Blog posts

“Dream Today, Do Tomorrow”: Reflections from a cross-cultural, climate change-themed summer in Beijing

By Shiladitya Ghosh, 2nd Year PhD Student, Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London

In the modern day, students (especially PhD students) tend to have a crippling fear of committing to future plans because – “what if I end up needing those extra days to finish this report or do repeats for my experiments?” As the 2018 edition of the Imperial – Tsinghua Global Fellows Programme (GFP) on Climate Change and Energy drew near, I too had misgivings. Who was going to write my reports for me?!

However, a change in setting and scenery helps to calm and settle the mind – and I experienced this upon landing in Beijing in the sweltering 36°C early morning sun.

Our experience organising SciFun

Inception

A couple of us postgraduate students came together and decided that it will be a great idea to have a mini-conference-type event within the department that could foster learning and networking. There are immensely valuable resources available within the department, with subject matter experts and we thought it would be great to capitalise on that and get these experts to share their experiences in characterisation techniques with the postgraduates.

Event

Since the purpose of the event was to foster learning and networking, it was necessary to have a social event to it as well. Ultimately, we managed to secure 6 speakers to share on characterisation techniques.

A Traditional Scottish Affair!

A Traditional Scottish Affair!

ESE PhD’s visit a Scottish Ceilidh Dance for Burns Night

The Graduate Society of the Earth Science & Engineering Department organised a trip to the most famous Ceilidh House in London – Cecil Sharp House – in order to celebrate Burns Night. The evening began with students mingling at Imperial College, giving us the chance to unwind after a hard week at work. We then donned our dancing shoes and headed up to Cecil Sharp House in North London for a wonderful evening filled of traditional Scottish dancing.

For those unfamiliar with Ceilidh dancing, this involves a speaker or “caller” who outlines the dance steps for each dance, some with English roots, some more Irish or Scottish but most involving a fair amount of twirling, promenading and galloping!

Master’s 3.60 – An Opportunity for Public Engagement

by Rosie Dutt, MRes student in the Department of Chemistry

Within academia, each individual is working diligently towards their research aims. It is fair to say there have been many nights where some may be working tirelessly to fix a programming code, whilst others ponder over why their reaction series has not worked. Eventually, we reach the end of our research once our scientific questions have been fully explored, with the aim of a publication into a prestigious scientific journal. However, this results in our work being read by our peers within the field, and on some occasions, by individuals with allied interests into the research area – but seldom by the general public.

Cross CDT Reunion at Karaoke @ “The Star of Kings”

by Martin Prießner, PhD researcher in the Department of Chemistry

On the 3rd of March was the first official Reunion of the Cross-CDT Cohort 2016/17 after the winter break. For this occasion, 15 CDT students from 3 different CDT programmes (CDT Neurotechnology, CDT HiPEDs, CDT Mathematics of Planet Earth) came together to experience an enjoyable night at the famous Karaoke Bar “The Star of Kings” close to St. Pancras Station.

The evening started with a cosy dinner where everyone could catch up what has happened for each of the different PhD students after they have successfully finished their MRes in autumn the year before.

Flowers Building Wine and Cheese Party, Jan 2018

The Flowers Building Wine and Cheese Party was hosted on the 11th January by the CMBI Postgraduate Student Committee (CPG) and was funded by the Graduate School’s Research Community Fund. As well as washing away some post-holiday January blues this event provided an excellent opportunity for postgraduates both old and new to become fully engaged within the CMBI community. Around 40 postgraduates and postdoctoral researchers from the Departments of Medicine and Life Sciences attended and mingled in this informal setting. The evening was guest hosted by James, an experienced wine expert previously of the Humble Grape wine bars, who guided us through comparisons of Old-World and New-World whites and reds and provided much highly appreciated wine trivia.

Inter-group Bowling Event 2018

by Adrian Brown, Investigative Medicine

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.

Connections and Collaborations: The Global Fellows Programme on Cities of the Future. Charishma Ratnam, PhD Candidate, University of New South Wales Australia

by Charishma Ratnam, PhD Candidate, University of New South Wales, Australia

Introduction

It is becoming a household statistic: by 2050, 66% of the world’s population will live in cities[1]. This statistic holds much value for me as I pursue my research on migration (specifically in regard to refugees and asylum seekers) and how migrants settle in places. When I was given the opportunity to apply for the Global Fellows Programme: Cities of the Future with this year’s focus on health and well-being, this statistic resonated with me even more. The current state and future of our big cities has become contentious, and the programme was able to offer a space for interdisciplinary discussions to take place.

Rising Scientist Day

by Anwar Sayed, PhD student in the Department of Medicine

The Department of Medicine celebrated another successful Rising Scientist Day event following on from last year’s success. Rising Scientist Day is aimed at all PhD research students within the Department of Medicine. The event was held at the Wolfson Education Suite with 57 posters submitted and displayed both in the Café Area and the break-out space.

Following the poster presentation sessions and refreshments, everyone went up to Lecture Theatre II for the welcome by Professor Kevin Murphy, Director of Postgraduate Studies (Research). Then the 3 minute thesis presentations began. There were presentations from 12 PhD Students representing the Sections of Virology, Brain Sciences, Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Immunology, Genomics, Microbiology, Haematology and Experimental Medicine.

IC Data Challenge – GSU President reflections

by Luke McCrone, Graduate Student Union President

In my December 2017 blog post, as I was setting out as GSU President, I referred to the importance of bringing together students from all faculties in a space which is collaborative. I am proud to announce that the recent genesis of the IC Data Challenge event has played a major part in fulfilling that vision…

Who was involved?

70 students, 7 companies and a lot of data made for an incredibly exciting hackathon event at the start of May 2018! We partnered with some great minds from the Imperial College Data Science Society to design and deliver this event.