What would you think when you are the last one to know your supervisor's resignation? He has ALREADY gone when I get back!! I couldn't even talk to him face-to-face as he was boarding when I finally got contact with him on phone!
The day I was back was his last day. Clive's resignation came with effect in two days. He has planned to relocate to Norway for a visiting professorship a couple of months back, but did not intend to put his resignation on until mid 2010. From what I have heard he got some more pressure from the CSIRO management on his to-be-published paper, plus he suffered from mental stress to a point that led him to seek medical advice. He couldn't afford to stay anymore.
So what will happen to me? My scholarship has been secured. Supervision is not going to be a problem as he is likely to remain in my supervisory panel and someone else down the corridor will be assigned as my CSIRO supervisor mainly for administrative purposes. It is more like he is shifting from being my 'executive' supervisor to a 'non-executive' one. There is possibility that I can use Clive's unused funding for fieldwork. Sounds not too bad!
It wouldn't be a big problem as long as project funding and good project partners could be identified. I hope I can join Clive somewhere in Europe in the later stages of my PhD (as visiting student). Yet it is still frustrating when the one who brought me in has quitted and moved to the other end of the Earth - feel like being abandoned.
