I've just had my 18 month review panel. I've had good feedback from my supervisors and I wasn't worried about passing it. But the third member who was my temporary supervisor in my first year was downright rude and hostile towards me all the way through. She criticised everything I had done and was rude about it too. I then became very defensive as I thought she was being very unfair and became aggressive towards her. She insists that I go and do some research at a particular library when I know that it won't be useful. Because she knows more about my subject than the other two members they listen to her but I am at a stage now where I know where my research is going. She seems to want to send it in other directions. She does not have a PhD and a colleague of mine says she may be jealous. I don't know how to deal with this situation. I was thinking of e-mailing one of the other panel members who I know a lot better and asking if she knows why this hostility exists as it is worrying me and I want to be able to take advice from this woman but I feel I am becoming defensive because of the way she acts towards me and I don't want this to jeopardise my research.

Pam - I don't know whether it's the same where you are but at my university the purpose of our annual review panels are twofold - first, an opportunity to raise supervision problems without the supervisor being there and second, to act as a kind of mini viva to force you to defend what you're doing and show that it's progressing at PhD standard. In that sense, I'd expect criticism is the norm, so you may be over-reacting here. I was told that it was quite important because sometimes students and supervisors get so caught up in the topic that they both lose the critical edge, and if the work is never challenged, then it can go horribly wrong when it comes to the viva. Your examiners are unlikely to agree with every word you write (and neither are journal reviewers if you publish etc) so you could look on this as useful practice for the real thing. I'd also take her criticism seriously - she may well be raising issues that your future examiner will - you clearly want to ignore her suggestions, fair enough, but I'd make sure I'd thought it through enough to have included a section in an appropriate chapter about why you're not doing it that way.
I would also doubt that this woman is jealous of you - she has been considered good enough to get an academic job without a PhD, and personally if I was that lucky then I'd be so glad I'd not had to go through the hell of getting one, that the last thing I'd be was jealous of a PhD student. She might dislike your work without disliking you so I'd be careful about e-mailing people claiming she was hostile unless you really can raise specific instances of personal criticism rather than critique of your work. You also say you were aggressive towards her when she criticised your work - if so I'd be hoping the other panel members forgot what happened, rather than raising it again in an e-mail, particularly as I can't honestly imagine how you'd phrase it without coming across as paranoid. I think this is one to let lie.

Thanks for that reply. You have put it into perspective and put a different slant on it than others who I have spoken to, which is good. Both my supervisors are on the panel, and this woman was my previous supervisor. She does not have an academic job, she works in a museum attached to the institute. I didn't get aggressive to an embarrassing extent, I just defended myself vociforously. I think it will be good practice for the viva.

Submit a grievance and sue her for harrasment.

While the OP has had a negative experience, it doesn't warrant suing anyone.

But to add, I would also suggest you submit some sort of complaint to higher powers.

one would not be your supervisor if she is not 'phd'.'lecture', 'reader' or assistance professor or 'professorship' etc.R u sure u've checked her academic background. Or 'u're part of their experiment. U can go to library do more extensive research on your research topic and e-mail to your original supervisor to discuss the problem. Hope it'll help Bless.

She does not work in academia and does not have a masters never mind a PhD. There was some concern from the AHRC about my supervision while my main supervisor was on sabbatical. If this other woman had continued to be my supervisor I would have complained but as my proper supervisor has now returned I am not going to say anything official. However, it is obvious that there are areas in my first year that I am now having to catch up on because she was a bad supervisor. But the upshot of the recent problems on the review panel is that my I had a meeting with my supervisor to discuss how the panel went and she basically voiced her opinion on this other woman that she was not used to dealing with students because she was inexperienced and she seemed to expect all my work to be perfect at this stage and completely finished rather than drafts to work on. She also said as far as she was concerned I was a perfectly good PhD student at the level she would expect at the half way stage. I did not need to go into any more detail about how I felt about the panel member as my supervisor obviously knew what this woman was like and had the same opinion as me. She reassured me completely but we both accepted that I will have to go through her interrogation at every panel but I only have to deal with her for about three more hours out of the rest of my PhD so I won't worry too much. Thanks for all the advice everybody.