Why Severance and your STEM PhD have a lot in common...
Initially published as a LinkedIn article in May 2025.
I don’t actually go out of my way to find science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM)-related content in the popular culture that I consume, but sometimes you just can’t ignore it. As is the case with Severance - a sort of alternative world, science fiction, workplace love story - which recently concluded its second season on Apple TV+.
I don't think Severance's creator Dan Erikson, or its director, Ben Stiller, come from STEM backgrounds; but while watching their show which explores memories and identity, I found myself transported back a couple of decades to the University of Cambridge, where I was a microbiology PhD student. Perhaps Severance’s regular swipes at workplace culture are amplified when you are a student in a world of professionals, but here are my top ten reasons why the PhD experience is closer to Severance than you might think.
Friends and family don’t understand your PhD project, and you simply describe it as mysterious and important.
You never discuss your PhD outside the lab. Not because you can’t, due to a chip in your brain cutting off those memories; but because after another day of failed PCRs, blank gels and awkward lab meetings, it’s the last thing you want to talk about.
You spend eight hours a day sitting under artificial lighting, analysing a lot of scary numbers until something feels right [NB in retrospect, your more intuitive approach to data analysis and BLAST searches may not have been the best route to success].
You worked in your building for three years until you realised that it also contained an animal facility.
Your lab head had a key bacterial electroporation protocol stolen by her own PhD supervisor, and evolved into Harmony Cobel.
Your lab away day was also structured like an ORTBO. But with less waterfalls.
A lot of checking on EDTA stocks and borrowing TBE buffer signalled the start of an inter-lab romance.
Much like Cold Harbor, your project is all about consistency and reproducibility.
The lab support team keep getting younger during the course of your PhD project.
You were criticised by your supervisor for using too many long words in the first draft of your PhD thesis.
I am of course joking. Mostly.
My PhD experience was certainly 'interesting' and it's surprising how recent those experiences feel. For me they are a good reminder that research culture is not just about behaviour, but also includes how knowledge is generated and shared; what is seen from some perspectives as 'the norm' in science; and what is challenged.
But I am very glad that today the research environment, and expectations of academic supervisors and tutors, are recognised as areas that should be defined and regularly reviewed. It's important for us all to understand how we create a culture that supports the delivery of amazing science in an inclusive, rewarding, and possibly even enjoyable way. Those terms are all going to mean different things to different people, based on our career stages, life experiences, and values. So research culture is never going to equate to a singular, static definition, but at least it has made it onto organisational agendas.
Severance is obviously a fictional television series, but it is also a prompt to think about our workplaces, and what we do in the (significant) time we spend there. And perhaps we could all do with a verve-filled goat in our lives? Here’s looking at you Emile. IYKYK.
