Overview

This session is part of Newer Researcher Work in Progress Webinar series. These sessions are open and free for all to attend. SRHE aims to provide a platform to present the most stimulating and innovative research taking place in higher education studies and practice. The Newer Researcher Network recognises the body of exciting research being undertaken by newer and early career researchers and seeks to create a supportive space in which such researchers can present their work-in-progress, receive feedback, and develop connections with national and international peers. Questions and feedback from attendees are warmly welcomed. We aim for this to be a constructive space for work in progress. 

Schedule  

Speaker Bios

Kyoungjin (Jin) Jang-Tucci is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on college students’ transitions to working adulthood and examines how college education, culture, and technology shape this transitional phase. She will present preliminary findings from her dissertation project, a sequential mixed-methods case study that investigates how graduating computer science seniors learn to present themselves as job candidates. Guided by Erving Goffman’s insights on the presentation of self, the study conceptualizes job seekers as performers who develop their strategies through social and technological training related to employer expectations. Using surveys, interviews, and computational text analysis of actual LinkedIn profiles, the study explores how students decide which competencies to highlight and how to describe their skills, experiences, and backgrounds to appeal to employers. 

Jay Caldwell is a current PhD candidate with the School of Culture History & Language at the Australian National University (ANU).  Jay’s research examines how Pacific Islands universities participate in the production of securit(ies) for Pacific Islands peoples. Pacific universities have a distinct history, with colonial institutional forms and regional aspirations coming together in a somewhat durable arrangement. But, like elsewhere, universities in the Pacific are not often considered as security actors.  The research outcomes are drawn from fieldwork completed during 2025 on the primary case study, the University of the South Pacific (USP).