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Admire another researcher’s work? Tell them about it
Madeleine Pownall is a psychology researcher at the University of Leeds, UK.
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Madeleine Pownall with four of her academic friends: Richard Harris, Pam Birtill, Tessa Flack and Christina Sotiropoulou Drosopoulou.Credit: Madeleine Pownall
About a year ago, I found myself enthusiastically telling a room of undergraduate students about a fellow researcher who I admire. I talked about her writing, her advocacy and how she used her research to push for change in our shared field of feminist psychology. A hand shot up from the lecture theatre: “Does she know?” the student asked.
Of course I hadn’t told her, I simply admired from a distance. I told a room full of students how important her writing is, I put her on reading lists, I cited her research in my papers. But the person whose work I was celebrating so heartily had absolutely no idea I was doing any of this.
So I hurried back to my office in the School of Psychology at the University of Leeds, UK, and sent a string of gushy e-mails to all of the people whose research I love. I told them that I admired their work and tried to be really specific about why. I didn’t ask for a collaboration or a meeting or anything in return; I just wanted them to realize that their work had impact.
The replies surprised me. Some were brief and grateful, others explained what the work had meant to them and a few told me that it was the first time anyone had explicitly told them that their research was appreciated. I had assumed these messages would be nice things to receive; I hadn’t realized quite how rarely we send them.
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