Lecture Title: Impostor Syndrome and Academic Training in STEM
Speaker Name and affiliation:
Dr. Devasmita Chakraverty AssistantProfessor Ravi J. Matthai Centre for Educational Innovation Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad
Date and Time: March 03, 2020 @ 3:00 pm
Venue: Biological Sciences Auditorium, IISc
Refreshments: 4:00 pm
Abstract:
Impostor phenomenon, popularly known as the impostor syndrome, is an internalized experience of intellectual phoniness. People who feel like impostors are typically bright, motivated and successful, yet have incorrect, unrealistic and self-defeating perceptions about themselves. They think that they are not smart enough and may not have a realistic sense of their competence . These self-perceptions affect how people navigate their career, take professional decisions, and seek advancement opportunities. Academic training in STEM is a time-intensive, complex process. Yet, research examining how those who feel like impostors navigate academic training is not well-documented. This talk will address how individuals in STEM describe their impostor experiences in relation to their doctoral and post-doctoral training. Women and underrepresented minorities, in particular, are more vulnerable to experiencing this phenomenon.
Biosketch: Devasmita Chakraverty is faculty of Higher Education at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Prior to this, she was faculty of science education at Washington State University. She has conducted one of the larger mixed-methods studies on the impostor phenomenon, surveying more than 900 people and interviewing more than 400 of them from various STEM and medical fields in the USA, including PhD students, postdocs, faculty, MD students, residents, and physicians. Dr. Chakraverty earned a Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Virginia, M.P.H. from the University of Washington, and M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Calcutta. She has conducted research in India, USA, and Germany. You can connect with her on Twitter @DevasmitaTweets. Preliminary findings from the impostor phenomenon research can be found here: https://bit.ly/2VpTB5w
