Three ‘double doctors’ share what they gained — and whether it was worth it.
Finishing one PhD programme is challenging enough — but some academics go the extra mile and complete two.Despite pandemic-related university cutbacks and rising inflation in many countries, the PhD pipeline still churns. In 2020, more than 55,000 people received a PhD in the United States, which produces more doctorates than any other country. Roughly 1.1% of the population in the 38 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development obtained a PhD in 2021.
I don’t want anyone to assume that my first PhD in Nigeria was ‘not good enough’. I had incredible mentors who empowered me to find the resources to take my research to the next level. I had planned to return to Nigeria, but China had the supercomputers I needed to run complex weather models — so I, like many scientists, moved to continue making progress in my field. Access to advanced equipment is a problem that will not be resolved without more effort.
I’ve long been fascinated by tropical ecology. After I spent two years as a forest-restoration project coordinator in northern Ethiopia, I applied for a Flemish Interuniversity Council programme in 2003, which offered funding to conduct research in developing partner countries. The money supported my PhD work, conducting international forest-restoration research at Ethiopian sites I knew well.
I decided to earn a second PhD, in environmental epidemiology at Hasselt University in Belgium, so I could ‘speak the language’ of epidemiologists. For example, the statistics used in epidemiology, such as survival statistics, differ from those used in ecology. I found an adviser who was keen to support my research on residential green spaces and human health. I will officially graduate in September 2022.
I’ve noticed that human-health aspects offer a new way to convince policymakers to conserve biodiversity both inside and outside urban habitats. Now that I’m also an epidemiologist, I think my arguments might be stronger.Credit: Joel AckermanNeuroeconomist at the University of California, San Diego.
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