Lilia and Darren volunteered at Commemoration Day in October 2024, which saw 3500 graduands awarded their degrees. Volunteers are essential to the successful running of the event and take on roles including crowd management around the South Kensington Campus, supporting on the information desks, ticket scanning at the receptions, and stewarding the livestream screening. Details of how to get involved at the 2025 ceremonies can be found at the end of the article.
What if finding your next brilliant colleague was easier and quicker? That’s the question Jack Leyshon-Richards, Imperial’s new Head of Recruitment, is working towards. Jack joined Imperial in January 2025 with almost 10 years’ experience in HR, most recently working with King’s College London as Head of Recruitment.
Harassment Support Contacts (HSCs), Neurodiversity Champions (ND Champions), and Staff Supporters are colleagues from across the organisation who volunteer their time to support an inclusive workplace culture.
They are available for informal, confidential conversations on a range of topics and are available to all employees, including line managers.
Each volunteer group has its own network which provides opportunities to get to know colleagues from across Imperial.
Cate is a fifth-year medical student who identifies as Queer and uses they/them pronouns. They are an advocate for the Queer community in medical education, a volunteer for a sex education charity and an active member of campus life.
Owen is the Marketing Operations Officer for Enterprise, where he supports the communications and marketing managers to deliver on their specific portfolios.
Dr Nicole Salomons is a Lecturer in the Department of Computing and I-X at Imperial College London. Her research explores the potential for AI and robots to benefit society through learning, teaching and therapy in domestic and public settings.
Ingrid Logan is the Technical Services and Safety Manager for the Dyson School of Design Engineering. Her career at Imperial began in 2008 as Apprentice Technician for the Innovation Design Engineering course, a joint programme with the Royal College of Art. Her years of contribution and service to the organisation were recognised with an Imperial College Medal, awarded at the Royal Albert Hall as part of Commemoration Day. The medal recognises meritorious or praiseworthy service to Imperial or for having otherwise enhanced its reputation, mission and objectives.
Blessings Mwanza is a third year Mathematics student in the Department of Mathematics and President of the Afro-Caribbean Society.
Professor Samuel Agyei-Mensah is a Professor of Geography at the University of Ghana and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London. His current role at Imperial follows on from his position as Provost’s Visiting Professor (2023-24), a scheme established to improve the diversity of the university by hosting leading Black and minority ethnic academics.
I started my career in auditing before transitioning first to global banking, then into the hotel, venue and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) industries. I’m passionate about business strategy and really enjoyed the diverse experiences that working in hospitality provided – from building multimillion pound venue facilities from scratch, to creating and developing Corporate Social Responsibility programmes.
In my current role as Strategic Implementation Manager, I lead the development of the growth strategy and long-term plans for Commercial Operations. Our team transform the student accommodation and teaching spaces into a residential venue for the Easter and summer vacation periods to generate additional income for Imperial. We also deliver Imperial’s flagship Global Summer School (GSS) which feeds into the student recruitment journey – over 350 GSS students have become undergraduates and postgraduates at Imperial.