 I'm Julia Gilmore. I'm doing a collaborative PhD at Durham University and the British Library on the medieval legends of Alexander the Great. My research focuses on the mythical quest that Alexander the Great undertakes, the monsters, the beasts and the flora and fauna that appear in these medieval texts. At Durham I have two supervisors based at the English Department and they give me academic support. I meet with them regularly to discuss my PhD, my thesis and they give me feedback on my writing. At the library I have a supervisor and I'm part of the ancient medieval and early modern manuscripts section. My placement was six months in total and I got to spend a lot of time with colleagues in my section and I learnt a lot from them in terms of working on the Alexander exhibition. The exhibition is called Alexander the Great, The Making of a Myth. I wrote some pieces for the exhibition catalogue, also blog posts and I was also involved with some adult learning courses at the library and so I taught two courses related to the exhibition. It felt really rewarding to be able to use my research in a public facing context. A collaborative PhD is a unique experience because it gives you something else along with all the skills you learn in research and writing and reading and in my experience it was a public facing placement which got me to think about my research in a more accessible visual and engaging way to then be able to return back to my thesis with a sort of refreshed mindset, new ideas to help me finish the project.