Blog posts

Department of Infectious Diseases PhD Student Welcome

At the beginning of October, PhD students from the Department of Infectious Diseases were able to come together at a welcome event. Students from all year groups and based across multiple campuses met at a local pub for a friendly drink. At the first of what we hope are many events throughout the academic year, we laid the base of a strong foundation to create a supportive, engaging and friendly network of students from across the department. We were able to discuss lab problems and share career planning advice, as well as stories from the lockdown and our favourite local take outs!

Walking Tour in London

By David Uribe Saenz De Camara, PhD Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Friday 22nd October saw 13 tribology PhD students joining the “London City of Sin” walking tour and discovering that darker history that cannot be learnt from books. This activity was undertaken as a team building exercise to help integrate new students into the group as mingling in a non-academic environment has not been possible since the Covid outbreak.

Around 6PM, the group headed to Waterloo and stocked up on refreshments as preparation for the 2.5-hour walk. At 7PM, they met their tour guide Vincent and started the stroll along South Bank -now an iconic area but once a medieval red-light district-.

The SynBIC goes to the Isle of Wight

By Javier Cabello Garcia, PhD Student, Department of Bioengineering

After a really tough year, the members of the SynBIC decided to organize a trip to bring back together PhD and Master’s students. This way, we could give a proper welcome to the new arrivals in the team! After thinking about what the best place for our meet and greet would be, we reached the logical conclusion that there is no better place than a garlic farm! So, we headed to the Isle of Wight to visit its garlic farm and the island surroundings.

The day trip to the Isle of Wight took place on Friday 2nd of July, 2021.

Presenting my research at the Rising Scientist Day

By Jonathan Li, PhD Student, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction

Hi, I’m Jonathan.  I’m a 3rd year PhD student studying signalling pathways in the myometrium. I presented my research at the Rising Scientist Day hosted by Faculty of Medicine. It is a one day conference that allows PhD students from multiple backgrounds to present their work. Usually, the symposium offers a great chance to network with other PhD students and to find out what their research is all about. This year, due to COVID-19, the format was slightly different than previous years, where everything was done remotely.  Nonetheless, the event was still a great success. 

A Unique Rising Scientist Day

By Alexander Carver, PhD student, Department of Infectious Disease

Hi, I’m Alex, a second year PhD student studying in Professor Xiaodong Zhang’s group. On 20th April, I was lucky enough to take part in Rising Scientist Day 2021 and win the 3-minute thesis competition. It has been a tough year for PhD students across Imperial College with the coronavirus pandemic taking a toll on what has been possible to achieve in the lab; however, it was very impressive to see what people have been working on for the last 1-2 years. The day consisted of poster viewing sessions in which all 2nd and 3rd year PhD students in the Faculty of Medicine were expected to compete.

The Crick-Imperial Symposium 2021

Every three years, PhD students from The Francis Crick Institute and Imperial College hold a symposium dedicated to enabling students from both institutions to share their research through posters and talks in a supportive environment. Obviously, this year had to be a little different. The event had to held virtually as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic which posed new challenges. A key objective of this event is the provide a platform for graduate students from a range of scientific backgrounds to network and work together, something we can all agree is much more challenging behind a computer screen!

We decided that alongside using Zoom for the talks we would use Gather.Town