Dr Ellie Crabtree (they/them)IRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Position: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Email: ecrabtre@tcd.ie
I am a languages scholar turned researcher developer. My research as an IRC Postdoctoral Fellow brings together these two areas.
I completed my PhD in Italian Studies at the University of St Andrews in 2020. During this time, my research explored how the contemporary work of transnational writers and artists in Rome disrupts traditional Eurocentric narratives about the city.
Following my PhD, I took on a professional role as a researcher developer with the Doctoral Training Alliance (DTA), one of the largest cross-institutional doctoral training initiatives in the UK. For 2.5 years, I worked as part of the small central team to support the programme to innovate its policies and practices following the pandemic, including transitioning towards hybrid delivery, embedding wellbeing support, and establishing a PGR representation system. In this role, somewhat unexpectedly, I developed a new curiosity to explore in my research: how can institutions better understand and support the complex learning journeys of PhD researchers?
As an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow from 2023-2025, I am developing a project that responds to this question by investigating the learning experiences of PGRs undertaking research transnationally, within the disciplinary field of languages and as so-called ‘international researchers’ who move countries to embark on PhDs.
I am interested in how experiences of moving between linguistic and cultural contexts bring value to research. It is often taken for granted that these experiences hold the potential to re-frame and interrupt assumptions, and make available concepts pertaining to multiple cultural spheres. By working with current and recently graduated PhD researchers, my project aims to develop a deeper understanding of these experiences.
To undertake my IRC project, I am supported by my mentor, Professor of Italian Clodagh Brook, and by researchers in the TCD School of Education.
I also hold a MA Honours in Spanish and Italian (University of Edinburgh, 2014) and a MLitt in Italian Studies (University of St Andrews, 2016). I was Rome Award holder at the British School at Rome in 2018.
As a researcher developer, I have also worked on a consultancy basis with the Doctoral School at the University of Sussex to design a package of training interventions to develop their PGR supervisor training.
Colleagues at TCD and further afield - if you would like to hear more about my project or wider work, please get in touch for a coffee and a catch up.
Selected publications
‘We need more than workshops to support the wellbeing of PhD researchers’, blog, HEPI, November 2020
Co-author with Emma Bond, ‘From Snap to Selfcare: Reading Feminism through Sara Ahmed and Phoebe Boswell’, Frame Literary Journal, 32.3 (2019)