Category: Doctoral Students

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.

Bringing Together Imperial’s Social Scientists: A Flagship PhD and ECR Event

By Lauren Shields, PhD Student in the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship.

On Monday 10th June 2024, over 20 PhD and Early Career Researchers from across all four Imperial faculties met in a first-of-its-kind networking event. As a PhD social scientist in a STEMMB institution, it can be hard to find other researchers conducting similar research to you. We are often either isolated in departments or are lacking targeted training or collaboration sessions with others in the same institution. I wanted to host an event that would bring these researchers together, to form connections and learn from each other, as well as celebrate the hugely important offerings that social science can bring to physical science.

Navigating PhD life as a Parent: Recommendations and resources at Imperial College

Blog by Laila Kasuri, PhD Student, Centre for Environmental Policy

As a mum doing a PhD, I get my fair share of sympathetic yet awkward remarks. After all, very few of my colleagues inhabit the world that I am in. Instead of telling them unrelatable stories of how my kid who is teething kept me up all night,  I tell them about Michelle Yeow’s character, Evelyn, in Everything, Everywhere all at once. Like Evelyn, I often find myself in two different universes, each encapsulating two different identities of myself. In one, I could be learning new approaches and methods, producing posters and learning to present my research in an ‘engaging’ way, while in another universe, I am sleep-training my 1-year-old, attending reading mornings at my 4 year-old’s school and visiting the GP once a week for vaccinations, postpartum visits, measles, colds, vaccinations, and a never-ending slew of other sicknesses. 

An Afternoon at the Transport Museum: Connecting Minds in Transport Research

by Leah Camarcat and Surabhi Ojha, Research Postgraduates in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

To foster collaboration and networking within the PhD cohort in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College, we recently organized an event at the Transport Museum for PhD students. This gathering, held on May 25, 2024, brought together bright minds from the transport research group and various other research groups in the department, providing a platform for knowledge exchange and networking.

The Transport Museum’s exhibits provided an excellent icebreaker, sparking conversations about the history and future of transport. The feedback from attendees was positive, with many expressing a desire for similar events in the future.

My experience as a 3rd year PhD student at Imperial’s Rising Scientist Day 2024

Blog by Angelos Manolias, Research Postgraduate in the Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction

In May 2024, I attended the Rising Scientist Day. The day included 2 sessions of poster presentations from 2nd and 3rd year PhDs, a 3-minute thesis presentation competition, talks from Imperial PhD alumni and networking events. In this blogpost I give my opinions on the events of day, highlight the benefits of attending such an event as a PhD student and give a few ideas for improvement in the next years.

Rising scientist day has many benefits for PhD students that attend it. Starting from the poster presentations, this is a great opportunity to gain experience with presenting your research in poster format but also learning what research is going on around the college by postgraduate students.

Our experience organising the first inter-collegiate colloquium on psychedelics in addiction research

Blog by Rayyan Zafar, Mark Sweeney, Orla Mallon, Research Postgraduates in the Department of Brain Sciences and Institute of Clinical Sciences

Psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin, ketamine, DMT and LSD are the subject of increasing research as potential novel treatments for addiction. Some of the most innovative work is being conducted by researchers in the UK.

My colleagues and I organised the first colloquium on psychedelics in addiction research, which took place in May 2024 at the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London. The event provided a space for leading researchers in the field to meet, present their work and identify opportunities for future collaboration between institutions.

Inside Rising Scientist Day 2024: Posters, Presentations and PhD Networking

Blog by Chryso Christodoulou, Research Postgraduate, Department of Infectious Disease

Hi, I’m Chryso, a third year PhD student in Dr Clarke’s group, studying how programming of innate immunity by the microbiota influences host responses to inflammation. On the 8th of May I had the opportunity to present my work at the Rising Scientist Day organised by the Faculty of Medicine. It’s an event I’ve enjoyed participating in since my first year of studies, as it’s a great opportunity to see some of the amazing research other PhD students have been working on and exchange ideas – all within a friendly and sociable environment.