Edgar, The SuperAdvisor
Hey there,
Because you have landed here, there’s a good chance you are doing a PhD, or you are supervising one.
Or perhaps something I have written hit a nerve. Something about life in academia that is not feeling the way you think it should be.
Not a crisis (yet). Just a quiet sense that your (academic) environment was not designed with you in mind.
You are right. It wasn’t.
The SuperAdvisor is for you if:
You are a PhD student, ready for the research but finding that nobody prepared you for working with a supervisor
You’re doing everything “right” and still feel like you’re falling behind
You are a supervisor who genuinely cares about your students but lack the training to support effectively
You’ve sat in a supervision meeting and left feeling more confused than when you walked in
You suspect the problems you are experiencing are not personal failures but ones that are structural that you cannot identify and name.
You are further along than you expected to be, and still waiting for someone to tell you you are doing well.
Or perhaps you want a community of supporters, there to help you navigate difficult times, when it matters most.
What The SuperAdvisor is
A space that takes the doctoral experience seriously as a system and not just a personal challenge to endure. The SuperAdvisor names (systemic) failures so that they can be understood, navigated, or avoided.
The focus is on reimagining supervision as a collaborative and productive professional relationship, where PhD researchers thrive.
As a Doctoral researcher, you matter and don’t deserve to be left to figure the PhD out.
That is what the SuperAdvisor is here to change.
What you get as a subscriber
A system-level view of how supervision actually works and how we can make it work better
Breakdowns of the most common supervision failure modes, drawn from real student and supervisor accounts
Practical tools to identify, name, and resolve dysfunctional patterns
Coffee drip-ins, Live on Q & A’s, and more
Community Support
That’s the approach. Not therapy. Not venting. Pattern recognition and focus on practical solutions to empower collaborative supervision and research.
More about The SuperAdvisor
I’m Edgar Huitema, a senior lecturer and postgraduate research lead at a UK university. I design and lead multiple funded doctoral training programmes, train PhD supervisors, and have examined and supported doctoral students for over fifteen years.
I’m not writing from the outside. I work within these systems, which means I understand how supervision is supposed to work, where it breaks down, and what students can do about it when it does.
If you wish to get more out of your PhD or struggle with supervision at your institution, reach out and work with me.
PhD students are often too isolated, cut off from peers, reluctant to admit they're struggling, unsure whether what they're experiencing is normal.
If you know someone in that position, forwarding this email might be the most useful thing you do for them this week. You don't need to explain it. Just send it.
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