Tag: imperialcollegelondon

Global Fellows Programme “Innovation to Eradicate Poverty”, a rich educational and cultural experience in Japan!

By Vasiliki Kioupi, PhD student in the Centre for Environmental Policy

Doing my research on Transformative Education for a Sustainable Society I always thought about visiting Japan. Not only because the Global Action Plan on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) was launched during the UNESCO World Conference in Aichi-Nagoya in 2014 but also because during the decade for ESD (2005-2014), which was initially proposed by the government of Japan to UNESCO, I was a classroom teacher actively engaged in Environmental Education Projects with my students in Greece.

When I saw the opportunity for the Global Fellows Programme themed “Innovation to Eradicate Poverty” advertised by the Imperial College Graduate School in collaboration with Tokyo Institute of Technology, I was intrigued to apply. I strongly believe that Poverty Eradication, currently Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #1 in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda, is a global challenge clearly linked with how the society, the economy and the environment function and in order to arrive to a thorough solution, access to quality education is the key. The better part of this Programme was that I could also apply for a research visit to a Tokyo Tech lab, provided a Professor had agreed to act as a supervisor during my stay.

The Global Fellows Programme took place in Hachi-oji, a quiet suburb of Tokyo, from March 5 to 9 2018 and the venue was the Inter-University Seminar House, an all-inclusive facility on top of a hill. During the first-day of activities we attended lectures on the theme, did ice-breaker presentations and formed teams of four, comprised of both Imperial College and Tokyo Tech PhD students using effective team development and team work techniques. Following, we participated in team building activities to boost mutual understanding and effective communication and collaboration, before we started to work on our project to tackle poverty. During the activities we became familiar with each other and we developed strong bonds mainly because of our common interest to empower people through education. So our team was named EduPower! We were an international and interdisciplinary team of two Indonesians Mira and Albert (a Materials and a Computer Scientist), Ashley, a Scottish Bioscientist and myself, a Greek Social scientist, with diverse and valuable skills to contribute to our project. We had the most productive time working on our idea, a platform for collaboration in the education sector and we took pride on the poster we prepared and presented.

The seminar provided opportunities for cultural experiences as well, such as the Japanese puppet performance and the student lead outing to Takao Mountain. The Programme culminated with an amazing farewell event at the Ishikawadai area of Tokyo Tech O-okayama campus, featuring amazing talks, delicious sushi and traditional Japanese drinks, followed by karaoke at a nearby club. I was also able to witness the sakura (cherry blossom), one of the most spectacular sights Japan can offer to the visitor.

I highly encourage all students who are interested in enhancing their research and also creating memorable experiences to apply to similar opportunities provided by the Graduate school. The benefits to my personal development, network expansion and team-working skills were immense. The possibility of a research visit is also an invaluable experience for all PhD students to widen their perspectives. To read more about my research visit in Professor Abe’s lab please follow the link to my personal website.

Three things I learnt at the Global Postgraduate Retreat

by Selina Cao

This January I signed up for the Global Postgraduate Retreat – Impact and influence at Cumberland Lodge, Great Windsor Park. It is such an elegant lodge with long royal history. This is my first retreat experience and I would like to share with you the three things I learnt from it.

Bold and systematic answer for why

This retreat helps me start to think early in my academic career why I am doing what I am doing now – the potential outcomes and impact of my research. While you might think that we have this figured out already when we applied for Ph.D. programs or when we started our research, however, this retreat enables me to think more boldly and systematically how my research can make a difference not only in my chosen field but also, more importantly, for the whole society and human beings. Specifically, I found the four-audience framework (academic, business, government, and public) very helpful in guiding me to develop my impact statement and strategies for different audience. The group-based and interactive activities further deepened our understanding of our own research. For example, we were asked to draw our own impact statement and then present to team members in a straightforward and plain manner. Since the students came from a variety of disciplines, we are also developing our communication skills through describing our research and impact in a way that anyone without a related background can understand. This mirrors the real time scenario since most audiences in real life possess less knowledge in your field. For example, how can we convince government officials with less scientific background to provide funding by framing our research impact in an easy-to-understand manner and in line with their political objectives? What’s more, interactions and peer-learning enabled us to further refine our initial plan and expand our impact. In the end, answering this why question boldly and systematically built up my confidence and motivated me to make a contribution.

Real-life exercises for how

One of the most precious parts of this retreat is that the learning is very interactive and situated. Instead of walking through slides after slides of normative guidance, we are learning through real life cases and working in different teams to solve problems originated from our own research. For example, during the first day, each group was asked to provide detailed plan to engage one of the four audiences for a real life project called “Tiger Toilets”, a no-frills latrine which uses composting worms to convert human waste into useful fertiliser. The principle investigator of this “Tiger Toilets” project gave us feedbacks on our results after our presentations. For the second day, each group was asked to pick one research topic from their own team members’ fields and try to present to four audiences for funding. The one-hour preparation time put us under huge pressure. This activity is organized in a competition format and all judges are acting in a very professional and real-life setting. During the interactive exercise, we developed our negotiation and communication skills. I still clearly remember all the tough questions we obtained during the competition. Being the only Ph.D. student from business school with research interests in Entrepreneurship, I think the experiences I can gain from this competition are no fewer than the Dragon’s Den or Shark Tank pitching. Key takeaway is the importance of understanding audience’s need: different strategies for different audiences! Knowing your research is important but knowing how to sell your idea is equally important. The winner is the one who secures the most funding and luckily our group won the competition with a box of chocolate!

Opportunities arising from diversity and interactions

Lastly, this retreat impressed me with the backgrounds of the participants in terms of their nationalities and chosen disciplines. Diversity entails great opportunities to expand knowledge base, build network, and innovate through interdisciplinary collaboration. Personally, being the only one from business school, this is my first time getting exposed to so many interesting scientific research outside my field at the same time. Through discussion, their studies inspired me to think differently about the taken-for-granted principles in my field that no one ever asked me before. We were very often amazed by so many interesting facts about cultural differences. We were also enjoying each other’s company through playing Ping Pong, table tennis and other recreational games. Quite many students had a walk to the beautiful park and enjoyed a moment of quietness outside busy city life. These close interactions and knowledge sharing in such a relaxing environment indeed provided us great potentials for future collaborations. For the final part, we were asked to present in any format a summary of the learning from this retreat and our group provided this poem. Hope you enjoyed it.

We went to Cumberland house the 22nd and 23rd,

To do a bunch of stuff of which we never heard.

Making our plans bigger and bolder,

Thinking about all our stakeholders.

We heard about cancers, faeces and germs,

All gobbled up by hungry tiger worms.

We all stand in lines, us girls and us boys,

Trying to speed network despite the noise.

We worked hard and fast, ok with mistakes,

Worried we might miss out on the next round of cakes.

We all tried our best but when ready to can it,

We got another nudge from Bethan, Amy, Valentina, Elena or Janet.

Half of us met on the way from the station,

Proving invaluable for ensuring negotiation.

Connecting made here are no coincidence,

As we go out into the world to have impact and influence.

All in all, I had a fantastic time in this impact retreat and met many new friends there. I really appreciate ICL for providing me such a great training program. And I am very grateful for all the knowledge and encouragement from my teammates. Now I know who I can reach out to for a coffee break at campus through our “Martians of Cumberlodge” WhatsApp group chat!

Next Global Postgraduate Retreat – Impact and influence is from 19 July 2018 – 20 July 2018. So hurry up before it is fully booked!

Theoretical Physics Student Research Seminars, Winter Term, Oct – Dec 2017

by Scott Melville

The Theoretical Physics cohort are a reclusive bunch. But nothing brings them out of their shells better than the promise of knowledge (and pizza). Thanks to the generous support of the Graduate School, this term saw the Theoretical Physics PhD students come together each week for a heart-warming exchange of ideas and discussion of how their research is progressing, bringing together not only the graduate students, but also a great number of Master’s students and postdocs to share in the fun.

The seminars took place every Thursday from 17.00-18.00 in Huxley 503. On average, 16 PhD students, 15 Masters students and 2 postdocs attended.

One particularly successful session was a Master’s students Q&A, in which the current undergraduate students could chat informally with the PhD students about their favourite physics, and what it was like doing a PhD. This really helped solidify a sense of community among the cohort.

The event was given visibility through posters in the department and a weekly email. The presentations were recorded, and made available online through a dedicated folder on Imperial’s Panopto system. This not only allows participants to relive the heady joy of the event, but also serves as a useful tool for the speakers to review their own performance and think critically about how they can improve.

The invaluable support of the Graduate School was acknowledged both on the posters advertising the event, and at the beginning of each seminar.

Overall, the seminars succeeded in bringing together the cohort and establishing lasting links both with each other and with the wider physics community at Imperial. We look forward to continuing the Student Seminar series long into the future.

Meet the Scientist – Open Days at the Division of Brain Science

By Luigi Montibeller

The laboratories of Brain Division of Imperial College London (ICL) opened its doors on the 23rd and 25th of October to display it’s state-of-the-art technology, experiments and research through interactive talks and guided tours run by its researchers, specializing in the field of neurodegenerative diseases.

More than 100 people including patients, relatives and members of the public attended the event. The tour and presentations gave attendees the opportunity to talk to leading researchers and medical professionals, exploring the latest research, tackling conditions like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and brain injury.

A presentation about each specific neurological disorder was given followed by a visit through the labs and the Brain bank. For example, visitors witnessed the dissection of a human brain by Dr. Steve Gentleman, highlighting brain function and it’s impairment in such diseases.

With additional ‘hands-on’ demonstrations, the participants had the unique opportunity to participate in experiments that researchers conducted inside the labs. These included learning about cell culture, immunohistochemistry and microscopy.

The event received great feedback from attendees. With comments like “Very well organized. Complicated research presented in plain English. Very enthusiastic stuff. Thank you all”, “Super day: excellent, translated well for lay man’s language”.

A diary of the LERU Doctoral Summer School

by Holly Jenkins

A diary of the LERU Doctoral Summer School 

My name is Holly, I’m a second-year PhD student in the Section of Neonatal Medicine. This July I was fortunate enough to represent Imperial College at the League of European Research Universities (LERU) Doctoral Summer School, held at University of Zurich. LERU is “an association of 21 leading research-intensive universities that share the values of high-quality teaching within an environment of internationally competitive research.” The topic this year was: Citizen Science – nexus between research and public engagement. If you are scratching your heads wondering what citizen science is it can be broadly described as the involvement of non-professional scientists in research. This can range from small-scale projects like bird watching to large-scale international projects like Zooniverse (https://www.zooniverse.org) and due to the rapid boom in technologies, citizen science is becoming available to a much wider audience.

The aims of the LERU Summer School were twofold: to explore the importance of engaging citizens in research and to highlight the ethical, technical and legal issues associated with doing so. Over the week, we examined various definitions of citizen science, designed our own projects and ate a lot of cheese!

Day 1:

I had high hopes of exploring Zurich city centre before going to the LERU Welcome Event …but after my crazy experience on the Piccadilly Line at 2.30am to Heathrow, I successfully managed to sleep away my free hours in the hotel.

After a short, yet incredibly wet walk to the welcome event we were greeted by the organisers. As the evening progressed and the ‘organised fun’ became more elaborate we learnt more and more about each other including several embarrassing PhD stories!

Day 2:

Monday morning kicked off with presenting our PhD projects in the style of the ‘Three Minute Thesis’ competition. In the afternoon, we listened to two keynote speakers. Professor Bruno Strasser’s talk “The Rise of the Citizen Sciences: Rethinking Public Participation in Science” focused on whether citizen science projects will change the way we ‘do’ science (answer = yes!) Professor Effy Vayena’s talk “Citizen Science: Ethical Challenges and Opportunities” then highlighted the issues of quality, accountability, trust and autonomy.

Left: Identifying our unique selling points which ranged from being confident to thinking outside of the box. Right: One of the keynote speakers, Professor Bruno Strasser.

 

In the evening, we travelled to another campus – Irchel, where a Citizen Science Exhibition was running. A number of university projects were showcased (http://www.grc.uzh.ch/en/focus/exhibition/CitizenScience.html), a personal favourite of mine was a project involving citizens in mapping plant diversity around the city. The aim of this project is to show the public that the city air is filled with plant seeds that repopulate very quickly. Plant trays filled with sterilized soil are distributed to citizens and are placed somewhere in the city – the garden, in a school, on a balcony or on a roof terrace. It is then simply a waiting game! Photos of plants growing spontaneously in their trays can be uploaded to an online platform where it is possible to compare them to their neighbours or other people in the city.

After the Exhibition, we had a BBQ which stayed outside for several hours before a freak thunderstorm caused us to seek refuge inside or brave the weather with broken umbrellas and sodden shoes.

Top: Citizen Science Exhibition at Irchel Campus. Note the commissioned art on the sides of each poster – such a fab idea! Bottom Left: Agnieszka, Judi and Ray taking shelter during the monstrous thunderstorm.

Day 3:

On Tuesday, we attended one of three workshops: Improv, Storytelling or Crowdfunding. I chose Storytelling run by Dr Mirko Bischofberger, a respected filmmaker who works in science communication and science policy. The workshop was designed to improve and apply basic storytelling concepts to our scientific writing. In the evening, we went to the Uetilberg mountain for a traditional fondue dinner. Post cheese and veal, we decided to attempt the 30 min ‘walk’ (if you can call it that) down the mountain…It’s safe to say we all hurt the next day!

Left: The beginning of a very cheesy night. Right: The panoramic view from the top of Uetilberg mountain.

Day 4:

HACK DAY! Today was dedicated to working on our Citizen Science Projects. We laughed when one of the organisers said we could stay at the Graduate Campus until 11.30pm….until it got to 10.30pm and my group was still there suffering with acute cabin fever! Thankfully we managed to turn our alarm clock idea into a demo app (LetsWakeApp) in under 24 hours!

We chose to focus on an alarm app because over the last few years there has been an explosion of sleep related apps. There is however, a lack of research on the types of sounds that wake you up and how they make you feel once you’re awake. The LetsWakeApp project aims to bridge this gap in knowledge by allowing citizens to rate random alarm sounds each morning e.g. did this sound make you happy or sad? Without giving too much away, through citizen participation, machine-based learning, and some snazzy statistical methods, the app will provide the user with a personalised alarm that wakes them up in a positive mood.

The LetsWakeApp team in action.

Day 5:

After some last-minute pep talks we presented the LetsWakeApp project to a panel of judges that included the likes of Professor Deketelaere (Secretary General of LERU), Professor Kevin Schawinski (co-founder of Galaxy Zoo) and Professor Daniel Wyler (former Vice President for Medicine and Science) Despite some tough competition, our project was picked by the jury and we won 2500 CHF (£1,900), to develop our project!! In the evening, the winning teams (LetsWakeApp and AstbeSTOP – the student choice) presented at the Graduate School’s Annual Ceremony.

Left: The LetsWakeApp Team. Middle: Ray showcasing a demo of our app. Right: Shauna (L) and I (R) celebrating the LetsWakeApp win.

Day 6:

A morning city tour was met with great enthusiasm by the LERU group on our last day. Finally, after an intensive week, we could actually explore the city. Our tour guide Julian, who was as witty as he was knowledgeable, took us on a whirlwind tour. Did you know Lenin lived in Zurich for a few months after he was exiled from Russia? Apparently, he still has a Swiss bank account with 50 CHF in…

Alas like all good things, the LERU Summer School drew to a close. On reflection, I had an incredible time that I know will lead to some very exciting opportunities (keep your eyes peeled for the LetsWakeApp).

Left: The city of Zurich. Right: My first experience of a double decker tram.