In today's episode, we interview Dr. Cathy Mazak. Cathy was a tenured, full professor when she founded a writing-focused professional development company for women and nonbinary academics. Cathy and her team are dedicated to changing the way that academics leverage writing and publication to create the careers and lives they want through courses and group coaching programs. We learn from her experience in how she pivoted from being a tenured full professor to a business owner, as well as her focus in her business on empower academic womxn and the ways in which academia tends to thwart the progress of those of minorities.

She has a PhD from Michigan State University and is the editor of several scholarly collections and the author of numerous textbooks and academic journal articles. In her work as a professor at The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez she attracted external funding for her work in bilingualism and higher education and co-founded a research center. We learn from her experience in how she crafted her PhD research journey towards her position at The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez and how she could get her dream job after her PhD.

Her popular podcast, Academic Writing Amplified, teaches how to use writing to resist the racist, ableist, patriarchal culture of academia. She is the author of Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing - part manifesto and part writing advice book, and we get to hear Cathy's advice on how to decide which writing projects to take on.

Finally, we learn about Cathy's experience as an academic mother of three and how she balanced academia and motherhood, as well as her best advice for PhD candidates, how she sets boundaries to work, how COVID-19 impacted her work, and what a day in the life looks like for her.

References

• Cathy Mazak's website
• Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing 
• Academic Writing Amplified
• Navigate - course for writing
• Amplify - pre-tenure program
• Elevate - post-tenure program
• Academic mission statement 
• Calendly
• Acuity