Category: Uncategorized

NHLI Quiz Night

by Katerina Lawlor, Sara Samari, Helena Lund-Palau and Kate Strong, PhD students in the National Heart and Lung Institute.

The National Heart and Lung Institute Postgraduate committee successfully put on a student quiz night on Friday 9th February. The event took place at the Hammersmith Campus, which was a welcome change from South Kensington for the many students based there. The evening was well attended and everyone enjoyed the drinks and pizza which were provided thanks to the Research Community Fund. Rounds included ‘Name the Professor’, as well as Imperial College and London trivia. The competition was fierce, but in the end Team #Covfefe were victorious and went home with the winner’s prize.

Inter-group Bowling Event 2018

by Adrian Brown, Clinical Medicine PhD student.

We originally decided to organise a social event to try and help our fellow colleagues beat the January blues! Once we had a spare moment, and to stop the students going on a New Year’s strike, we decided to organise an after-work bowling event. We invited students from Investigative Medicine and the Division of Brain Sciences to attend the inter-group networking event on Friday 12th January 2018. We were very fortunate and extremely grateful as this event was funded by the Graduate School. Attendees were randomly divided into teams across the three bowling alleys hired and participated in some friendly competition to find the top scoring team and player.

Three things I learnt at the Global Postgraduate Retreat

by Selina Cao

This January I signed up for the Global Postgraduate Retreat – Impact and influence at Cumberland Lodge, Great Windsor Park. It is such an elegant lodge with long royal history. This is my first retreat experience and I would like to share with you the three things I learnt from it.

Bold and systematic answer for why

This retreat helps me start to think early in my academic career why I am doing what I am doing now – the potential outcomes and impact of my research. While you might think that we have this figured out already when we applied for Ph.D.

Theoretical Physics Student Research Seminars, Winter Term, Oct – Dec 2017

by Scott Melville

The Theoretical Physics cohort are a reclusive bunch. But nothing brings them out of their shells better than the promise of knowledge (and pizza). Thanks to the generous support of the Graduate School, this term saw the Theoretical Physics PhD students come together each week for a heart-warming exchange of ideas and discussion of how their research is progressing, bringing together not only the graduate students, but also a great number of Master’s students and postdocs to share in the fun.

The seminars took place every Thursday from 17.00-18.00 in Huxley 503. On average, 16 PhD students, 15 Masters students and 2 postdocs attended.

Cross-CDT Fair – Pain Relief for Scientific Computing

Did you ever wonder what most of PhD students at the College have in common? They need to compute to finish their degree. The task can be as simple as a quick data analysis or as complex as creating a new software package. Did you also know that most of the students arrive with a minimal background in computing? A lot of them find themselves in a “sink or swim” situation. After experiencing this ourselves, we decided that we don’t want others to suffer the same fate and make the same mistakes. To bring the issue into the spotlight, we decided to organise a Fair that featured exhibits dedicated to essential computing skills that every student should know before they attempt to “swim”.  

ESE Stress Less Campaign: a resounding success, valuable for all

Abstract On Thursday 22nd June 2017, Earth Science and Engineering Graduate Society (Grad Soc) begun their Stress Less campaign, made possible by funding received from the Graduate School’s Research Community Fund. A recent Grad Soc survey had highlighted the number of PhD students within the department who felt that work-related stresses had a significant impact on their daily lives. This campaign aimed to foster discussion about such issues and provide activities that introduced coping techniques.

PhD “stress less” lunch A sandwich lunch was set out informally on picnic blankets and was very well attended, drawing more than 30 PhD students, and providing an opportunity for all to voice concerns relating to any aspect of PhD life.

The Future of the Graduate Students’ Union – a Note From Your President

by Luke McCrone, GSU President

Getting Started…….

It’s been quite the ride so far. Since being elected into the role, it seems the Graduate Students’ Union has undergone quite the transformation, hopefully destined for something new and exciting. Thanks to the hard work of both th e outgoing and incoming committee, we’ve developed a new logo, promotional flyers, a website and more recently a strategy for our year ahead! And we are only getting started…

Yet I must be honest, it’s been quite the challenge. As a Constituent Union representing 7000 postgraduate students, our productivity has been limited by having only 3 members of our committee elected over the summer period: Paul and Alex, our two Vice Presidents, and I.

Environmental and Sustainability Mixer

by Daniel Hdidouan, PhD student in the Centre for Environmental Policy

The second annual Environmental and Sustainability Mixer took place on Wednesday 27th of September. The mixer is a cross-departmental initiative, the aim of which is to encourage the postgraduate research student community working in environmental and sustainability research to get to know each other. It was a fantastic event which saw high turnout for the social; students enjoyed pizzas and drinks in the Physics common room on Level 8 of the Blackett Building.

Purpose

The event was devised because students in the past have found it difficult to find informal events for research students to build cross-departmental and cross-College relationships.

ICL-TUM Global Fellows Programme 2017

by Seth Wilson, PhD Student, Mechanical Engineering

After the successful completion of the ICL-TUM Global Fellows’ Programme 2017, entitled Cities of the Future, I was fortunate enough to remain in Munich, Germany for a further three-weeks. During this time, I carried out a short research project within the Lehrstuhl für Nuckleartechnik (Chair for Nuclear Technology) at the Technische Universität München (TUM) under the supervision of Professor Macián-Juan.

Germany has decided to discontinue its use of nuclear energy and will have phased-out its remaining functioning nuclear power plants by the end of 2022. Without wanting to completely abandon nuclear, research within this field has become more general to processes and systems, such as to have a wider range of applications.

ICL-TUM Global Fellows Programme 2017

By Firdous Ul Nazir, PhD Student, Electrical Engineering

I got a chance to participate in the ICL-TUM global fellows programme: Cities of the future, thanks to the Imperial Graduate school. This was a week long course involving 51 participants from 7 globally renowned institutions. The first day of the course was mainly aimed at acquainting the participants of the practical challenges and expected transformations in cities of the future which was aptly conveyed through presentations by experts of the field. In the remaining four days we were involved in a lot of group activities which culminated in a collaborative group project from each group.