Month: July 2019

LERU Doctoral Summer School 2019 – Building Research Capacity and a Collaborative Global Community

by Diego Mesa, PhD student in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering

This year the University of Edinburgh, a member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), hosted in July  the 9th LERU Doctoral Summer School. The main focus of the Summer School was on  Collaboration in Research, aiming to develop a guidebook for early career researchers on effective collaboration.

My name is Diego Mesa and I’m a 3rd year PhD student in the Advanced Mineral Processing Research Group of Imperial College London. When I saw the Graduate School’s invitation to be part of this activity, I knew I had to apply. Not only is my area of research fundamentally based on the inter-sectorial collaboration among universities, companies and other stakeholders, but also my personal interests lie in international collaboration. Being of Chilean origin, I had the honour of representing the Latin American community of Imperial College as President of the Society for the 2017-2018 academic year. Hence, I have seen first-hand the impact that international research projects can have on our countries and communities. I was indeed thrilled and honoured to be selected to represent Imperial College at this Summer School.

As a pre-course activity, we were asked to interview an established and successful researcher about their views and experiences in collaboration projects. I decided to interview Prof. Mark Rehkämper, a specialist in Mass Spectrometry and Isotope Geochemistry of the Earth Science and Engineering Department. His insights were key and influential in informing my understanding of collaborative projects. This enabled me to participate effectively in the debates that we eventually had during the Summer School activities. It was amazing to see that so many professors were absolutely open and willing to share their research experiences. I would firmly encourage other students to get in touch with other professors and perform such interviews.

Months passed quickly, as they do during your Ph.D., and the date for my trip to Edinburgh arrived. It was my first time in Scotland, so I was blown away by the architecture, the landscapes and how friendly the people were (under that thick accent).

Me, struggling to climb the Arthur’s Seat. Photo Credit: Shishir Pant, Helsinki University

On the first day, I got to meet the rest of the participants. We were 52 Ph.D. researchers from 23 different universities, different countries, and cultures. However, what surprised me the most was the diversity of research topics represented amongst us. My scientifically oriented mind tricked me when I read the title of the Summer School, thinking that I’d be surrounded by STEM-researchers. There were: lawyers, philosophers, historians, artists, scientists, engineers amongst many others.

The Summer School was much tougher than I had anticipated. Each day involved an action-packed agenda. Usually we would start the day with some keynote talks by researchers and members of staff of the University of Edinburgh, which allowed us to gain novel insights about different aspects of collaboration. We would then divide into small groups to analyse and write different sections of the guidebook. I would have never though it possible that one could write a quality piece of work in one week involving more than 50 authors. Fortunately, this was all brought together by the masterful guidance of the organisers and we were able to create an amazing guidebook.

LERU Summer School Participants at University of Edinburgh. Photo Credit: University of Edinburgh

However, not everything was hard work. We learnt that many collaborations start in the pub and that the strength of the social relationship between partner is key to a successful collaboration… so, we decided to put that piece of advice to practice quickly! On the first day, we went on the Scotch Whisky Experience and then for a lovely dinner altogether. For the rest of the week, we would spontaneously meet in the pub after classes or for outdoor activities. We climbed the Arthur’s Seat, went on a walking tour around Edinburgh and even danced the traditional Ceilidh with bagpipes!

Views of Edinburgh. Photo Credit: Shishir Pant, Helsinki University

Our last day was very moving as we got to see the last draft of our guidebook. We were honoured by the presence of Professor Kurt Deketelaere, Secretary-General of LERU at the closing ceremony, where he remarked on the importance of collaboration among our elite universities. This is important not only for the advancement of science and knowledge, but also for the further development of global communities able to work and live in harmony, respecting and embracing our diversity. Five participants (including me!) volunteered to introduce the guidebook to him. We explained the contents, the process of development and the impact of the work we all had just performed that week. Finally, Dr Sara Shinton, organiser and moderator of the whole process, revealed a cake featuring the design of our collaboration guide!

Research Collaboration Guidebook and Certificate of Attendance
Dr Sara Shinton with the cake. Photo Credit: Nathalie Dupin

In conclusion, the LERU Summer School was an amazing and engaging experience, where we were able to collaborate and develop our guidebook! We anticipate that this guide will help many researchers globally to engage effectively in more collaborative projects in the future. Finally, I also met amazing people along the way, who came from all over Europe. This both expanded my professional networks and allowed me to develop some great friendships. I look forwards to meeting everyone again soon!

A group of participants at the top Arthur’s Seat. Photo Credit: Shishir Pant, Helsinki University
Last day of LERU Summer School. Photo Credit: Brian Wong, University College London
Me in the Scotch Whisky Experience

Computational Chemistry Intradepartmental Meeting (CCIM)

On the evening of Thursday the 7th of February, the Computational Chemistry division of the Chemistry Department held its third monthly research and social event. These meetings started running in September to strengthen the professional and personal relationships between computational research groups, which have found themselves sharing a large open-plan office after the departmental move to the White City campus in Summer 2018. The meetings are mainly organised by the postgraduate students of each group and promote the integration of students of all levels into the wider departmental community.

This month, we put up the event with the generous help of the Graduate School cohort building fund. The meeting was attended by about 50 people, split evenly between undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs and PIs of the computational groups within the Chemistry department. As in the previous months, we started the evening with a brief presentation of our group’s work. All current students of the group, joined by collaborating students from the maths department, presented a few applications of graph-theoretical methods, including the study of protein dynamics. After the presentation everyone in the audience participated in a quiz-style activity (which involved buzzers!) based on the same mathematical methods we use in our work. Afterwards we all moved on to socialising over drinks, snacks and Homeslice pizza.

It was a great opportunity for new students to introduce themselves to the rest of the cohort, for some stimulating academic conversations and for everyone to have some fun, too! We are extremely grateful for the Graduate School’s funding, and we will be recommending it to anyone else organizing similar events.

With love,
The Yaliraki Group

Fig. 1 Snacks and refreshments set up….courtesy of the Graduate School!
Fig. 2 The Yaliraki group after a successful presentation

IEEE Research Symposium for PG Students at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London

Founded in October 2018, the IEEE Student Branch at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, was created with the motivation of “Developing collaboration between engineering students, researchers, academics, and industry by actively organising and promoting IEEE events”. The student branch strives to act as a common channel that various researchers, students and academics can use to share their research work, create new collaborations and discuss future directions. In doing so, we also hope to engender a more social atmosphere to the research scene in the college. This document will showcase the event that we have organised with your much appreciated support and will also detail intended future events with the hope that we will have your continued support moving on.

Our inaugral event, The IEEE Symposium, was organized at the EEE department on the evening of Wednesday 20th March 2019, and was a great success. The event introduced the student branch to the postgraduate community within the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, as well as worked as a launch pad to introduce our planned flagship event, the IEEE Conference on Advances in Communications, Devices, and Systems – IEEE ACDS, which the student branch plan to organize later this year. The symposium featured talks from two highly distinguished senior IEEE members, Dr. Pete Harrod and Prof. Douglas J Paul. Dr. Harrod is currently the Director of Functional Safety at the CPU group at ARM and spoke on the challenges of developing IP for functional safety applications such as automated driving. Prof. Paul is an EPSRC Established Quantum Technology research Fellow at the University of Glasgow and spoke on the use of MEMS devices to detect gravity with high sensitivity and resolution. The talks were very engaging and we had a large turnout of over 30 people. Apart from aptly managing the logistics behind contacting the speakers and advertising the event, the student branch provided pizzas for all attendees to enjoy while listening to the talks.

Following the talks, we proceeded to a social at the Simmons Bar in Fulham (SW6 1LY). The student branch had organised a tab for everyone attending. The social had a turnout of about 20 people and was a fun night of some drinks, pool and retro video games. The social provided an opportunity for the researchers to socialise as well as discuss their research with their peers. The event ended successfully by 21:30, and feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive, with many of them thanking the organising committee for making the effort to organise this event. Below are some pictures from the event. We feel such opportunities are a valuable part of postgraduate education and work towards our goal as a student branch. The organising committee is immensely grateful to the Graduate School’s Course Quality and Strategic Development Committee (CQSD) for providing generous financial support for this event.

In terms of future events, we aim to host more such symposiums with speakers from other fields of research along with different socials to accompany these events. We believe that having insights from speakers not only from other universities but also from industry is hugely beneficial to postgraduates at Imperial. Apart from these symposiums, our main goal for this year is the IEEE Conference on Communication, Devices and Systems (IEEE ACDS) conference, which we are currently planning and the details will be provided soon. For more information on any of these events, feel free to contact any of the committee members via email. The contact details can be found on our website https://edu.ieee.org/uk-imperial/.

Yours sincerely,
The IEEE Student Branch Committee at the Department of EEE, Imperial College London