Alumna in the spotlight: Julia Shaw

I am speaking to Julia Shaw via Zoom, in London. The lively young woman is in a room that seems to have been specially equipped for the occasion. There is nothing to distract you. The room is fairly dark, but a spotlight ensures that Julia is perfectly illuminated. This has been well thought out. She speaks quickly, her hands helping to explain her story. She listens well, asks short questions when she doesn't understand and is very approachable.

A big smile comes across her face when she thinks back on Maastricht. She remembers the beautiful city and the friends she made, her small flat in Capucijnengang and the ‘frietjes’ she ate after a night out. “It was an exciting time. I think it was the same for many of my fellow students. We got to decide what we were going to do with our lives and what field we were going to work in. Our future was wide open.” 

Academic world
She could not have imagined at the time that the future had so much in store for her. “I never dreamed of working in the academic world. My family is not highly educated. In fact, my mother didn’t even finish high school. I myself had considered going to art school after high school. I had even created a portfolio, but at the last minute I changed my mind and chose to study psychology.”She was intrigued by the subject matter of the programme—psychology.  However, she did not necessarily want to become a therapist.

After getting her bachelor's degree at Simon Fraser University in Canada, her supervisor Stephen Hart recommended that she study Psychology and Law in Maastricht.  Julia explains: “At first, I didn't see criminal psychology as a career option, until I met people from that profession. They were cool people, with the same kind of dark humour that I have. They didn't take themselves too seriously. So, I fit in well with them.”

Networking
Listening to Julia's story, one notices that she is curious, is not afraid to take steps forward and is always looking to connect with people who can support her. She is tenacious, a quality she believes is important in achieving your goal. Networking comes naturally to her, and it seems to take little effort. Julia wonders: “Maybe it’s because I have moved around a lot, ever since I was young. I was always the new person. So, you have to initiate contact. Otherwise, you won’t get anywhere.”

“In this world, we navigate through life together. You make friends and you ask things of each other. I suppose that I never thought very hierarchically. I always considered everyone the same, at least in terms of their value, not in terms of knowledge obviously. So, I always found it easy to approach people, even those who others might consider difficult to approach.”Reciprocity
She enjoyed the Maastricht way of studying—the problem-based approach to education, where you could ask a lot of questions and learn from each other. And she especially liked the way in which students are supervised. “In the Netherlands, there is not much distance between professors and students. There is less hierarchy here than in Canada and the UK, for example. In Maastricht, young academics are supported. Professors see students as the next generation and not as cheap labour. There is more reciprocity.” 

Julia was really in her element in Maastricht. And she was in regular contact with her teachers—something she recommends to students, as well as to alumni. “Talk to the people around you. I always have, and it has always turned out well. Often, you may not know what can help you in your career, but supervisors or teachers might know immediately. For instance, how you could get into a field that suits you. Sometimes they might surprise you and say that they have a really nice project and they are looking for a research assistant. This could then lead to a publication, for example, that you had not expected at all.”

It is this support that helped her shape the start of her career. Not just then, but still now, she is in contact with the people who taught her during her master's programme in Maastricht. “Without their support, I might never have entered the field of criminal psychology.”  She has also tried to offer this kind of support to her own students, although she has noticed that they sometimes find it difficult to approach a teacher. “When I used to teach, I had an open-door policy and was happy to talk to students. I even had a nice coffee machine in my office, hoping that this would encourage them to come and talk to me.”

Books and podcasts
Today, her audience is much larger than a group of students in a lecture hall. This is partly due to the two books she has to her name. The Memory Illusion, which is available in 20 languages, and Making Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side. She’s also launched two podcasts in recent years: the BBC podcast Bad People and the German AudioNow podcast Böse. She now has 29,700 followers on Twitter and 21,300 on Instagram. She also has her own Wikipedia page. Also worth mentioning is that the protagonist of the German series Acht Zeugen, played by the famous German actress Alexandra Maria-Lara, is based on Julia Shaw.

The starting point for much of what she does is her work in criminal psychology, which she is keen to present to a wider audience. “It is important that we constantly talk about some of the worst things in order to understand and prevent them. It's easy to forget what people are capable of and that can get us into very bad situations.”

Shaw not only uses her fame to talk about her own field, but she also uses it to make people aware of other issues. ‘I think female scientists should be more visible’, she wrote on her first photo on Instagram. ‘That's why I decided to share some of my life here.’ Her TED talk on how to secure evidence of harassment in the workplace has been viewed 1.8 million times. “I’m educating the world now—not just the students in the lecture hall. People can listen to my podcast, watch TV or read my books. I’m still teaching, but now via different channels.”

Bisexual
In her second book, she came out publicly as bisexual and she then decided to write an academic book on the subject—the book in which she would find the answers to the questions she herself had. This type of book did not exist yet. She asked her followers for help via a tweet, and in no time, she had gathered a group of 20 researchers who specialised in bi+ issues, and could help her find academic publications on sexuality.

Coming out was a scary step for her. Before she came out publicly, only close friends and relatives knew, and now the whole world could talk about it. “I thought for a long time about whether it was a good idea. I was afraid that coming out as bisexual would damage my credibility as a person, and also as an academic.” Yet, she still dared to take that step.  Her book, Bi: The hidden culture, history and science of bisexuality, will be available in bookstores in May.

Text: Tineke Oosterloo