Postdoctoral scholar Ralitsa Todorova shares her desires and goals for her next stop in academia.
You’ve been a postdoctoral scholar/researcher at the Pullias Center since 2021, working on the Promoting At-Promise Student Success (PASS) Project with Dr. Zoë Corwin. Please share what your experience has been like for you, and how your previous education and experiences informed this position.
My experience of working on the PASS project and with the PASS team has been invaluable, expanding my research, analytic, and collaborative skills. The postdoc position has also allowed me to utilize my psychology Ph.D. and my interdisciplinary background to work on college student well-being as an exciting part of what we hope will be meaningful and impactful findings from the study.
How do you believe that your professional skills and research abilities have evolved since beginning work on the project? Is this what you expected when you first joined the Center?
Through working on this project, I have learned a great deal about coordinating large-scale data collection across multiple sites, determining analysis procedures, and collaborating with expert colleagues in the field. I came into the postdoc position with a strong qualitative background and have been able to continue with qualitative research as part of the PASS project. This position has also allowed me to expand my mixed methods abilities, where I have contributed to a number of mixed methods papers, analyses, and data-sensemaking activities in partnership with quantitative scholars. The expertise I have developed through this project has been extensive, allowing me to be involved in every step of the research process. While I knew the PASS study was vast and would provide me with opportunities to be involved across the project, I was not expecting to have such an ability to contribute with each component.
What aspect(s) of the project have you enjoyed the most? And how will this affect what type of position you’re looking for now?
It has been really exciting to be involved on a number of scholarly papers, exploring topics of student success and development that I am passionate about. I am fortunate that this position has also allowed me to pursue writing that is tied to my background and interests. Perhaps the most invaluable part of my postdoctoral experience has been learning from the openness and engagement of the students we study and through the generous and thoughtful collaboration with my colleagues.
Please describe your dream position in academia:
I am looking forward to stepping into a tenure-track role as my next step in academia. The postdoc position at the Pullias Center has truly allowed me to deepen and strengthen my research abilities, but it has also reminded me that I really love teaching students. Ideally, I would be in an assistant professor role with a fairly equal teaching-research load.
