Acting Like A Doctor

When looking to pursue a scholarly career in international studies, one crucial question is: how? How do you decide where you want to live? How do you determine what you’ll study? Teach? How do you think about what the job is and what it entails?

How do you remain a whole person in a job that can demand ever-increasing amounts of your time?

Hosted by aspiring academic Rebekah Pullen (Season 1), this series of interviews will look at ‘how’ people have built and managed careers in academia, exploring some of the potentials, pitfalls, and positives. Aimed at early career scholars (graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and ECRs) our guests share the lessons they've learned, the advice they've been given, and the successes that have shaped their careers. This podcast is produced with support from ISA Canada, through their Professional Development Committee; and we focus on Canadian academics in international studies - but there is certainly something for everyone, whatever your career stage, discipline, or research.

Join us for Season 1, and check out what we think is key to Acting Like a Doctor.

Original title: How? ISA Canada's PD Pod

Contributors

Host

Rebekah K. Pullen

Rebekah K. Pullen is a PhD Candidate in International Relations at McMaster University. She completed her MA in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and her research focuses on political theories of violence, weapons in Critical Security Studies (CSS), and Popular Culture and World Politics (PCWP). She is a Fellow with the 2025 Atomic Anxiety in the New Nuclear Age Fellows Scheme (atomicanxiety.com) and the Social Media Editor for the journal Critical Studies on Security (@csosjournal).

https://rebekahkpullen.ca

Producer

Liam Midzain-Gobin

Associate Professor, Political Science, Brock University

Liam Midzain-Gobin is a settler scholar, and Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Brock University. His research focuses on how settler colonialism has persisted into today, and how Indigenous peoples are revitalising their own governance practices to undermine it. Dr. Midzain-Gobin is author of Settler Colonial Sovereignty: Visions of Improvement and Indigenous Erasure (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025), with other work in Millennium: Journal of International Studies and Security Dialogue, among other journals. Dr. Midzain-Gobin is also Associate Editor with Critical Studies on Security.

https://brocku.ca/social-sciences/political-science/people-in-the-department/liam-midzain-gobin/

Guests

Guest

Veronica Kitchen

Veronica M. Kitchen is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and in the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Her research is primarily on national security in a Canadian context, from the perspective of critical and feminist security studies. Her most recent book is Heroism and Global Politics (Routledge, 2018), co-edited with Jennifer Mathers.

Kitchen is an executive member of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society (TSAS) and in 2018-2019 was its Acting Director. She is an active member of Women in International Security (WIIS) Canada, and part of the editorial board of International Journal.

Areas of specialization

Security studies (critical security studies, feminist security studies)
National security
Counter-terrorism
International Relations
Canada-US relations

https://uwaterloo.ca/political-science/profiles/veronica-kitchen