The Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre recently hosted the PFDC Reps Award Dinner to thank and recognise the significant contributions that the PFDC Reps Network make to the College. The Reps work on fostering a sense of community amongst Imperial postdocs, acting as a link between the PFDC, postdocs and the department and help the PFDC keep abreast of the challenges facing early career researchers.
Of the 75 Reps across the College, 13 were nominated for the PFDC Individual Award. One of which was our very own Biancastella Cereser (Postdoc rep at Hammersmith), who was nominated for the individual award for her continuous contribution to the postdoc community. Below Biacastella tells us a little more about her role as a postdoc rep.
“I joined Imperial College London in 2016 as a research associate in Prof Justin Stebbing group in the Department of Surgery and Cancer. I decided to become a postdoc rep not long after I joined Imperial College, as I wanted to network with fellow postdocs from other teams while also strengthening my CV with extra organisation skills.”
“I am an active member of the People and Culture committee and together with the other postdoc reps, I share the views of postdocs in several aspects of our job, and try to promote changes in our environment. Recently, I analysed the outcome of the staff survey, focusing on what the postdoc community of our Department thought about issues such as professional recognition, mental wellbeing and support from their line managers. From this, I’m currently contributing with the other reps and our postdoc champion to the design and implementation of a staff survey on career progression, aimed at postdocs not only from our Department but from the whole Faculty of Medicine (Hammersmith Campus), which will help to tackle, amongst other issues, the drop-out in academic progression, in particular from female postdocs!”
Find out more about postdoc support in Surgery and Cancer on our People and Culture Postdoc champions page.