Spotlight on Dr Rochelle Rowe

What is your role and what does it involve?

I manage the Doctoral Skills Development Programme, which offers personal and professional development to UCL's 5,700 postgraduate researchers. My role includes leading a small team within Organisational Development, shaping and developing our offer in transferable skills courses, e-learning, competitions and internships. 

I also oversee the Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network, which allows research students at Bloomsbury universities to share in a wider offering of training available at each institution. Working with partners across the university, we help students to gain skills in everything from conducting the literature review at the start of the research degree to preparing for the viva at the end of it. We provide training in research methods, communication, impact, enterprise, integrity, wellbeing, career planning and foreign language acquisition. The entire programme is mapped to the national Researcher Development Framework. It's a very broad and well-used offer!

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?

I've been at UCL for around five months. My previous role was at St George's, University of London, and before that I was a researcher developer at the University of Exeter. I researched and taught History at the University of Essex, where I completed my PhD. 

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

My research into Caribbean History, which led me to write a feminist history of beauty and politics in the Caribbean. Conducting this research was a life-changing experience, and in particular I loved bringing to light hidden histories of the lives of people of colour. Best of all was rummaging around the archives and libraries of Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad, and interviewing the fascinating people who kindly agreed to be involved in my research. 

Tell us about a project you are working on now that is top of you to-do list.

Top of my list at the moment is gathering together voices from the postgraduate researcher community, to find out what more research students would like to see from the programme. We will be running focus groups on 20, 22 and 28 February. I'd like to encourage wide participation. Anyone keen to take part should email: gradskills@ucl.ac.uk. 

What is your favourite album, film and novel?

Album: still Songs in the Key of Life by a young, mesmerising Stevie Wonder.

Film: I'm no film connoisseur. I saw a lovely film recently called Queen of Katwe starring Lupita Nyong'o. 

Novel: Americanah by Chimmande Ngozi Adiche. 

What is your favourite joke (pre-watershed)?

Crumbs… I hardly ever remember jokes. My favourite is probably the 'wide-mouthed frog' joke. Googlable. 

Who would be your dream dinner guests?

Claudia Jones, the Trinidadian-born, Harlem-based Marxist intellectual who, after being deported to Britain under McCarthyism, collaborated with other Caribbean artists and writers in London, to found the West Indian Gazette, and first Caribbean Carnival, not far from here in St Pancras Town Hall. Also, her friend Paul Robeson, who would be a magnificent presence; Jamaican poet and writer Una Marson; philosopher Maya Angelou; Shirley Chisolm, the first African American woman to stand for the US Presidency; Bob Marley, who needs no introduction; and the brilliant poet Lemm Sissay.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Keep writing. 

What would it surprise people to know about you?

That I lived in Berlin for two years and speak reasonable German (or at least it would surprise people if I didn't keep telling everybody!). I go back as often as I can. 

What is your favourite place?

The seaside.