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Harriet Greene - The PhD Comfort Zone
Episode 72818th August 2026 • Dementia Researcher Blogs • Dementia Researcher
00:00:00 00:05:19

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Harriet Greene narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.

Eighteen months into a PhD, everything clicks. The experiments run themselves, the walk to work has a coffee stop, and the days start blurring together. Harriet Greene knows exactly why that happens, and it worried her enough to do something about it.

In this blog she talks about swapping Oxford for the University of Salamanca for three weeks, working on glioblastoma through a FENS Early-Career Training Programme internship, reading a Spanish dictionary on repeat because nobody in the lab spoke English, and building the first research collaboration that was hers rather than her supervisor's. Recorded from Barcelona, with reflections on why comfort and progress are not the same thing.

https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-the-phd-comfort-zone/

Harriet Greene is a PhD student at the University of Oxford researching dementia prevention, with a focus on how vascular risk factors such as hypertension affect the brain. Her project models the neurovascular unit in vitro, allowing her to explore biological mechanisms creatively and collaborate across departments and disease areas. Supported by the British Heart Foundation for research consumables, Harriet is also interested in biotech start-ups and translating lab discoveries into patient benefit. Outside academia, she is a scuba diving instructor, shell collector and lover of the sea, with a strong belief in paying kindness forward within the research community.

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Enjoy listening? We're always looking for new bloggers. Drop us a line. http://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk

This podcast is brought to you by University College London in association with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia, who we thank for their ongoing support.

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