Month: March 2025

News You Can Use: Spring 2025

Stay in the know with the Bioengineering Shared Calendar

Keeping track of key departmental events just got a lot easier!

Bioengineering has launched a new shared calendar as a go-to planning resource for staff to stay informed and improve coordination across the department. The live calendar has seven categories you can filter to find the events that matter to you:

  • 🎟️ Department Events, including Department Seminars, the Annual Bioengineering Lecture, staff and student socials, Away Days, and more.
  • 🏫 Academic Staff Meetings: the monthly meeting specifically for academic staff.
  • 👥 Professional & Technical Staff Meetings: dedicated professional and technical staff meetings.
  • 👩🏻‍🏫 Teaching-Related: events related to teaching activities or exams
  • 📅 Ad Hoc Meetings: one-off departmental meetings.
  • 🚀 Admissions & Outreach, including Open days, applicant visits, outreach activities and more.
  • ℹ️ Imperial College Events: University-wide events relevant to Bioengineering staff.

You can find the link to the calendar and instructions on how to add it to your Outlook account on our Information for Staff pages.

The calendar won’t send reminders, but it’s a great way to avoid scheduling conflicts and stay updated.

If you want an event included on the calendar, please email Kemi. However, as this is a high-level official calendar that we’re trying to keep streamlined, not every event will make the cut!

Join the Fostering Connections project

Imperial Experience is the university’s strategy to deliver a holistic student experience. As part of this, an investigative report highlighted the important role of community building initiatives to support diverse and inclusive student engagement and enhance the student experience.

Research into initiatives to support community building and the international student experience at other UK Higher Education institutions uncovered several initiatives to encourage connections within a diverse student body.

You will have the opportunity to gain experience working in student experience, community building, and communications, contribute to a unique initiative that celebrates the global campus community, and work with a diverse group of students and staff.

We welcome students from any department or Faculty, in any year of study, including international students. To express your interest, please complete the form on the StudentShapers webpage by Sunday 30 March 2025. If you have any questions or queries, do not hesitate to get in touch.

Events: Spring 2025

Registration for the Great Exhibition Road Festival is now OPEN!🎉

The Festival takes place on 7-8 June 2025, and will be full of exciting free events for all ages: from hands-on workshops to fascinating talks, and immersive performances to amazing art🎨🧬

Enjoy a relaxing yoga workshop inspired by insect movements, paint the northern lights with astronomers, or discover the science behind Bollywood dance. Design butterfly carnival costumes, take to the tiniest disco floor in the universe to explore quantum, discuss the new space race or experience chemistry brought to life through amazing reactions, slime and explosions at the interactive family-friendly show. All while you discover incredible live music, sample the food of the future, and see Exhibition Road transformed into a colour-filled art gallery for the weekend.

Sound good? Then register now!

🎟️https://ow.ly/h3Xk50VlfVi

Shaping the School of Convergence Science – Sustainability

Join us for an interactive workshop to help shape the future of the School of Convergence – Sustainability through engaging discussions and collaborative activities. Connect with colleagues, share insights, and explore emerging sustainability trends.

Workshop dates:

Don’t miss this opportunity—register now!

Please note this event is for Imperial Staff members (professional services staff and academic staff).

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT SUPPORT KEW GARDENS TRIPS

Kew Gardens the Sounds of Blossom
Saturday 5th April

As we head towards the end of term, it is the perfect time to wind down before the lead-up to the exam period. If you are staying in London for Easter, the Kew Gardens Sounds of Bloom, in collaboration with the London College of Music, might just be the perfect event for you.

Come and celebrate the arrival of spring at Kew Gardens, surrounded by spectacular spring blossoms.

In collaboration with the Royal College of Music, Sounds of Blossom will bring the spring blooms to life. Music students from the college have composed new music, commissioned by Kew and inspired by the glory of spring. These new compositions will be played around the Gardens in Kew’s blossom hotspots.

Immerse yourself in nature and feel all your senses awaken as you wander amongst the trees – see the pastel colours, hear the gentle music and smell the sweet scents on the breeze. Sounds of Blossom is a chance to breathe, to lift your spirits and to reconnect with nature and yourself.

Please note this is an opportunity for you to enjoy Kew Gardens at your leisure and is not a group tour.

Price £5 (includes entry to Kew Gardens)

You can enter the Gardens between 11am-6pm (last entry is 5pm)

Book here

Kew Gardens: The Power of Trees Exhibition
Saturday 3rd May

As we head into the exam period, we would encourage you to take some time away from your studies or even take your studies outdoors to enjoy some fresh air amongst the trees. Being outdoors during exam preparation offers numerous benefits, including improved mood, reduced stress, better concentration, and enhanced cognitive function, all of which can contribute to better exam performance.

The Power of Trees invites visitors to explore the enduring beauty of trees across art and culture.

The exhibition showcases a diverse range of works, from intricate botanical illustrations to a groundbreaking video installation, which look at how trees have shaped human creativity.

Finnish visual artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s Horizontal–Vaakasuora offers an awe-inspiring portrayal of a 30-metre-tall spruce in Finland’s boreal forest. Complete with the sounds of a creaking trunk and birdsong, this living portrait captures the majesty of this ancient tree while challenging our perceptions of the natural world.

Accompanying the installation are Ahtila’s preparatory works, Anthropomorphic Exercises in Film, making their UK debut at Kew.

This is an opportunity to explore your gardens at your leisure and is not a group event.

Price £5 (includes entry to Kew Gardens)

Please note the exhibition closes one hour before the Gardens

Book here

Co-creation workshops for the Human and Artificial Intelligence School of Convergence Science

These workshops will bring together ideas from across the university to identify key research themes and explore emerging trends in AI. Through interactive activities and discussions, we will collaborate to shape the development of the School of Human and Artificial Intelligence while fostering a strong, connected community. Each session will also include dedicated networking time, offering attendees the chance to connect and share insights with one another.
Registration: Please complete this MS Forms survey to register for these workshops.
Further information will be provided upon registration. There are only 30 spots available for these events. Registrations will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis.
  • Workshop 1 – Interfacing with intelligence – Date: Thu 3 April, 9-12pm – Location: White City (I-Hub, I-X, Level 6, LTR 608)
  • Workshop 2 – Augmented Intelligence for future society and wellbeing – Date: Thu 3, April 2.30-5.30pm – Location: White City (I-Hub, I-X, Level 6, LTR 608)
  • Workshop 3 – Embodied intelligence  – Date: Fri 4 April, 9-12pm – Location: South Kensington (SKEM 315)
  • Workshop 4 – Science of Intelligence – Fri 4 April, 1-4pm – Location: South Kensington (Room 315, Huxley)

AI Autophagy: Understanding the Risks and Solutions

by Dr Xiaodan Xing
Diagram illustrating the AI autophagy loop and its potential positive and negative impacts.

The latest paper by the Yang Lab, published in Nature Machine Intelligence, delves into a pressing issue in AI development: what happens when generative models train on their own synthetic data? This phenomenon, known as AI autophagy, leads to model collapse, loss of diversity, and ethical risks.

As the awareness of AI autophagy grows, so does the call for a comprehensive framework to understand, detect, and mitigate its effects. Our research brings together conflicting findings, theoretical perspectives, and empirical evidence to highlight the risks and propose potential solutions.

One key takeaway is that technical fixes alone, like watermarking or detection methods, aren’t enough. To truly address AI autophagy, we need a holistic approach that integrates technical solutions with robust regulatory oversight. Without proper policies and governance, even the most advanced technical solutions could fail to scale effectively.

Click here to read the paper “On the caveats of AI autophagy” in Nature Machine Intelligence

Saliva-based Menopause Test Wins Hackstarter

Congratulations to Karina Cheng, Biomedical Technology Ventures BSc student, and teammate Yihan Pu, on winning Imperial College’s Advanced Hackspace Hackstarter Grand Final with their Menosense device which monitors menopause via saliva!

Karina and Yihan stand side by side, smiling and posing enthusiastically with finger-gun gestures. They are holding a wooden award labeled "HACKSTARTER." One is wearing glasses, a blue plaid shirt, and jeans, while the other is in a brown cardigan over a white top and a brown skirt. Behind them, a large blue banner with white text reads "IMPERIAL ADVANCED HACKSPACE" and "Where ideas take shape," with the Imperial College London logo at the bottom. The setting appears to be an indoor event space with bright lighting and modern decor
Karina and Yihan after winning the Hackstarter Grand Final. Photo credit: Dr Ben Almquist.

Women experiencing menopause undergo hormonal changes that affect their mood, metabolism, and health. Traditional hormone tests need blood or urine samples, which can be invasive and take a long time to produce results.

Menosense introduces a portable saliva-based hormone detector for menopause that uses Lateral Flow Immunoassay technology for home use. It provides quick, noninvasive, and accurate hormone readings in just 20 minutes. A handheld reader analyses disposable test strips, and results appear on the device and a Bluetooth-connected mobile app, allowing users to track their health.

Imperial’s Hackstarter programme helps bring entrepreneurial ideas to life by offering grant funding for early-stage projects.

Students and staff can apply individually or in groups of up to four. If selected, they receive £500 in Hack Credit to create a prototype at the Hackspace, plus access to the Advanced Hackspace and expert technical support.

At the end of the programme, teams showcase their projects at a mini-symposium. A panel of judges picks the winning team, which is awarded up to £2,500 in extra Hack Credits for further development.

Click here to find out more about Imperial’s Hackstarter programme.

Science on Pointe

Dr Eleonora Moratto, a postdoctoral researcher and professional ballet dancer in the Microbiome-Microscopy and Microfluidics Lab, showcased her SciBallet Project at an Imperial Late event themed “Weird Science” in February.

Eleonora poses with three dancers from Chelsea Ballet at Imperial’s Weird Science Lates event.

Eleonora initiated the SciBallet project after choreographing and performing a dance that illustrated her PhD research. This experience earned her a spot as a finalist in the Dance Your PhD competition. It sparked her fascination with the intersection of science and art, particularly the use of ballet’s storytelling capabilities to convey complex research to the public.

Her dance wrapped up the event, featured a presentation on the historical relationship between science and art, and demonstrated how electric fields can be utilised to prevent plant root infections. Eleonora collaborated with Chelsea Ballet to create this performance.

Now, she is taking the SciBallet project further by collaborating with researchers and composers from Imperial College and plans to showcase this exciting work at the Great Exhibition Road Festival!

Click here to watch the Dance Your PhD video on YouTube.