In June 2025, the CSSM welcomed 17 doctoral researchers from six continents to engage in a three-day PhD School filled with conversations, presentations, and co-creation. Read on to get a glimpse into the PhD School experiences of three of our wonderful participants, Herbert Sina Bio, Nikolai Siimes and Stephanie Sacco.
Herbert Sina Bio
Doctoral Researcher – University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin
From June 4 to 6, I had a very enriching experience at the Centre for Social Studies of Microbes. Upon my arrival, I appreciated the warm welcome from the organizers, who created a space conducive to exchange and reflection. With my mentor Mikko Jauho, as well as with the other participants in my small group, we discussed our respective papers. The comments from my peers on my paper were particularly valuable, as they highlighted the importance of analyzing the social perception of microbes in their specific cultural contexts. Mikko brought an interesting perspective on the theoretical contextualization of our work, which enriched our collective reflection.
One memorable session was devoted to mapping concepts for theorizing the social study of microbes. We explored different methods for visually representing the links between beliefs, practices, and perceptions. This approach helped me better understand how to structure my ideas and see the value of a multidimensional approach to analyzing social representations of microbes.
On a personal level, I greatly appreciated the exchanges with the organizers and other participants, who came from a variety of backgrounds. Their open-mindedness and enthusiasm reinforced my motivation and allowed me to broaden my perspective on my paper. This experience was a valuable opportunity for learning and sharing, which confirmed to me the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the social dimension of microbes.
Nikolai Siimes
Doctoral Researcher – Waipapa Taumata Rau/University of Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand
In June of 2025, the CSSM welcomed me to the University of Helsinki as a participant in their third PhD school. I struggled to explain what the CSSM is to my grandparents, not just because I lacked some key vocab in Finnish. They are both retired medics and clinical researchers, so a university centre on microbes that was not filled with microbiologists was a new concept. As a geographer I’m used to explaining what I do to people (“Oh like maps and colouring pencils?” “I know the capitals of Asia!”), but I’ve found communicating a fungal geography (let alone a geography from microbes) a bit of a fool’s errand. So to arrive at the CSSM—probably the only place in the world that gets exactly what I do—was such a cool experience.
On the first day, we heard from Maya Hey and Jose A. Cañada on the origins and commitments of centring microbes. As well as framing the next few days, their presentation helped fill-in a few gaps in my own literature review. One of their key arguments was that much research on microbes has been diffracted into siloed, disciplinary approaches. This alluded to the meta-value of this PhD school: bridging those disciplinary divides.
Unlike most research clusters, the CSSM brings together a truly multi-disciplinary group of scholars. During the course of the week I interacted with the usual range of social scientists (geography, STS, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, development studies…) but the inclusion of researchers from communications, design, pharmacy, medicine, public health, consumer research, sustainability science, and bioethics alongside a number of artists made it a truly unique group. The CSSM is problem-oriented, pointing to the microbial crises from which it was born. This means it attracts people with a shared empirical interest in microbes, while laxing the traditional disciplinary bounds that silo scholars(hip).
As I have argued elsewhere, working from the margins is challenging but it is precisely at these edges and interstices where the most productive thinking emerges. In practice this is hard. It’s not enough just to put different scholars in the same room and hope for the best. It’s about finding commonality, building a shared vocabulary, and fostering an onto-epistemological openness. This is the real value of the CSSM and these schools. Not the shallow trans or inter disciplinarity of neoliberal university administrators, but genuine post-disciplinary praxis to address the syndemics and polycrises of our day.
We got to learn about our fellow participants through short flash talks. I am always inspired when I hear about the amazing research that other people do, it sounds much more interesting than whatever project I’ve been working on for years. This was a session that really got the brain cells firing as ideas sporulated outwards and connections and contrasts became visible. After this introductory portion, the rest of the school was structured around three key elements: paper discussion workshops, a vibrant social program, and a group-based synthesis activity.
What struck me straight away was that the CSSM embodied a feminist ethics of care into the very structure and organisation of the school. Academia is notoriously unfriendly of neurodivergence, but I felt that the CSSM created an affirming space, one in which we were given permission to be ourselves. We could take what we needed to take and give what we could give. From a well-paced schedule to clear safer space guidelines, this was lived and not just an afterthought. A care-full approach was taken through all parts of the school, ensuring everyone was included and that conversations where productive not peacocky.
But what did we actually do for the better part of week?
Each participant brought a draft manuscript to be workshopped, and this was a particularly generative portion of the school. Rather than being lectured at, we developed our own research and writing. We were divided into smaller groups each led by one or two mentors, and drafts were circulated ahead of time. Each participant acted as discussant for one of the other papers, a new experience for many and a welcome reprieve from other forms of critique and peer review that we are subjected to as emerging researchers. In my own case, I got some really valuable feedback on a draft paper which I have since been able to submit to a journal. I’m grateful that I could fix a few gaps before it went out to reviewers.
The groups were switched up for the second activity, meaning we got to work with roughly half of the ~20 participants, but the CSSM generously hosted us for lunches, a formal dinner, and two more informal evening gatherings which really brought the group together and gave a lot of face-time with the CSSM crew.
The final school activity was an ambitious task that involved synthesising what we had already discussed to create new microbial knowledges that we could then feed back to the broader group. Thinking with microbes requires not just new objects of inquiry, but new ways of thinking and knowing, new modes of doing research in ways that are responsive, relational, and lively. Here the slime-mouldian approach of the CSSM put sympoesis into practice. As with rhizomes, the slime mould becomes a model of knowing through distributed sensing and emergent decision-making. At this school, slime-moulds were method not metaphor, and this offered a compelling compass for us—and the field—to aspire to. My group’s presentation involved exploding bottle of kvass, odiferous nattō, and an interrogation of visiblising microbes without collapsing microbial volatility. As Donna Haraway reminds us, it matters which stories make worlds and which worlds make stories. The school exemplified how theory might sprawl, morph, and thrive through entangled, adaptive, and decentralised collaborations, and I’m sure planted the seeds of many such collabs.
The day before the school was the CSSM fellows’ day, where the four CSSM visiting fellows—Yuning Chen, Stina Söderling, Marie-Louise Wöhrle, and Anthony Rizk—workshopped their projects. This was attended by a few of us PhD school participants. I enjoyed kneading bread, delving into hospital archives with a highlighter, thinking about microbial revolt, and creating a zoo sign. Getting to know these four projects really made me wish we had the chance to hear more about the research of the CSSM itself. Perhaps our mentors and the CSSM team should have given flash talks as well.
Next year is the fourth and final iteration (at least in its current form). Any PhDers on the fence about joining should absolutely apply, I cannot recommend it enough. And a huge thanks to the CSSM for having us, kia ora rawa atu.
Stephanie Sacco
Doctoral Researcher – Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brazil
My experience at the CSSM PhD School was great. I felt very privileged to be able to attend such a deep academic encounter. I’m not used to having this kind of space for sharing and feedback.
The Maps, Microbes, Concepts Workshop was the highlight of the PhD School for me—I would have not changed anything about it! Moreover, the paper discussion was also very useful for me. It was the first time I had people reading my initial thoughts on my research, and I’m sure it will now take a new direction—hopefully one that is more aligned with and useful to the field of social studies of microbes.
The interactions during the PhD School were very smooth and kind. I found all the team members to be open, friendly, and genuinely interested in connecting with all of us attending the PhD School. I must say that I left with the wish to reconnect with many of the members again. In a similar way, I felt that the interactions with the PhD School participants and the CSSM members were very much equal—open, welcoming, and respectful.
Images: Cover – Debasree Das 1. – Alicia Ng, 2. – Mo Horstmann, 3. – Alicia Ng
Editing: Anni Rastas