Blog posts

Doctoral Student Welcome Event 2025

On Wednesday 15 October, the Early Career Researcher Institute hosted a Doctoral Student Welcome Event on the South Kensington Campus!

This 2-hour event included:

  • A welcome from the Early Career Researcher Institute, Provost Professor Peter Haynes, and Imperial Union President Nico Henry.
  • A presentation on the programme of support offered by the Early Career Researcher Institute
  • A Q&A panel discussion with current doctoral students
  • Tea, coffee, cakes and an opportunity to network with other doctoral students
  • Support Services stands

It was fantastic to see so many of Imperial’s new doctoral students at this event and at the Doctoral Student Welcome event held at the White City Campus.

A reminder that we also encourage you to complete our online induction which takes you through our suite of learning, development and support provision available to you.

 

ECRI Awards and Celebration 2025

The Early Career Researcher Institute is delighted to share the highlights from this year’s ECRI Awards and Celebration, held on Tuesday 16 September 2025 at Eastside!

This event, held during Postdoc Appreciation Week, celebrated the outstanding contributions of Imperial’s postdocs and fellows, recognising their vital role in fostering a positive and supportive research environment. The celebration included a lunch, the ECRI Awards ceremony and an opportunity to network with colleagues from across Imperial.

Award Winners

Creating a Positive Research Environment Award

  • Zhenzhu Li – Department of Materials
  • Lyes Kahouadji – Department of Chemical Engineering

Supporting Research Staff and Students Award

  • Fabio De Sousa Ribeiro – Department of Computing

Postdoc and Fellows Reps Team Award

  • Department of Life Sciences: Julia Sanchez Garrido, Alex Cocker, Satya Prakash, Anna Bajur, Hannah Jagoe, Smitha Maretvadakethope, Rahwa Osman, Valentina Carannante, Jessica Williams and Katie Willis

Postdoc and Fellows Champions Award

  • Stella Pedrazzini – Department of Materials

The ECRI team would like to extend their congratulations to all winners, finalists and nominees – all of whom have had a positive impact on those around them and the research culture at Imperial.

Faculty of Medicine’s Rising Scientist Day

Rising Scientist Day is an event hosted by the Faculty of Medicine, celebrating the innovative research and achievements of postgraduate students. It provides a valuable platform for students to present their work, exchange ideas, and foster interdisciplinary collaboration across the scientific community.

The following post summarises key highlights and reflections from the day.

Yuan Wang, PhD Student

I was honoured to present my poster on how the gut microbiome modulates metabolic diseases through its metabolites. My research focuses on integrating metagenomic and metabolomic data to better understand host–microbiome interactions. It was an exciting opportunity to share my findings with peers and faculty, and I’m grateful to have received a prize for my work. As science continues to move toward interdisciplinary approaches, I was especially inspired by conversations with researchers from different backgrounds who also study the gut microbiome. Many thanks to the organizers, judges, and everyone involved — I truly enjoyed the experience.

Aya Elemeligy, PhD Student

I am grateful to have attended the Rising Scientist Day event and participate in the poster presentation session; it was inspiring to see an incredible range of work beyond my usual area of study. My own poster focused on “Regulation of Haematopoietic Stem Cells in aging and stress haematopoiesis”, it was great to be given the opportunity to discuss my research with others. I am also appreciative of receiving a prize for my poster and having my work recognised amongst so many impressive projects.

Daniel Sin, PhD Student

I had a great time on Rising Scientist Day! It felt really rewarding to present my PhD work to the rest of the department and share Science that I felt passionate about, and it was great to hear other’s feedback on my project. The feedback was useful for my own considerations on what I should prioritize for future directions. It was also really cool to learn about what other types of projects other PhD students were working on. Looking forward to the next one!

Kavita Gulati, PhD Student

My name is Kavita Gulati, and I am a 2nd Year PhD Student, working within the Department of Immunology and Inflammation. I am grateful to have been awarded a prize for my poster “Novel Therapeutic Targets in Glomerulonephritis and Renal Vasculitis”. This was a much-needed confidence boost, as I had recently returned following a year-long maternity leave.

I felt this day was a great opportunity to interact with other students both within and outside of my department. I particularly enjoyed the thought-provoking discussion that came from presenting my poster. I found presenting my work to an audience outside of my speciality helped gain a refreshing perspective.

I also really enjoyed the aspirational 3-minute thesis competition, and I loved seeing the breadth of research that is currently being undertaken in the faculty. It was particularly useful to see the different presentation styles and approaches to summarising years of work. I look forward to hopefully presenting next year when I am also a final year student.

Samuel Channon-Wells, PhD Student

I thought Rising Scientist Day 2025 was a highly rewarding event, definitely exceeding my expectations. Presentations across the board were high quality, and the three-minute-thesis presentations were a particular highlight. I enjoyed the array of work on display, as well as the diverse presentation style.

As a PhD student the day was especially useful. It provided great insights from colleagues into effective research communication, as well as potential new approaches I could use in the future. It was also really enjoyable to see other students condense their years of work into concise, interesting, and often funny presentations. I also found preparing for my own three-minute-thesis presentation an incredibly valuable opportunity. Having to focus on clarity and effective scientific story telling over technical complexity was a challenging but useful experience.

The event was also great for meeting other researchers across a range of disciplines, although I think the ambition should be for even greater participation and engagement from within the various departments! It was a fantastic day and I think lots of colleagues and peers would benefit from attending!

Sorcha O’Conner, PhD Student

I’m a final-year PhD student at the Centre for Psychedelic Research in Brain Sciences. During the Rising Scientist Day, I presented my poster on PsilOCD, a clinical trial exploring low-to-moderate doses of psilocybin for OCD. Our data showed a significant drop in symptoms that held up for two weeks after dosing, compared with placebo – an effect that wasn’t seen in participants’ co-occurring depression symptoms. It was nice to be able to converse with the other PhD students and refreshing to see posters on proteomics for Alzheimer’s and gene-editing approaches in neurodevelopment when I’m usually surrounded by clinical psychiatric research.

The judges moved among the poster sessions, offering practical feedback that helped me refine my methods description and clarify statistical details. Their comments will definitely improve how I present my findings in future conferences.

We wrapped up with drinks and snacks, and the best moments were the informal conversations—sharing challenges, milestones and our next steps. I left feeling energised and ready to apply the new ideas I picked up.

Luke Hanna, PhD Student

I’m currently researching perianal fistulising Crohn’s disease (pfCD) — a particularly challenging form of inflammatory bowel disease. In pfCD, patients develop abnormal tunnels (fistulae) between the anorectum and the skin near the anus, which are often resistant to standard medical treatments for Crohn’s disease.

To better understand the immunopathophysiology of pfCD, I’ve been working with single-cell RNA sequencing of immune cells (CD45+) isolated directly from fistula tissue. Our data reveal strong evidence for upregulation of JAK-STAT signalling, alongside increased activity of JAK-dependent cytokines such as interferon-gamma and interleukin-22.

Importantly, our gene set enrichment analysis shows that these inflammatory pathways can be downregulated in vitro using upadacitinib, a JAK-1 inhibitor — highlighting its potential therapeutic relevance in pfCD.

It was a privilege presenting this work at the Rising Scientist Day and I want to thank my amazing team: my supervisors Prof Powell, Prof Hart, and Mr Tozer, as well as Dr Laura Constable and Dr Domenico Cozzetto, whose expertise in sequencing analysis has been key to this work.

Michael Wang, PhD Student

It’s always a pleasure to connect with fellow PhD students in the cohort. During Rising Scientist Day, I was able to present my work to members of the Faculty and get valuable feedback, while keeping myself up to date on the latest research performed by my follow batchmates and fostering potential collaborations on future research projects.

It’s heartening to see students of the Faculty come together to exchanging ideas and insight and really strengthening our ties as a research community. I look forward to participating in similar events in the future.

Muteb Alatawi, PhD Student

Rising Scientist Day gave me the opportunity to present my research entitled “multi-omic characterization of T cells Dynamics in Lung Transplant Patients-Associated Aspergillosis”. The event featured various activities that made it truly valuable for research students.

The poster sessions allowed me to showcase my work and receive feedback from colleagues and judges. Additionally, meeting and networking with other students and learning about the fascinating work being conducted across different departments was incredibly enriching. These interactions sparked new ideas for my own research and opened doors for potential collaborations that could strengthen my project.

The 3-minute thesis competition was particularly engaging – watching colleagues distil complex research into concise presentations demonstrated an impressive skill in highlighting their work’s significance without technical overload, which was both educational and inspiring. The alumni talk was valuable and offered insights into academic career paths, giving me perspective as I approached my final year.

Overall, Rising Scientist Day offered excellent practice in communicating research to diverse audiences – essential for my development as a scientist.

By Muteb Alatawi | Armstrong-James Lab, Department of Infectious Disease, Faculty of Medicine.

Ravi Mehta, PhD Student

At this year’s Rising Scientist Day “3-minute thesis” competition, I presented my PhD research tackling one of the major challenges in infectious diseases: slow viral diagnostics. My work centres on ddhC, a host-derived small molecule produced in response to many viral infections. Rather than relying on PCR to detect the virus itself, detection of the body’s immune response offers a faster alternative. Using human challenge models, we’ve shown that ddhC levels rise and fall during the acute phase of viral infection. ddhC can identify viral infections across a wide range of settings – including in children, in patients from tropical regions, in spinal fluid from meningitis cases, and even in urine, raising the exciting possibility of a needle-free test.

Until now, ddhC has only been detected using costly and complex mass spectrometry. To overcome this, I’m developing aptamer-based assays. Aptamers – DNA strands that fold into specific shapes to bind their targets – have been engineered to detect ddhC and produce a fluorescent signal. This system is now being trialled in patient samples and adapted into a lateral flow format. Ultimately, this work positions ddhC as a pan-viral biomarker across different populations and biofluids, paving the way for rapid, accessible diagnostics that could help curb antibiotic misuse and support faster responses to future pandemics.

My experience of Rising Scientist Day was excellent overall. It really showcased the sheer diversity of research happening across Imperial – from fundamental science to applied clinical work – and it was inspiring to see so many different presenting styles and some truly exciting results. The event was also a great opportunity to connect with others, and develop new collaborations.

Our experience of the Early Academic Talks (EAT)

By Clara Finnigan, Postgraduate Student, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction

Research is all about collaboration and communication. However, it can be daunting to meet new researchers, especially those outside of your immediate environment. We set up Early Academic Talks (EAT) to provide a space for Imperial Early Career Researchers (ECRs) to connect and present their research, helping break down barriers for collaboration and communication. Our fourth EAT session took place on Thursday, 24th of April.

This talk series is a cross-sectional initiative, aiming to oGer the opportunity for ECRs to meet and learn about the research at Imperial in a friendly and informal environment. These events take place every month and have 2-3 ECRs presenting the research they carry out at Imperial. It was a great event in which we saw a high turnout, with the talks stimulating excellent discussions between researchers. The students and postgraduates also enjoyed the post talk social with food and drinks in the Wolfson Canteen in the Commonwealth Building.

“I found this was an amazing opportunity to practice my presenting skills and to share my next career steps as a post-doc” – Iona Davies

The importance of communication between researchers cannot be emphasised enough. Here at Imperial, essential research is happening every day but not everyone always knows about it. EAT provides the space to disseminate knowledge and build networks with other Imperial ECRs. The series helps with presentation practice, as feedback is provided in a friendly and supportive environment. The series also supports researchers to communicate their work in an accessible way to allow it to be understood across the different disciplines here at Imperial.

Here are examples of some talks we have had in the past:

  • Rutian Ding, MRes Clinical Research – “Applying metabolomics strategies to assess postprandial variability in response to two extreme diets in people at risk of cardiovascular diseases.”
  • Jia Jun Lee, PhD – “Skin wound healing models – potential targets for diabetic wound healing.”
  • Iona Davis, Post-doc – “Investigating pancreatic and CNS GIPR signalling; Implications for the treatment of metabolic disease.”
“I learnt new tools and techniques for illustration for presenting academic research such as BioRender. Moreover, meeting new connections is one of the highlights from EAT!” – Onyinye Eze

The event series so far has provided a platform to practice presenting academic work and critically analyse research in a friendly space, fostering an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment. Personally, through the series I have further developed my presenting skills and ability to discuss my PhD project in more depth and answer more challenging questions from my peers. This has simultaneously facilitated broadening my Early Career Researcher network. We hope to see more of you ECRs at our next event!

Next Event: 29 May 2025, 16:10 – 17:00 – SB Seminar Room 10A, Conference Room, Hammersmith Campus.
Event Details https://linktr.ee/earlyacademictalks

A huge thank you to the Early Career Researcher Institute as our sponsors for this talk series!

! Look out for our fliers around the Hammersmith Campus !

 

From Labs to Lunch: How the I&I PhD Networking Event Brings Us Together

By Sophie Ball and Katrina Fordwor, Department of Immunology and Inflammation

PhD students can easily get caught up in their projects, labs and work and not have the opportunity to network with other students, whether these students are from the same floor or other labs. The department for Inflammatory and Infection is spread over multiple floors, so it is easy for students to become siloed and not to interact with one another across the whole of their PhD. This is why we set up a monthly initiative to bring PhD students together in a relaxed setting. The Graduate School has granted us the opportunity to fund a monthly lunch. These events to allow PhD students to network in a casual setting, while being fuelled with some well-deserved food.

Collaborations between labs is a massive part of research, building a career and the general life of a scientist. This event was created exactly for that purpose, to allow students to gather in a communal space and interact with different labs. Having this event with lunch provided a relaxed atmosphere that allowed conversations to flow to discuss their current projects, career aspirations and identify future collaborators. I personally felt this event was a great way to speak to other students in the department and learn about the research going on, on floors just above me.

The I&I PhD Student Networking event is scheduled at lunchtime once a month, normally on the first Friday, and lasts for about an hour. This event is scheduled to continue for the remaining of the academic year, allowing these new connections to strengthen and possibly allow new research collaborations to develop. Moving forward, I hope this initiative continues to grow with this event’s participants reaching out to other students who missed out. It has the space to expand to a larger event with guest speakers and themed discussions but for now, it provides a simple yet effective way for PhD students to mingle and strengthen the academic community we are trying to achieve here at Imperial.

 

 

LMS PhD Social Evening – Sixes Social Cricket

On 14 November, the LMS PhD student committee organised a cricket night at Sixes in White City for the Institute’s PhD students. It was a fantastic opportunity for students to step away from their academic routines and connect in a fun, relaxed environment. The event was all about fostering connections between students from different groups and creating a sense of community beyond our workspaces.

The evening brought together 17 enthusiastic participants who were divided into two teams for a lively cricket match. The friendly competition was full of energy, with some surprising displays of skill and plenty of moments to laugh about. It was a fantastic opportunity for everyone to let loose and try something new, whether they were seasoned players or complete beginners.

Of course, no good event is complete without food! Between innings, we gathered for pizza, which provided the perfect opportunity to chat and get to know each other better. The casual atmosphere made it easy for students to bond and make new connections, all while enjoying a well-earned break from the busy term.

This cricket social turned out to be a fantastic way to bring people together in a setting that felt both fun and inclusive. It was particularly rewarding to see newer students finding their place in our community and leaving with smiles on their faces.

We would like to thank the Graduate School’s Postgraduate Community Fund for generously supporting this event. It’s initiatives like this that help us build stronger connections and create lasting memories. We’re looking forward to more opportunities to bring our community together in the future!

Life Sciences – Living Planet Data Challenge

By Agnes Szwarczynska, PhD Researcher at Schroeder Lab at Silwood Park

Recently, I came across a Nature article titled “Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different results from the same data sets.” It got me thinking — what if Imperial students, with expertise spanning from animal communication to microbial science, took on the same challenge? That’s how The Living Planet Data Challenge was born — an exciting three-day event that, for the first time, brought together master’s and PhD students at Silwood Park to tackle a real-world data problem.

In the first week of February, participants applied their skills in data analysis, coding, and research to address a question at the intersection of ecology, evolution and environmental conservation. The primary aim of the challenge was to foster problem-solving skills in a fun and inclusive environment — free from the pressure of grades. But despite its playful nature, it turned into something students could proudly add to their CVs. It also provided a chance to practice presenting methodologies and refine communication skills ahead of thesis vivas. For me, it was a big lesson in leading an event and everything that comes with it — securing funding, managing logistics and fostering engagement.

The event kicked off on Tuesday, February 4th, with participants tackling a problem using a publicly available dataset from eBird, a citizen science database with avian occurrence data. The challenge was set within a hypothetical scenario: as Tunisia’s newly appointed Environmental Officers, students had to assess whether the avian conservation program launched in 2017 had achieved its goals. AI tools were permitted, but participants had to justify their usage, adding an extra layer of challenge that required teams to critically evaluate their methodological choices.

[slides from the presentations of a) Jinxuan Cui, Xinting Cheng, Vicky Lin b) Yolanda Qian, Kotaro Kuroda, Rahim Dina c) Nathan Clark, Scott Tytheridge d) Saskia Pearce, Nia Potapova, Georgina Chow]

Using the eBird dataset, teams defined “success” in different ways — some focused on species diversity trends, while others analysed geographic distribution and changes in range sizes or simulated population numbers under various scenarios. From the organiser’s perspective, it was fascinating to see how different teams set out to solve the same problem by adopting very different strategies.

Over the next three days, five teams brainstormed ideas, analysed data and prepared their final presentations. Each day, they were provided with vegan and vegetarian snacks to fuel their creativity. More than just an academic exercise, the challenge served as a platform to refine scientific communication, encourage collaboration and knowledge exchange. With the two £150 prizes in vouchers for sustainable shops, teams were motivated to demonstrate that their approach was the most scientifically robust.

On the final day, teams presented their findings in 10-minute presentations, followed by a Q&A session with a panel of postdoctoral researchers. The prize in the master’s students category was awarded to Saskia Pearce, Nia Potapova and Georgina Chow for their ability to create a well-structured, compelling story and its critical interpretation. In the PhD category, the prize went to Nathan Clark and Scott Tytheridge for accounting for data collection biases and conducting a robust analysis that considered both the short- and long-term effects of the intervention.

Here, I want to thank all the teams for their hard work and determination! Special thanks to Dr. Ambre Salis, Dr. Vivienne Comyn-Platt and Dr. Balig Panossian for assessing the presentations and providing detailed feedback and to Stanislav Modrak for help with the event organisation. Lastly, this event would not have been possible without the funding provided by Imperial’s Early Career Researcher Institute, whose support brought the Living Planet Data Challenge to life.