Author: Graduate School

Institute of Clinical Sciences – Greening LMS Launch Event

On a brisk Wednesday at the end of September we launched our programme to encourage sustainable practices within the MRC LMS at the “GreeningLMS launch event”. The main aims of our event were to give LMS members the opportunity to get to know the team and find out about its initiatives. This event also allowed important informal chats inspiring new ideas and collaborations! The suggestion box was full of lots of exciting thoughts of how the GreeningLMS and LMS staff members can come together to create the most impact.  It was a fantastic event with a great turnout including all LMS Imperial students on the 6th floor of the CRB building, Hammersmith Campus.

Routes coffee, an independent barista with an environmental conscience, generously donated their time. Needless to say delicious coffee was enjoyed by all! Members of the team made homemade cakes, catering for gluten intolerant and vegans alike.

An informative presentation was projected and ran on loop in the event room, advertising the main aims and goals of the team, some practical tips for sustainable practices in and outside the lab. In addition, a plethora of frightening facts about the effects of the current environmental situation on health and the world’s ecosystems and how we contribute to it where shown. Feedback highlighted how many of the attendees were unaware of the current state of play.

Finally, the event saw the signing up of Greening representatives for each lab – a point of contact between the lab and GreeningLMS – ensuring that best sustainability practices are maintained by all. These representatives will also be key in the ongoing evolution of sustainable practice implementation and will provide constant feedback about the success of the different GreeningLMS initiatives.

This event engaged the whole institute, raising awareness of sustainable issues and it was wonderful to see the general enthusiasm and support from all. In particular, it was great to see so many students attending, especially the newbies, as you will be pioneers – doing lab work as sustainably as possible from the beginning with no bad habits ;).

Due to the generous funding by the Research Community Fund, we were able to fund this event and buy sustainable freebies to pass out to attendees and bites to eat. Attendees were able to take a collapsible cup for their morning coffee on the go and a 100% cotton bag for their fruit and packed lunch. Without this funding the event would not have had record attendance or such widespread impact. So, a massive thank you to the Research Community Fund for helping to make our event possible and the success it was!

CDT Networking Events – Round One

What a better way to kickstart the beginning of the new term if not with a new series of social events?

A CDT student-led committee has organised a schedule of “CDT Networking Events”, where students belonging to different CDT cohorts get to know each other in an informal setting. The first iteration of our CDT Networking events was held on Friday 17th of January in the EPSRC CDT Space. The events entail, in the first 30 minutes, an educational talk given by one of the EPSRC CDT students on a topic belonging to his\her research area. On the very first round, Alain Rossier (CDT Mathematics of Random Systems- Oxford Cohort) discussed about Maths and the game of Poker. Alain covered important notions of game theory, including Nash equilibrium and the optimality of strategies, which closely relate to his research topic.

The content and the quality of the talk given by Alain was widely appreciated by the audience and it led to further informal discussion during the second part of the event, where student had the chance to extend their professional networks and socialise with their peers. The event was accompanied by free pizzas, drinks and snacks for all the students. The event also had a large number of presences, counting at peak time more than 40 students. This really encouraged the event committee to organise the next series of event in a similar fashion and which are planned to take place in the months to come in the Spring and Summer terms.

The committee would like to the Graduate School as well as the participating CDTs who acted as financial sponsors for the events.

CMBI Christmas-Themed Games Night

To celebrate the end of 2019, over 60 students, post-docs and PIs from the CMBI got together for a Christmas-themed games night organised by first year PhD students. This event was an opportunity for people from different departments and spread out throughout the Flowers building to socialise, as well as to allow the first year PhD students to get to know each other and the building.

Despite the students being thrown in the deep end, the event ran smoothly (mostly due to the invaluable help from the Flowers admin team and a last-minute dash to Waitrose).
Attendees played party games such as twister, beer pong and table tennis, as well as dancing to a music playlist best described as a Year 6 disco. There were also drinks, snacks and mince pies available, as well as several types of pizza and vegan pizza, which was kindly sponsored by the Graduate School.

The event was a success, with positive feedback from those who attended. It was also a great success for the first year PhD students, even if not all made it to the end of the night, as cleaning up the next day solidified new friendships!

We would like to acknowledge the Graduate school for kindly providing funds which made this event possible.

Our very merry meeting across the new-found divisions at South Kensington

Following the considerable restructure within the Department of Surgery and Cancer and new-found Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, in a time where many aspects of PGR life have seemed up in the air, Simone and I (Kate) decided to unite everyone for a single evening.  The aim was to encourage new friendships, to promote collaborative opportunities and reinforce the sense of community across PGR students at South Kensington. For the first time, students, post-docs and supportive PI’s took to a cosy boutique hotel in Hammersmith to meet, eat and be merry!

The evening started with the classic Secret Santa, where our personal Santa Claus facilitated the exchange of gifts. This gave people the chance to find out more about colleagues they hadn’t potentially met before and represented the perfect opportunity to introduce the new PhD students to the Departments.

Following the many laughs at unconventional gifts, we moved to a close-by venue to begin our evening. The turnout was fantastic! A large number of students joined the event, not only new PhD students of the Divisions but also students based on other campuses who hadn’t yet felt integrated with the rest of the PGR community. One of the main aims for the event was to get students to meet each other. To overcome any nerves, we provided Christmas crackers along with food and encouraged students to pull them with people they hadn’t met before and break the ice using the jokes inside. 

Another aim of the event was to make sure students knew who they could go to with technical issues, as often people down the hall or across your desk may have solutions to your problems or have faced the same struggles. This large-scale event allowed students to get together and have these conversations. Additionally, colleagues from the National Phenome Centre, who are integrated with many students’ projects,  were invited to inform students of their capacity to support their work. I also finally got the opportunity to introduce myself to colleagues I have seen several times around the lab but felt it wasn’t the right time to spark up conversation, some of these colleagues working on similar instrumentation as myself, highlighting the importance of community building events such as this. With this in mind, we are incredibly grateful to the Imperial Graduate School and the Research community fund made available to us, without which this event would not have been possible.

The final stage of the night was to cut loose and really enjoy each other’s company. Dancing was heavily encouraged, with the manager of the venue giving us full reign of music control – balancing the evening between friendship, food and fun!

Feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly positive! New students have now formed relationships with many of the existing PGR students and they will develop these connections over the coming months to years of their PhD. The next step for all of us will be to support each other during these sometimes stressful and demanding years of our PhD. We are now surer than ever that despite working independently and across different campuses, we are a single community ready to support each other. 

PhD Business School Research Dinner

On the 4th of December, we, the Business School Research Graduates, shared research interests and a fun time with a Christmas dinner at Coco Momo. We are thankful to the Graduate School’s Research Community Fund to co-sponsor the event together with the Business School’s Student Staff Committee. It was a fantastic event with a large turnout across all departments and year groups.

The Imperial College Business School has a variety of PhD tracks including, amongst others, Management, Finance, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Economics, Marketing, and Operations. Consequently, although we pursue a large array of research topics as a PhD cohort, we often are focused on research within our respective departments. The Christmas dinner offered a great opportunity for us to socialise across departments and year groups. In preparation of the dinner, we asked all attending students to submit their research interests/topics/titles. We created a table, outlining everybody’s research topic and shared this table with everybody on the evening.

Across a 3-course menu and a glass of wine or soft-drink, we had ample opportunity to get to learn each other’s interests. Operations students for instance learnt about the importance of herd immunity and the impact of social primers on vaccination decisions from health economists students, while finance students explained to marketing students about new research directions in Asset Pricing focusing on exploiting information in the cross section rather than in the time series dimension. At the same time, older PhD students gave helpful tips and tricks to younger students.

The Christmas dinner was a great success across all dimensions – food, drinks, research and banters. We got to know not only our colleagues and their research interests, but also picked up new dimensions to our own research as well as new research ideas.

Thank you, Graduate School, for supporting this event!

12th-15th September 2019 – Synthetic Biology Snowdonia Retreat

Successful early and late stage PhD assessment submissions mean only one thing… escape from the fast pace of University life is required. In mid-September, a dozen graduate students from the Centre of Synthetic Biology packed their bags and made their way to the beautiful and dramatic mountains of Snowdonia National Park in North Wales for a long weekend away from the city. The purpose of the trip was for the current graduate students to bond over some of the UK’s best hikes, while also spending some quality time with some of the 2019 master’s students before they leave Imperial to do their own thing, ensuring long lasting connections.

On the first day, they climbed the largest and most formidable mountain (in Wales), Snowdon. The unpredictable weather of the British Isles managed to hold out, and they all made it up, taking many stops along the way to absorb the magnificence of the Welsh outdoors. The day was finished off in one of the seemingly infinite number of awesome pubs Wales had to offer, to refuel and numb the aching legs.

(Top left) The hut on the north eastern edge of Snowdonia National Park. (Top middle) There were a lot of bugs in the bedrooms. Modern problems require modern solutions. (Top right) Hiking up the Pyg track to the top of Snowdon. (Bottom left) “Candid” photo opportunity overlooking llyn llydaw. (Bottom middle) Getting a quick group photo at the summit of Snowdon before the cloud came in. (Bottom right) Who?

On the second day, they made their way to the quaint village of Beddgelert, where one group took a peaceful walk through the valley, past waterfalls, and around Llyn Dinas. The other group took on the challenge of the Moel Hebog loop, where the majority of the conversation was predicting the incline of the slope (between heavy breaths). That evening, they headed back to the hut to cook up a feast and to play board games.

Before heading back to London life, they made one last trip to one of the most picturesque lakes in Snowdonia, Llyn Idwal. Although luck had run out on the weather, the mist that slowly drifted past only added to the enchantment of the lake.

(Top left) It wouldn’t be a trip to Wales without at least one dragon themed bench. This one was well and truly conquered. (Top middle) Scrambling up the steep slopes of Moel Hebog was especially challenging. (Top right) Summiting Moel yr Ogof. The clouds had all cleared and celebrations got out of control. (Bottom left) With low visibility it wasn’t obvious some paths led to a wet ending. (Bottom middle) Walking around the beautiful Llyn Idwal. (Bottom right) The result of 3 long days of hiking. Maybe another retreat is needed?

Overall, the trip was a great success. A fantastic bonding experience for the graduate students and a well needed refresher before heading into the next academic year. Thursday to Sunday turned out to be the ideal length of time to enjoy a variety of the walks Snowdonia has to offer. 12 people was also the perfect number of people in regard to transport (minibus), accommodation, eating out, and organising the day trips. The Synthetic Biology summer retreat will definitely be a new annual tradition!

Thank you to the Graduate School for agreeing to sponsor this event.

Key locations in Snowdonia National Park.

 

Lunchtime Yoga @ White City Campus

On the 22nd of May the first power yoga class for PG students took place at the Molecular Science Research Hub on the newly built White City Campus.

For the first Taster Session a small room was booked, because no one expected a huge demand. Instead nineteen people showed up to the first free yoga class of which quite a few did yoga for the first time!

Figure 1: Our first ever lesson had a great turnout for a tiny room.

At the beginning of the first yoga class the teacher asked everyone to introduce themselves and tell everyone what they are trying to get out of this class. Almost everyone was craving for 60 minutes a day during which they can forget about their stressful PhDs and relax their backs from sitting in front of a computer or standing at a lab bench all day. Our personal favorite answer was from a complete Newbie to yoga who said  “I want to like it, so that I want to come back next week!”

Our teacher, Barbara Durand, is a professional yoga teacher, usually teaching at the Lumi Power Yoga studio in Hammersmith. The Vinyasa flow type of yoga they teach @LumiPowerYoga is perfect for young adults. Most attendees were surprised of how dynamic this type of yoga is. A lot of people which hesitated joining at first saying ‘I’m not flexible enough for yoga’ overcame their fear and realised that it’s not about the others or being average, it’s about your own personal body and battle. Every posture in yoga has multiple options, so anyone can improve at whatever level they’re at. The teacher does a great job in incorporating this into the weekly practise, making it highly inclusive.

Figure 2: We enjoy sweating and stretching every Tuesday in the yoga side angle pose.

The number of participants has been continuously rising and we register around 25 sign-ups every week. This is also mirrored in the steadily growing number of members of our mailing list which is currently at 54. We even had to move to a new room for more space at Brickfields Hall around the corner. All postgraduate students based at White City Campus are welcome to join the free Yoga lessons and we even have a couple of staff members being regulars.

Figure 3: The IHUB on the new White City campus is the ideal location for a lunchtime Yoga session – with unlimited capacity!

Yoga has become an integral part of our weekly work routine. This one hour of lunchtime break a week has positively impacted our productivity and social coherence across hierarchies, different laboratories and research branches. We look forward to anyone joining us at any time. EVERY level is welcome.

Happy Yoga,

Julia & Léonie

 

Testimonials:

‘I’ve been to so many yoga classes before. They never actually explained how to transition from an upwards dog into a downward dog. It was so good.’

 “I was worried I wasn’t gonna get a sweat because everyone replied saying they wanted relaxation out of this class, but I’m so glad I did sweat. I was scared they would just make us lay down in Savasana for ages playing some old-fashioned Indian music, which doesn’t relax me at all. I enjoyed the relaxation today, it was the perfect length. Normally all I want to do is walk off, because it doesn’t work for me, but here it worked. I’m definitely going again next week.”

 “Highlight of my week.”

 “I know why I didn’t go to the gym this morning.” “Me too!”

 “It was quite fast paced compared to other yoga classes I had been to before. I really liked it. I got a sweat out of it. A little sweat, which I wanted, so it feels like exercise. The class went by really fast.”

 

For more information drop us a message: yogawhitecity@gmail.com

Or follow us on Instagram: @msrhyoga

Year 1 PhD student ESA rehearsal & social

With the help of funding from the Graduate School, we put on a seminar and social event for first year PhD students based at the St Mary’s campus. Given that most first year PhD students have their early stage assessments due in June and July, we wanted to create an event where we could share our research and improve our presentation skills in a relaxed and friendly environment. Additionally, we hoped that the event would help us get to know each other and to develop a supportive network of peers throughout our PhDs.

The first part of the event started in the afternoon and consisted of a seminar hosted by Professor Wendy Barclay. All first year students and their supervisors were invited to attend, resulting in a small and friendly group of roughly 20 people. Each student gave a 10-minute talk followed by 5 minutes of questions. Topics ranging from Bioinformatics, diagnostic tools, mechanisms of viral infection and vaccines were covered, stimulating some interesting questions and discussions. Understandably, we were all nervous, however the talks were all fantastic and we found it a very positive experience. It helped everyone to gain confidence in their presenting abilities, which will undoubtedly help our ESAs.

The afternoon seminar was followed by a social event in the evening to which all staff and postgraduates at the campus were invited. The Graduate School funding helped to buy plenty of pizza from Dominos and a selection of drinks and nibbles, which went down well with everyone attending. Everybody mixed, met new people, and chatted around food and drinks; it was an excellent opportunity to meet other people who work within the building, which doesn’t happen often at St Mary’s.

Overall, the event was a big success. As first year PhD students, this was the first time we had all come together and properly talked to the people we had previously just occasionally passed by around the building. The presentations were a great opportunity to share our achievements so far and get a feel for our upcoming ESAs. It is also reassuring to know that we now have a base upon which to build friendships and the supportive relationships that will help us through the PhD experience together. Once the nerves of the presentations were over, it was great to relax and chat over pizza and beer. We are also glad that we extended the social event to all people at St Mary’s: the network of high-security corridors make it difficult to mix on a daily basis, and events like this are a great way to build collaborative relationships between the different sections and groups here.

Thanks to the Graduate School for providing the funding to make such an event possible.

Also, thanks to Wendy Barclay for coming up with the idea for the event and Magda Homa for helping with the organisation.

Summer Derby Day Party

There are many pitfalls that must be navigated as you work towards earning a PhD: one of the biggest is isolation. By its very nature, a PhD requires you to be researching something new and unique and when you’re at your desk trying to work out why the data looks weird, because it always looks weird, it can be easy to forget you’re not alone. That’s why events like the PhD Summer Party are so important. Thanks to the generosity of the Graduate School and the Bioengineering Department, every year, we’re afforded the opportunity to relax, make new friends outside of the lab, and live the student dream of free food and drink. This year was no different.

After a solid week of rain, the heavens cleared on the last Thursday as if to bless the oncoming merriment of the evening. We’re fortunate in Bioengineering to have very talented staff who have joined together to form the Gastric Band and, with the help of some volunteers, they relocated and set up in on the 8th floor of the Blackett Building complete with terrace. After some, shall we say, efficient preparations, the room was ready for the party to begin promptly at 5:30pm. By 5:45, the food was gone; at least that’s how I remember it. It wasn’t long before the room was full of clusters of people chatting, their plates laden with delicious BBQ all being washed down with a selection of delicious drinks. The warm weather meant we could venture out on to the terrace and look over the city as the sun slowly set over the capital. With everyone fed and watered, the band took centre stage and the party began in earnest.

The band astounded with renditions with their covers of rock classics, like “Johnny Be Good”, to pop hits, like Cee-lo Green’s “Forget You”, and everything in between. Though reluctant at first, 6:30pm is a bit early to boogie, it wasn’t long before the dancefloor was established and all manner of shapes were being thrown. Each member of the band shone with spectacular solos but the mellifluous voices of Kemi Aofolaju and Melanie Albright really got people cheering. Even Professor Bull got on the stage and had us bopping along to “Hit the Road Jack”. If you ever get a chance, see the Gastric Band: I guarantee you will not regret it.

9pm came, and with it the end of our booking. The band packed up, the reps and volunteers cleaned up, and my colleagues grabbed their “one for the road” and made their way to the Union Bar to continue the festivities. It would be easy to see the Summer party as just a time to blow off some steam and a waste of money for various departments but I believe it plays a vital role in making the PhD experience just that bit easier and more enjoyable. Whether it’s new friendships that you help you expand your research and build your career or just a friendly face to say hi to by the coffee machine. Every year the party gives us the opportunity to hop over the pitfall of isolation all to the tune of Toto’s “Hold the Line”. If you ask me, that’s worth every penny.

MRC LMS PhD Student Retreat 2019

On the morning of Friday June 14, unusually, we found ourselves amidst the Liverpool Street commuters’ rush as we headed into the heart of the financial district for the 2019 LMS PhD Student Retreat. Our destination was the imposing figure of the Gherkin. Going up to just beneath the top of the building, we took a few minutes to marvel at the panoramic views before the retreat’s ‘entrepreneurship’ theme was brought sharply into focus.

“What does it mean to be an entrepreneur?” Ben Mumby-Croft asked, as we began the morning workshop. Ben is director of the Imperial Enterprise Lab, which works to help students at Imperial College London innovate and launch new ideas for the market. Is having ideas enough? Ben explained through the ‘Lean Startup’ approach, that what separates a successful entrepreneur from your ordinary “ideas man” is the need to take initiative with the groundwork and minimising assumptions about your potential customers. Although at the start only a handful of students announced themselves as entrepreneurs, by the end of the pitch training session each table developed a rough business model for an intriguing idea with potential for the market. One of our PhD students, Vas, said about the workshop “Hearing the Lean Startup idea explained by Ben was a great way to formalise and make us aware of the common pitfalls of being a new entrepreneur.”


Next was the short talk session, aimed at increasing student collaboration and conversation. Sophie Arthur from the Grants Engagement and Communications (GECo) team discussed the importance of communication and engagement, highlighting the wide-ranging opportunities at the LMS. We also heard from Greening LMS founder Rebeca Fiadeiro (2nd year PhD student), who presented her valuable work increasing sustainability at the LMS. 3rd year PhD students Chiara Prodani and Irene Robles Rebollo ended the session with engaging presentations, deconstructing their research on epigenetic imprinting and genome organisation respectively.

 

 

To round out the first half of the day, 2nd year PhD student Eren Akademir hosted the inaugural ‘Whose Year Is It Anyway?’ quiz. Members from each team were asked to give the year of landmark discoveries, distinguishing themselves as scholars of scientific history. It went down to the wire, with a tiebreaker required after five rounds. In the end, team CMoC captained by Helen Paterson emerged victorious.

After lunch, we returned to our theme with a Q&A panel of young science entrepreneurs panel chaired by 1st year PhD student Sijia Yu. John Simpson and Alexander Bond shared their experience going from co-workers at Imperial College London to co-founders of their start-up company Fresh Check. John and Alex were quick to highlight the support that Imperial College provides for prospective entrepreneurs. We also heard from Momoby co founder Andrea Rodriguez-Martinez, and Laura Towart, founder and CEO of My Personal Therapeutics who gave their insight into opportunities for women in the business world. Also present, Co-founder of techspert.io Graham Mills, who led us through his entrepreneurship journey starting at Cambridge and what he does to instill an effective business culture in a large company. A number of other informative answers were given to audience questions relating to funding, time-management and productivity.

We drew to a close with an enthralling keynote speech delivered by Sir Tom Blundell, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. Sir Tom took us steadily through his rollercoaster life in science, politics, business and even music – from discovering the structure of insulin with Dorothy Hodgkin in 1969, to co-founding multi-million pound oncology pharmaceuticals company Astex in 1999 – extracting the important lessons for success along the way.

Thus concluded a triumphant student retreat organised by the tireless LMS PhD Student Committee. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Imperial Graduate School and Medical Research Council for the generous funding, without which these events would not be possible.