A career switch that makes a bigger difference
Dr Emily Westwood started her bachelor’s degree in psychology with an aim to become a clinical psychologist, but as she went through her degree, she started asking herself, was this really the career for her?
There were elements of her psychology degree that inspired her, like how our understanding of invisible mental processes was developed over years of clever research design, and how statistics were used as evidence to support new arguments. But when it came to pathologizing psychological disorders, things felt too nuanced for her.
“I really like a cut and dry rule, it works for my research and stats brain to follow the rules, and in psychology there is so much ambiguity. I realised fairly early on that I preferred the academic and problem-solving side of psychology,” Dr Westwood said.
Dr Westwood was determined to help people with her career and knew that she could apply her love for mathematics and statistics to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for Australians.
Dr Westwood got her start in research by reaching out to research groups that had recently been awarded grant funding.
After exploring several opportunities, Dr Westwood met Associate Professor Sally Staton and Professor Karen Thorpe and found a kind and supportive team offering a PhD scholarship.
Dr Westwood did her PhD in sleep and light exposure in 12-month-old infants – a complex scientific and mathematical area of research, involving light exposure, sleep, circadian rhythms, and hormones, specifically melatonin.
When Dr Westwood was asked why she chose that area of research – she said it was the challenge of trying to understand such a complex biological process excited her.
“Some of the most important things our bodies do happen when we’re not aware of them. While we appear unconscious, our brains consolidate memories, clear waste, and repair itself.
“But sleep is just one part of a larger, invisible, daily pattern of functioning. Circadian rhythms are where your body kind of knows what time it is and schedules processes and functions for different times of the day. Immune, digestive, cognitive, and cardiovascular functioning all follow circadian rhythmicity. The circadian clock aligns itself to the outside world via, in part, the amount light our eyes receive at different times of day. Which means, if you experience bright light in the morning or evening, your circadian clock can shift, which has implications on sleep. The complexity and interrelationship between these invisible biological processes are fascinating to me.
“I just wanted to dive into a subject that perplexed me and really interrogate it so I can understand it,” Dr Westwood said.
During her PhD, Dr Westwood won a Fullbright scholarship to join a research team led by Professor Monique La Bourgeois and Dr Lauren Hartstein at the University of Colorado in the United States of America.
“It was very exciting to work with the people who wrote the papers I had been reading and learn about the experimental scientific protocols that formed their research.
“The research team I worked with would go into families’ homes and black out all the windows with tarps and painters’ tape and conduct lighting exposure experiments and cognitive and biological testing over four to five days.
“We would measure all the light in the home and make sure everything was super dark (10 lux), and then we would keep the kids occupied and make sure they followed the protocol by keeping them away from light and then test their salivary melatonin at key times of day.
“It was fascinating to work on the experimental protocols that inspired my own research. The Colorado team used experimental methods and methodological controls to examine the effect of light exposure on melatonin and circadian rhythms. In my work, I was trying to see if we could observe a similar effect when children were just living their everyday lives,” Dr Westwood said.
Dr Westwood plans to continue her research in areas that instinctively feels good but lack the scientific evidence to ensure we can develop minimum standards to ensure they are accessible and available to all communities.
“Intuitively, we know sleep, green spaces and well-designed work environments are good for us. I want to build the evidence to highlight a people first approach in our society to improve health and wellbeing outcomes,” Dr Westwood said.
Dr Westwood now works at the Child Health Research Centre researching children’s early education and care (ECEC) environments with Brain Health and Early Development Research Group.
Have you considered a career in research?
Join us for the First 10K Days Network Student Night, where you can discover the exciting projects you can contribute to through and Honours, Masters’ or PhD programs. You will meet leading researchers, like Dr Westwood, from across the University, including the Child Health Research Centre, Human Movement and Nutritional Sciences, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Poche and many more.
Registrations close tomorrow, register today to avoid missing out.