Category: Doctoral Students

IGHI PhD Christmas Social 2025

by Tricia Tay, Clinical Research Fellow, Department of Surgery & Cancer

We would like to thank Early Career Researcher Institute for funding our Christmas social. The original plan was to a research presentation where we provide updates of our PhDs in the morning to the group followed by lunch in a nearby café. We applied for funding for the lunch. However, our supervisor cancelled the research meeting after we had obtained funding.

Our team went ahead with the lunch and shared informally updates of our PhDs and lives in 2025. Our team of 18 PhD and Clinical Research Fellows work across various campuses including White City, St Mary’s and South Kensington.

Student seminar series at the Abdus Salam Centre for Theoretical Physics

By Jaeha Park & Elias Van den Driessche, Department of Physics

The student seminar series is designed to give PhD students at the Abdus Salam Centre for Theoretical Physics an opportunity to present their ongoing research. As opposed to other seminars organised in the group, student seminars are organised in an accessible and informal setting. This gives an opportunity for PhD students and early-career postdocs to gain valuable experience in scientific communication, but also for MSc students and early-year PhD students to be exposed to the range of topics explored within the group.

The goal of the student seminars is far beyond individual talks.

The launch of the Imperial Women’s PhD Network

The Imperial Women’s PhD Network successfully launched with our networking event that welcomed women doctoral students from a range of different departments and campuses. This event provided a valuable opportunity for students to connect, share ideas, and learn more about the network’s aims and upcoming initiatives. The diversity of attendees reflected the network’s commitment to building a cross-disciplinary community.

Following the launch, the network was also represented at Imperial Lates: Lights, Colour, Action, where our committee member Shana Winston (PhD student, Department of Physics), with assistance from her colleague Xunuo Jiang (PhD student, Department of Physics) and committee member Lisa Coiffard (PhD student, Department of Computing), presented an exhibit titled “Women of Light.”

Doctoral Student Welcome Event 2025

On Wednesday 15 October, the Early Career Researcher Institute hosted a Doctoral Student Welcome Event on the South Kensington Campus!

This 2-hour event included:
  • A welcome from the Early Career Researcher Institute, Provost Professor Peter Haynes, and Imperial Union President Nico Henry.
  • A presentation on the programme of support offered by the Early Career Researcher Institute
  • A Q&A panel discussion with current doctoral students
  • Tea, coffee, cakes and an opportunity to network with other doctoral students
  • Support Services stands

It was fantastic to see so many of Imperial’s new doctoral students at this event and at the Doctoral Student Welcome event held at the White City Campus.

Faculty of Medicine’s Rising Scientist Day

Rising Scientist Day is an event hosted by the Faculty of Medicine, celebrating the innovative research and achievements of postgraduate students. It provides a valuable platform for students to present their work, exchange ideas, and foster interdisciplinary collaboration across the scientific community.

The following post summarises key highlights and reflections from the day.

Yuan Wang, PhD Student

I was honoured to present my poster on how the gut microbiome modulates metabolic diseases through its metabolites. My research focuses on integrating metagenomic and metabolomic data to better understand host–microbiome interactions. It was an exciting opportunity to share my findings with peers and faculty, and I’m grateful to have received a prize for my work.

Our experience of the Early Academic Talks (EAT)

By Clara Finnigan, Postgraduate Student, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction

Research is all about collaboration and communication. However, it can be daunting to meet new researchers, especially those outside of your immediate environment. We set up Early Academic Talks (EAT) to provide a space for Imperial Early Career Researchers (ECRs) to connect and present their research, helping break down barriers for collaboration and communication. Our fourth EAT session took place on Thursday, 24th of April.

This talk series is a cross-sectional initiative, aiming to oGer the opportunity for ECRs to meet and learn about the research at Imperial in a friendly and informal environment.

From Labs to Lunch: How the I&I PhD Networking Event Brings Us Together

By Sophie Ball and Katrina Fordwor, Department of Immunology and Inflammation

PhD students can easily get caught up in their projects, labs and work and not have the opportunity to network with other students, whether these students are from the same floor or other labs. The department for Inflammatory and Infection is spread over multiple floors, so it is easy for students to become siloed and not to interact with one another across the whole of their PhD. This is why we set up a monthly initiative to bring PhD students together in a relaxed setting. The Graduate School has granted us the opportunity to fund a monthly lunch.

Life Sciences – Living Planet Data Challenge

By Agnes Szwarczynska, PhD Researcher at Schroeder Lab at Silwood Park

Recently, I came across a Nature article titled “Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different results from the same data sets.” It got me thinking — what if Imperial students, with expertise spanning from animal communication to microbial science, took on the same challenge? That’s how The Living Planet Data Challenge was born — an exciting three-day event that, for the first time, brought together master’s and PhD students at Silwood Park to tackle a real-world data problem.

In the first week of February, participants applied their skills in data analysis, coding, and research to address a question at the intersection of ecology, evolution and environmental conservation.

Empower 2024 – Imperial’s Black Doctoral Network hosts its inaugural inter-university event

Written by Peter Bryan and Naima Adan, PhD Students from the Department of Bioengineering

Last month, Imperial College London’s Black Doctoral Network (BDN) held its inaugural inter-university event bringing together attendees from Imperial, London School of Economic (LSE), King’s College London (KCL), University College London (UCL), Cambridge, Bath, Swansea and more to share experiences, insights and anecdotes of postgraduate studies and careers. With over 40 attendees, the event was a resounding success.

Panel discussion

The event kicked off with a panel discussion hosted by Dr Wayne Mitchell, Associate Provost (Equality, Diversity and Inclusions). Joining Wayne was Kathryn Plummer, Patent Attorney at Carpmaels and Ransford, Dr Andrea Attipoe, co-founder of BDN and Microsystems Engineer at Beyond Blood Diagnostics, and Dr Emily Muller, Machine Learning Engineer at the Wellcome Trust and co-chair of Indaba.

PhD Student Welfare Evening – Bowling at All Star Lanes

by Lucy Edwardes, Scarlett Brown and Helen Figueira, PhD students from the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences at the Institute of Clinical Sciences

On the 23rd November the LMS PhD student committee organised a bowling social at All Star Lanes in White City. The aim of the event was to provide an opportunity for students to meet fellow students across different groups within the LMS away from the lab and in a relaxed and fun environment. With the hope to encourage better scientific collaboration between research groups and build support networks for students outside of their lab groups.

25 students came along and were mixed into 4 teams and played 2 games.