Student Coaching for Life Scientists: get unstuck with your thesis, writing, figure design, data analysis (Ph.D. in biology)

I have had the pleasure of being a student of Camille for six months, as he was my supervisor during my masters thesis. I remember starting this period with some insecurities about writing in general, and as it turns out, I couldn't have had a better supervisor than Camille.

Camille is a very patient tutor and always took the time I needed. He recognised that I was comparing my work to Nature papers and offered me to show me his own master thesis. His example was very helpful, and at one point I even began to see the fun in writing.

Besides learning that writing could be fun, Camille also really helped me in improving my writing skills. His constructive way of giving feedback made it not too bad to receive it, and he was always willing to work on pieces of text together. Camille showed me how to technically build up a piece of text, which type of sentence goes where, and how you can connect two pieces of text. He also showed me in which ways you can be playful while still being correct and professional with the language.

In addition to the actual writing Camille also thought me a lot of other things that were helpful during my thesis. He showed me how he keeps track of his references, how he looks for new literature, and how he organises the interesting parts of a paper. These are methods I am actually still using today. Exploring and decomposing the work of others together was also a practice Camille used to help me improve my writing skills. The basics of coding and making graphs in R studio are also things Camille is familiar with, and he was always more than happy to help me out.

As the cherry on top, my final master thesis was used by Camille as a foundation for an academic publication.

I would highly recommend Camille as a tutor for writing! With his help, I went from being insecure about writing to genuinely enjoying it.

At my current job as an entomology researcher I have to write a lot of proposals and reports. My team lead was so impressed by the first report I had written, he immediately told the director about my writing skills. Without Camille, I daresay that would not have happened!

I highly recommend Camille’s mentoring. He supported me during my Master’s thesis, greatly improving the structure, hypotheses, and statistical analysis, while also boosting my confidence throughout the process.

I have had the pleasure of working closely with Dr. Camille Le Roy for several years, both as a postdoctoral researcher in my lab and during his PhD, where I served as co-advisor.

Camille is an outstanding scientist and an exceptionally skilled writer. He approaches scientific writing with clarity, precision, and a systematic mindset, which makes him an excellent mentor.

Camille is patient, organized, and highly supportive, qualities that make him a trustworthy and effective academic coach. He has a deep understanding of how to structure (scientific) arguments and communicate complex ideas in a clear and compelling way. I strongly recommend Camille to anyone seeking guidance in (academic) writing.