Latin America students interested in doing a PhD in Hong Kong?
Rick Duque
CONTACT: Dr Christian Greiffenhagen
Associate Professor, Research Postgraduate Program Leader
Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Social Sciences at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). In my research I use qualitative methods, in particular, video-based ethnography, to study the impact of new technological and scientific developments on how we work, learn, and live. My research is informed by ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA) and most of my topics are related to science and technology studies (STS) and human-computer interaction (HCI). Recent papers include:
- “The Visibility of Digital Money: A Video Study of Mobile Payments Using WeChat Pay” (Sociology)
- “Connecting Distributed Families: Camera Work for Three-Party Mobile Video Calls” (CHI2020)
- “Video Gaming as Practical Accomplishment: Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis, and Play” (Topics in Cognitive Science)
Hong Kong is doing a lot to recruit more international students and offers the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS), which is financially rather attractive (approximately US$41,690 / year): https://cerg1.ugc.edu.hk/hkpfs/index.html (see first attachment)
I am keen to recruit PhD students for my Video Analysis, Science, and Technology (VAST) Research Group (see second attachment). However, I am also aware that many students would prefer the opportunity to do a PhD in the UK or the US. Nevertheless, there might be students who are unable to get a scholarship for doing a PhD in the UK/US and for those students the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship might be an attractive option.
I am therefore looking for colleagues doing STS, but are familiar with countries outside the UK or the US.
When I asked Niki about this, she mentioned that you have good connections in Chile. So I was wondering: Would you know possible applicants – or perhaps you could suggest colleagues in Chile / Latin America / elsewhere to whom I should write?
One further complication: The PhD application at my university has become completely metricized. The three key ways to score ‘points’ are the applicant’s undergraduate GPA, the applicant’s undergraduate university, and any Q1/Q2 publications (who in the social sciences has publications when applying for a PhD?). What scores highly are undergraduates from ‘first tier’ and ‘second tier’ national universities. For example, for Chile, my university ranks Universidad de Chile as ‘first tier’ and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Universidad de Santiago de Chile as ‘second tier’. So I am particularly looking for students/colleagues from such universities (Personally, I think this is a terrible system – but unfortunately I don’t have the power to change it; so instead I am trying to ‘game’ it).
Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Best wishes,
Christian
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Dr Christian Greiffenhagen
Associate Professor, Research Postgraduate Program Leader
Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Latest papers:
“Sequence facilitation: Grandparents engineering parent–child Interactions in video calls” (ROLSI):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c2bhrkwaxum8dr5/gan-et-al-2023-sequence-facilitation.pdf?dl=0
“The visibility of digital money: A video study of mobile payments using WeChat Pay” (Sociology):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9f0gjjw0lud7j7y/greiffenhagen-et-al-visibility.pdf?dl=0
“Back to the control room: Managing artistic work” (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u0l7536u2o1ky56/reeves-et-al-back-to-the-control-room.pdf