual people involved in the deaf community is really key to that success. For sure.

Dr Jessica Korte: 27:21

Yeah. Absolutely.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 27:24

Is there anything else you like to talk about before we wrap up?

Dr Jessica Korte: 27:31

Uh, nothing really comes to mind. Um, I guess I could talk a little bit about, um, as an academic, there are sort of three aspects to the role of being an academic. That could be interesting.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 27:47

Oh yeah. Like the like teaching, service and research. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. That would be great to talk about. Um, I've learned a little bit about it, but yeah. I don't know much about the actual workings.

Dr Jessica Korte: 28:04

Yeah. Okay. So, um, as a researcher, you tend to get, uh, sorry, as an academic rather, you tend to get put into one of a few categories, um, which can roughly be summarised as teaching-focused, research-focused, or what's called balanced. Now a research-focused academic obviously is doing mostly research and that's the role that I'm in currently. A teaching-focussed Academic is doing mostly teaching, but a teaching-focused academic is also expected to do either some research or more often now what's called scholarship of teaching and learning, which basically means doing research about how to teach better in whatever field they happen to be teaching in. Um, a balanced academic is someone who's got a teaching component and a research component, and all three of these roles are expected to have a service component, which basically means doing things for the university, doing things for the field of research, or the industry that they are connected to, um, and, or doing things for the community in general or specific communities that they're working with. Um, I personally have at, at this point worked in all three roles, teaching-focused, balanced, and research-focused. Um, and I find each of them has pros and cons. If you are looking for a teaching focus position, obviously you need to be really keen and passionate about teaching because that is going to be the majority of your job. Um, if you are in a research focus position, then you obviously need to be really keen about research. And again, it's important that you're picking topics that matter to you and are going to help you stay motivated. Um, the balance position I find is really interesting because balancing teaching and research, which have really different priorities and really different workflows and timelines is something that I know a lot of academics do struggle with. Um, teaching is for me, at least something that's really easy to get caught up in short term, because if you're teaching undergraduates, you are working in that three to four months for the whole course. Um, there's always a lot of email communication. If you're lecturing or convening a course, there's always material that needs updating. Um, there's always, you know, Oh, we could tweak that assignment that we did last year because the wording wasn't quite clear or we didn't actually see the outcomes that we wanted to see from the students. Um, if we reword it, if we changed the criteria sheet, if we change the task in this way, we might actually be able to get the students practicing the skills that we actually want to see. Um, so I find teaching is very intense, very much while I'm teaching. I find it difficult to give the right amount of focus to my research. Um, because when you're teaching, you want to make sure that you're doing the best you can by your students. Um, you want to make sure that they're having a good experience that they're learning and they're going to learn in a way that allows them to retain that knowledge long term. Um, whereas research tends to be a lot more long-term, um, research doesn't have milestones. Like I've got to have the assignment out by week three, so the students can work on it and have it do in week five or week six. Um, you've got much more nebulous timeframes around, uh, okay, well, I need to figure out what's the research question. What's the, um, approach that I'm going to take to try to answer this research question? How do I make sure I am doing ethical research and getting that approved by the relevant ethics committee? How do I recruit participants in a way that is ethical and also going to result in a good, well, depending on what sort of research you're doing, either a good spread of participants so that you're not getting sample bias or getting participants who are particularly relevant to research or the type of research that you're doing. Um, how do I analyze this data? How do I pull out the really important messages and key findings? How do I write this up in a way that say is going to appeal to other academics? How do I get this published in the best possible journal or conference at exactly the right time? Um, so even though research has a lot of decision points, um, it's got a lot less deadlines and I know I tend to be deadline motivated. So I do a lot of setting deadlines for myself. Um, I do a lot of like collaborative things. Uh, the discipline group that I'm in, we do something called shut up and write, which basically used to be in person, but now has moved to Zoom, um, means that everybody's online at the same time. We'll have our cameras on and now microphones off and we'll all be writing our own research things, but having other people working at the same time really helps to promote that accountability. And it, for me helps motivate. Cause I know I'm sort of not alone in doing this. It makes it much more difficult to get distracted by my emails, which I can do if I'm just sitting there writing by myself because I know I've got an agreement with other people to get this writing done. Uh, so yes, I would say as an academic, one of the biggest challenges is trying to find that right balance between research and teaching. If you're in a balanced position, um, finding the time for service activities, I find to be less difficult. Um, usually because of the type of service activities I'm doing will be things like reviewing papers for conferences and journals. I'm on, uh, the EAIT low and negligible risk ethics committee. So it will involve reviewing other people's research proposals. And these are things that I find really fascinating because it means I get to see what are other people doing? What is the new and upcoming research? Um, so I'm getting to engage in ways that I find quite stimulating. So from that perspective, I don't find the service activities to be a chore as such in the same way that I sometimes find either teaching or research, not necessarily a chore, but something difficult to prioritize timewise depending on what situation I'm in, in relation to semesters and teaching. Does that make sense?

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 35:25

Yeah. And I feel like the, depending on like, um, the universities and like the, the courses, obviously that they give you, if you are balanced, um, academic, like even taking just the one course, I feel like can be so much work that it almost doesn't really give you much time. I'd imagine for research as well.

Dr Jessica Korte: 35:49

Oh, definitely. Especially if, if you've got a really big cohort of students, um, because obviously like in any given, running, for course, a certain percentage of students are going to run into problems, whether those are technical problems or academic problems. Um, and as the lecturer or the convener, sorry, if you call some coordinators, um, as the lecturer or the coordinator of a course, um, the buck stops with you. So that means any time a student is having trouble, they'll come to you. And I do find that's hard because on the one hand I want to be approachable and I want to support students. But the thing is, if you've got, you know, 10% of students having trouble, that's a huge amount of difference between say a third or fourth year course where you might have 30 to 50 students and a first year course where you might have 300 to 500 students that 10% really scales up.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 36:50

Yeah. Yeah. Do you get to, do you get to choose your focus or does it more like come with the job that you apply for at the university?

Dr Jessica Korte: 37:02

It's depends. Um, so you can definitely get situations where you apply to a position that the university is advertising that is focused on a particular area. So you might see universities will advertise something like lecturer in computer science or lecturer in software engineering. In that case, your teaching component is probably going to be focused on software engineering or computer science. Um, your research is expected to be in an area of related to that as well. Most of the time I have particularly enjoyed that at UQ. Um, at least in the School of IT and Electrical Engineering, um, they do ask you to nominate what courses would you like to do and what courses are you able to do? And from what I can see, try their best to fit people with courses that they're actually going to enjoy teaching.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 38:02

Hmm. That, that, that is pretty good. Um, yeah, this has been a very interesting, um, episode. I think you're a fantastic speaker. So thank you so much for joining us. Um, but yeah. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join me on this one.

Dr Jessica Korte: 38:25

No problem. I do hope your listeners find it, you know, interesting and informative.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 38:30

Yeah, for sure. Especially, um, I feel in computer science, a lot of people are looking more to do PhDs and move into more exciting research if they want to work at the, like the cutting edge of technology.

Dr Jessica Korte: 38:45

Yeah. Well, I, I know I personally love the fact that being a researcher, I get to explore new things and no one else has ever done before. And to me that's just thrilling.

Olivia Mackenzie-Ross: 38:55

Yeah, for sure. Awesome. All right. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

Dr Jessica Korte: 39:03

Yes, you too. Thanks for having me.