On the 29th of March 2019 we made our way to the nearby bowling place in Bayswater for a Geotechnics Section-bowling night. After a nice group walk through Hyde Park we all gathered at the bowling alley at 18:00. Thanks to the great turnout of 26 people, we took over five of the lanes and played two hours of bowling – some more competitively than others. A few people tried bowling for the first time in their life and ended up getting one strike after the other, so there were many great celebration dances to be seen. While waiting for our next turn and cheering our teammates on, there was a large selection of burgers and other finger foods for everyone to enjoy.
Since bowling in London is quite expensive, this event would not have taken place at all without the support from the Graduate School’s Research Community Fund. We are therefore very grateful that we got the chance to spend such an enjoyable evening together as a Section.
by Nora Schmit & Constanze Ciavarella, PhD students in the School of Public Health
The first School of Public Health breakfast club took place in the morning of Tuesday 26th March 2019 at St Mary’s campus. The student reps organised this initiative to bring together PhD students from 5 departments spread across St Mary’s, Charing Cross and White City campuses, to share their experiences around the theme “Making the most of your PhD” while enjoying a delicious breakfast buffet.
The event had a high turnout, with over 50 students from all stages of the PhD gathering in room G64. It started at 10am with tea, coffee and various breakfast options from Le Pain Quotidien, including waffles, pastries, baguettes and fruit. After everyone had taken a seat, 3 students from the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology gave short talks on extracurricular activities they had pursued during their PhD.
First, final-year PhD student Tom talked about the insights he gained during an internship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. He also gave practical tips for students wanting to apply to the internship scheme and on managing the practical aspect of taking time out of the PhD. Andria, a second-year student, then presented an overview of her short-term work assisting the Ebola outbreak response team at the World Health Organization. She gave some details on the current Ebola epidemic and the tasks she had to complete during this position interspersed with beautiful pictures of Geneva. Finally, Nora shared her experience of the Global Fellows Programme at Tokyo Tech University organised by the Graduate School, which she had attended during the first year of her PhD. She highlighted her happy memories of the trip and encouraged participants interested in developing teamwork and communication skills to apply. All speakers agreed on the benefits of taking up these varied opportunities and expanding their experience beyond their research project, particularly with regards to skills and careers development, but also highlighted the difficulties they encountered in reconciling the activity with their PhD.
After the talks, everyone had the chance to ask questions or talk to the speakers in person. People helped themselves to more food and some stayed to mingle with the other students until 11.30am. Participants additionally had the opportunity to vote on future social activities to be organised by the PhD reps, with paintball, karaoke and a museum late visit coming out as favourites.
The first breakfast club was a great success and received positive feedback throughout; everyone was impressed by the food and participants said they appreciated the opportunity to get to know other students and getting inspiration and practical information to make the most of their PhD.
We would like to thank the Graduate School for funding this event and hope to organise more activities in the future to improve the postgraduate research community in the School of Public Health.
On Wednesday 13th of February 2019, the second event in the Cross-CDT series took place – a total of 14 PhD students from different 3 different CDTs gathered to face the tasks that needed to be solved. The students divided in to two teams and were required to work together to solve different puzzles in order to beat the clock (and each other), to escape and unlock their respective ‘rooms’. As this was the second of the scheduled activities, many of the students were already acquainted and were able to jump to the tasks at hand instantly.
The theme of the first room was “Project D.I.V.A” and the second, “Dark side of the moon”. Both adventures had their own unique set of fun challenges, questions and tasks which needed to be solved and which put our team work and skills of inquiry to the test. It was a welcome distraction from our PhD work and a reminder that from time to time, we also need to enjoy ourselves.
After an initial struggle both teams managed to escape their respective rooms – rooms. It was great to receive the “Mission accomplished” announcement!
Following the escape room activity, the students who still had some energy left, decided to go to the pub to reward their hard work. This gave the group the opportunity to chat and share experiences.
Overall it was a great event and we are all looking forward to the next!
We would like to extend our thanks to the Graduate School for financially supporting this cohort building activity.
Britain is at the forefront of energy system transformation. In 2018, 53% of electricity consumed came from low-carbon generators, up from 25% in 2009. As a result, carbon intensity halved from nearly 500 to 217 gCO2/MWh (Electric Insights). However, as an island with limited interconnection to its neighbours, the stakes are particularly high to achieve further reductions down to 100 gco2/MWh by 2030 (Fifth Carbon Budget).
At the same time, me and fellow PhD students miss the exchange amongst us as well as with other academic, industry and policy experts on energy system transformation. What is missing is a closeknit energy system community that can easily discuss transformation pathways. Although individually, research, business and policy-making in energy, is world-leading, the community is siloed. In addition, there is no forum within Imperial where students working in this field can easily exchange information and discuss.
The missing link is a platform that offers a direct (!) communication channel between students and experts of all sectors and brings them together to openly discuss ongoing work. That’s why I set up PowerSwarm.
Power Swarm is an open, free network of energy system transformation experts across academia, industry and policy. It is not a single event, but rather has two key components:
E-mail list: Every Power Swarmer can write to this list to advertise jobs, papers, conferences, etc., and ask questions related to energy system transformation. The purpose is to leverage swarm intelligence for better information exchange and more efficient problem-solving. When I e-mailed the group about recent reports on the amount of storage required in future energy system scenarios, I received more than 15 reports I hadn’t been aware of. That’s my PhD literature review sorted!
Workshops: For a different topic each month, academic, industry and policy experts speak about their ongoing work in this area. Two hours with five presentations of ten minutes ensure a concise format that allows for real, content-based, cross-sectoral discussions. No need for shiny result slides, rather a discussion of current roadblocks. The workshops take place from 5-7pm and are usually attended by 20-30 people working in the particular field. Past meetings were on ‘Modelling Renewables’, ‘Value of Storage’, ‘Energy Trading’ and ‘Hydrogen’. My roadblock was how to quantify the value of energy storage and the advice from experts of Pivot Power, Aurora, RenewablesUK, and others came in very handy.
Last week’s workshop (21st February) was already our fourth one and focussed on the future role of ‘Hydrogen’ in the UK. 20 to 30 attendees (MScs, PhDs, researchers, NGOs, industry), discussed with speakers from academia (Imperial, UCL), consulting (Element Energy, E4Tech), industry (ITM Power) and policy (BEIS) about the current roadblocks to decarbonising energy, transport, heat and industry with hydrogen. The event was followed by drinks at Eastside where students could network with professionals and continue the discussion.
Power Swarm thereby supports Imperial’s research network and fosters exchange of research insights on energy across departments, connects Imperial’s research community to the wider academic and (most importantly) industry and policy community working on energy, and establishes a forum for students to network among each other, with the Imperial community, and with industry and policy experts.
Power Swarm has already more than 200 members in the energy sector. If you think you could benefit from the network, join!
We would like to extend our thanks to the Graduate School for supporting this Research Community Fund activity.
The first Power Swarm workshop on Modelling Renewables on 18th October 2018.The fourth Power Swarm workshop on Hydrogen on 21st February 2019.
On Sunday the 17th of March 2019, the first-year PhD students from the Bioengineering Department enjoyed an active day out which started with a go-karting race in Sandown Park and culminated in a joyful social over dinner at Franco Manca in Earl’s Court. The students, who organised the outing on the WhatsApp group they created at the beginning of the year, sought to reinforce the professional ties and personal bonds they developed since the first social at the beginning of February. The event was made possible thanks to funding obtained through the Imperial College London Graduate School from the Research Community Fund, for which the students are very grateful.
The day out started at 1 P.M. when the students met at the South Kensington Campus to catch a minibus ride they’d booked, and headed out for Sandown Park. The bus quickly filled with a variety of overlapping conversations with topics ranging from technical comparisons of experimental methodologies to the importance of engaging as Teaching Assistants for one’s own self-development. Such conversations promote collaboration: as an example, a professional connection between two students which emerged in the previous social event resulted in one’s participation in the other’s lab work as a pilot subject – allowing them to further tune their experimental design through discussion other peers. As one student put it: “It’s also nice to connect with people who I might be able to collaborate with – providing opportunities for similar connections to occur is essential and may result in fruitful collaborations and exchanges of perspectives of the challenges PhD students face daily”.
As the minibus approached the venue, those that had been go-karting before shared their accounts of previous experiences. The weather gave some signs of worsening before clearing up, fortunately – the track was just made humid enough to make the spin-outs funnier to recount on the minibus on the way back. The student engaged in the race showing their competitive spirits and very much enjoyed the challenge of handling the karts in damp conditions. The event ended with pizzata – Italian for a pizza get together – in Franco Manca at Earl’s Court, where the room filled with friendly conversation.
Indeed, aside from the aspect of providing an opportunity to develop professional relationships for direct scientific collaboration, a very important aspect of social interaction is to web a support network made of personal relationships between the students. This network enables students to manage any work-related anxiety, stress or loneliness by having a go-to person in a similar professional situation to them. The event was designed to facilitate a combination of the tension-releasing adrenaline-inducing sporting activity and the relaxed and informal follow-on dinner and was a great success! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day out, as one student’s reaction reveals: “We all had a fantastic time, relaxing, having fun and forgetting about work for a few hours! Very much looking forward to seeing my colleagues again for another event in a few weeks’ time!”
Kai and Laura are engineering PhD students at Imperial College. They met last year in Tokyo on the Global Fellows Programme and have since started a social business together.
By Laura Braun
In March 2018, Kai and I attended the Global Fellows Programme run by Tokyo Tech and Imperial College. The theme of the programme was: “Innovation to eradicate poverty” and brought together 40 students who share an interest in humanitarian work. The programme was based in a brutalist student accommodation set in a forest in Hachi-oji, and on arrival we were welcomed with green tea, sake and sushi. Over the course of the week, we heard from guest speakers, participated in team-building activities, and developed solutions to poverty-related challenges.
The cohort was divided up into teams, each of which came up with some incredible solutions, ranging from a fridge-station for reducing fish waste, to an “education bus” that improved literacy rates in Senegal. My team came up with a medical app that allowed health professionals to record disease outbreaks in developing countries, and Kai’s team developed a smartphone microscope for diagnosing diseases. Although Kai and I were on different teams, we saw that our ideas could potentially be merged into one solution; a smartphone microscope that together with an app, would have the ability to diagnose and record diseases. Soon enough, our business idea was born! What we did not know is that exactly one year later we would be pitching this idea and winning £15,000.
Having spent a week with likeminded people, we all left feeling inspired, empowered, and with many new friends. We continued to stay in touch and although the programme was over, the solutions we had developed stayed in our minds. Kai and I often discussed how we could turn our idea to reality, so we started prototyping and after a few slow months, we had a tool that could detect parasites in water.
A few weeks later, we saw a flyer for the Venture Catalyst Challenge (VCC) and decided to apply to the 7-week accelerator programme. We were accepted and thanks to the Enterprise Lab our idea very quickly developed into a focused business: Capta is a handheld microscope that, together with an app, automatically diagnoses parasitic worms in stool samples. Parasitic worms affect 1.7 billion people worldwide, and our vision is to make diagnostics available to everyone in low-resource settings. The VCC allowed us to build momentum for this project, which is exactly what we needed.
After one week of intense pitching, we somehow came out as the winners of the Social Impact track at the VCC, as well as the IGHI Student Challenges Competition! This was a game changer. Winning meant that others believed in our idea, but more importantly gave us confidence to continue our work on Capta. So what’s next? The £15,000, will enable us to further develop our product and test it using real samples in sub-Saharan Africa. The thought that our product could one day be used to diagnose parasitic worms in a health clinic gives is our driving force. Although this achievement is thanks to so many people, our idea was ultimately born in Hachi-oji where the Graduate School provided a space to develop innovative research ideas for poverty alleviation, and for that we are incredibly grateful!
Institute of Global Health Innovation, student challenge winners. Credit: Owen Billcliffe
by Jemimah-Sandra Samuel, PhD student in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering
My PhD in Under 500 Words
When people think about oil and gas, they think of climate change. But let us imagine for an instant that the exploration of oil and gas has no effect on the earth and its habitats, even more so the use of oil and gas products. Then surely, we will be looking out for better ways to harness its exploration and production. This is the basis for my research which is largely pertinent to developing countries where the means to engage cleaner energy technologies is still emerging, and or in developed nations where there is a current shift from oil towards a cleaner energy source (gas).
People require gas to heat up homes, cook meals, and perhaps fuel vehicles. This gas comes from beneath the earth’s surface, from rock structures underneath the ground; reservoirs beyond human reach or possible survival. Consequently, to produce and utilise gas on earth’s surface, high-quality equipment and machinery costing several million pounds are set-up and sent to underground gas reserves, with the prospect of retrieving this energy resource. Although this exploration is orchestrated by people, petroleum engineers, whom themselves cannot go underground, petroleum engineers ensure that every trip by any equipment to petroleum reservoirs are backed by the supplementary
capacity to collect information about the conditions and behaviours of the reservoirs. Processing this information among other uses includes exploiting them to create possible images and patterns of the petroleum reservoirs’ behaviour. These images and behaviours form models which prove resourceful to petroleum engineers in predicting future behaviours of reservoirs, in addition to helping oil and gas engineers manage oil and gas assets during their production life.
Nevertheless, what can be expected when the underground home of these energy resources is muddled with intricate structures and structural irregularities, heterogeneity? Well, this translates to longer processing time in generating reservoir models; thereby delaying factbased decision-making as well as investment opportunities. And that is
exactly where my research comes in. My PhD focuses on using mathematical methods and coding to improve the speed at which petroleum engineers can develop models that depict petroleum reservoirs. More so, with speed-ups in orders of magnitude above the actual time taken to model petroleum reservoirs by existing techniques. With findings from my research, it is anticipated that oil and gas engineers will not have to wait for ages to build and get results on reservoir models. Needless to say, petroleum companies will not have to delay the advent of taking pertinent decisions that translate to profits in millions of pounds or even taking decisions before having the facts to support them.
We already have some proof of concept model and hopefully, petroleum engineers and explorationists can get results on their oil and gas assets 10, 100, 1000 and maybe 100,000 times quicker than before.
by Sarah Hayes, PhD student in the School of Public Health
How can we maintain mans’ best friendship?
Here in the UK we think of dogs as mans’ best friend. But in some regions of the world they can be our deadliest enemy.
Meet Amos (name changed to protect identity).
He’s a 5-year-old boy living in rural Tanzania.
Ten days ago, he was bitten by a rabid dog.
Anyone exposed to rabies through a bite, scratch or lick from an infected animal must receive treatment immediately. A course of 3 vaccinations (known as post-exposure prophylaxis or ‘PEP’) will effectively protect a person from this deadly virus. But they must be given as soon as possible, ideally within 24 hours of the bite. Once signs of disease develop there is no effective treatment and you’re condemned to a painful, distressing death.
Amos hasn’t had these vaccinations.
Why?
Because in rural Tanzania, access to healthcare can be extremely challenging. Sometimes it’s a lack of awareness of the risks that stops people seeking treatment. At other times it’s a lack of access to healthcare. In Amos’s case the nearest hospital able to provide PEP was over 2 hours away.
Typical Road conditions
Transport costs alone can be prohibitive to some families. Add on the price of treatment and you begin to understand why an estimated 59,000 people a year(1) are still dying of this preventable disease.
So, how can we protect children like Amos?
Vaccination of domestic dogs plays a key part. Whilst any mammal can be infected with rabies, domestic dogs are responsible for up to 99% of human rabies cases (2). If we reduce the level of rabies in dogs, we reduce the level in humans.
However, the benefits of dog vaccination campaigns can be compromised if rabies is circulating in other animals. Our research shows that in southern Tanzania where Amos lives, almost 50% of recently reported animal rabies cases have been in jackals. These jackals may have been infected by rabid dogs, but rabies could also be passing from jackal to jackal. Understanding the role that different species play in rabies transmission is vital in implementing effective control strategies. If rabies is being maintained in wildlife, vaccination of domestic dogs alone may not be enough.
Using a combination of ongoing surveillance, statistical analysis and mathematical modelling, my research is investigating the role of different species in rabies transmission in southern Tanzania. These techniques allow us to untangle the part each species is playing in virus transmission and to consider both the short- and long-term effectiveness of different control strategies. This is vital if we are to stamp out rabies from these communities and keep it out.
Thankfully, Amos did ultimately receive his vaccinations. But not everybody will be so lucky. Which is why it’s so important that we tackle rabies at its source and prevent people from being exposed in the first place. And if we can achieve this then who knows, maybe one day people the world over will be able to think of dogs as their best friends.
References
Hampson K, Coudeville L, Lembo T, Sambo M, Kieffer A, Attlan M, et al. Estimating the Global Burden of Endemic Canine Rabies. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2015;9(4).
World Health Organization. WHO | Rabies. Who. 2017; Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs099/en/
by Oluwalogbon Akinnola, PhD student in the Department of Bioengineering
The Other Hand Model
If the first thing you think of when you hear the phrase ‘hand model’ is David Duchovny in the 2001 film Zoolander, then congratulations on your excellent taste. Unfortunately, however, no one was willing to fund a PhD researching his performance. No, in the world of Biomechanics hand model means something different yet no less appealing.
Our hands are how we communicate and manipulate the world around us. Feeding ourselves, checking the bathwater, even holding the medium this text is printed on: we use our hands to keep us healthy, happy, and safe. Understandably, this multifunctional system is complex. One quarter of the bones in the body are in the hands. They controlled by an intricate network of muscles and nerves that provide the most tactile feedback in the body and let us do everything from handstands to card tricks. It is this complexity that makes it difficult to find a solution when things go wrong. Hand injury accounts for almost a fifth of cases at A&Es across the country and the UK spends over £100million a year treating them. Osteoarthritis of the hand affects at least 1.56 million people in the UK and there is no known cure. Understanding exactly how the hand works is vital to finding appropriate solutions to these problems.
My research is concerned with creating an accurate representation of the human hand. Specifically, I’m using mathematical equations and experimental data to create a computer simulation that will replicate the behaviour of the hand in various conditions. This will allow us to investigate nonhealthy hands and gain insight into how to heal them. The model I have been working on is an inverse kinematic model. This means that it works out the forces inside the hand from the movements, or kinematics, of the hand. For example, what is the force on your wrist when you pick up a cup? Motion capture, the same technology Andy Serkis used to give us Gollum, is used to provide the motion input for the model and the results are verified using cadaveric testing and electromyography (EMG).
A hand model ready for motion capture with EMG sensors and reflective markers.
EMG is the detection of the electrical signal produced by your muscles when they move and gives an indication of how much effort the muscle is exerting. In cadaveric testing, we apply forces to the tendons in a hand and measure the kinematics. Imagine Thing from The Addam’s Family but with pulleys. I compare the signal patterns and applied forces to the model results to verify that the model. With all three in agreement, I can conclude that the model is representative of the hand. Thus, it can be used to simulate the effects of surgery and rehabilitation to find the best solutions to hand injuries and diseases. Solutions that could change millions of lives for the better. This hand model may not be wearing diamond ring but I think it pretty exquisite.
by Stephanie Martin, MRes student in the Department of Life Sciences
Dear Present
Dear Sister,
I recently had an experience which reminded me of the stories Grandma used to tell us. I was hiding in what I thought was an animal’s den after being chased by water-raiders through the desert. The den turned out to be a large chamber, full of nothing except hundreds and hundreds of binders and a sign which said ‘The Daintree Rainforest – Lest We Forget.’
Do you remember what Grandma used to tell us about the Daintree? That luscious mythical jungle that used to inhabit these lands in Australia that we never really believed ever existed. I have included in this letter an old photograph that I found in an album marked ‘2019’, everything she told us about is there; trees too tall to climb, six-foot tall birds of electric blue running through the undergrowth, flowers, butterflies, and frogs… they’re all there.
The binders were full of scientific research from ages past. One paper caught my attention, ‘An Investigation into the Physiology of Trees and Lianas under Experimental Drought Conditions – by Stephanie Martin.’ I read the paper, taking in the (extremely sophisticated) statistical analyses and reading the (detailed and worthy of a distinction) manuscript written by this long since departed Master’s student. ‘Access to the rainforest canopy was gained via a crane’ she writes, ‘measurements were taken from tree species under standard tropical rainforest conditions, as well as those included in the drought experiment.’ I am jealous of this person’s existence in a time when they had to simulate drought conditions when we have lived through it our whole lives!
She goes on to detail her research, which I think you will find interesting. An instrument called a porometer was used to measure stomatal conductance; the rate of carbon dioxide entering and water vapour exiting the leaves via pores called stomata. The drought experiment covered 0.4ha and was evidently constructed using a series of clear-panel plastic roofing structures.
I’ll skip over the Results and Discussion sections, which were written in August 2019, and share with you the passage that has affected me most;
‘The simulated drought conditions reflect a possible future where seasonal rainforests experience hotter and longer dry seasons as a result of climate change. This project is important as global temperatures are set to increase by at least 2 °C degrees by the year 2100 (Raftery et al., 2017). It is essential that we assess the impact this warming effect may have on carbon sinks such as tropical rainforests in order to formulate management plans and influence governments and corporations to take action to prevent dangerous warming scenarios.’
It’s difficult to comprehend the magnitude of failure our ancestors caused when they ignored scientists calling for action to prevent climate change, resulting in a world now where people kill one another for water, and where rainforests are nothing but ancient history.
People require gas to heat up homes, cook meals, and perhaps fuel vehicles. This gas comes from beneath the earth’s surface, from rock structures underneath the ground; reservoirs beyond human reach or possible survival. Consequently, to produce and utilise gas on earth’s surface, high-quality equipment and machinery costing several million pounds are set-up and sent to underground gas reserves, with the prospect of retrieving this energy resource. Although this exploration is orchestrated by people, petroleum engineers, whom themselves cannot go underground, petroleum engineers ensure that every trip by any equipment to petroleum reservoirs are backed by the supplementary
