Tag: phdlife

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Breakfast club: Making the most of your PhD experience

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.

 

Connections and Collaborations: The Global Fellows Programme on Cities of the Future. Charishma Ratnam, PhD Candidate, University of New South Wales Australia

by Charishma Ratnam, PhD Candidate, University of New South Wales, Australia

Introduction

It is becoming a household statistic: by 2050, 66% of the world’s population will live in cities[1]. This statistic holds much value for me as I pursue my research on migration (specifically in regard to refugees and asylum seekers) and how migrants settle in places. When I was given the opportunity to apply for the Global Fellows Programme: Cities of the Future with this year’s focus on health and well-being, this statistic resonated with me even more. The current state and future of our big cities has become contentious, and the programme was able to offer a space for interdisciplinary discussions to take place.

The Global Fellows Programme was held from June 10 to 15, 2018 at the Velodrome, Olympic Park, London, a place that saw much victory for England in the 2012 Olympics. Before arriving in London, each participant was placed in a team, and each team was allocated a theme for the week: health, mobility/transport, smart data/interconnectivity, housing, and business/infrastructure. These themes would form the framework for our project ideas and pitches. On entering the Velodrome, I was excited by the opportunity and motivation, as I saw the cyclists making their way around the track. The first day was about meeting and connecting with the group and the teams we were placed in. The most challenging task of the day: coming up with a team name. Our team (after much deliberation) settled on ‘The Lazy Foxes’! Lazy, defining some of the members of our group, and foxes, being the clever strategies and initiative we would take throughout the week. The second day tested our teamwork skills, where we undertook five fast-paced team-building exercises, followed by a period of reflection. After these team-building exercises, there were several outings that took place for the rest of the week. A few highlights included a visit to The Crystal – one of the world’s most sustainable buildings by Siemens, showcasing an exhibition about the future of cities – next to London Royal Docks, the Emirates Cable Car trip to North Greenwich where we were able to see the scale of redevelopments occurring in East London, and a visit to Imperial’s new White City campus.

After absorbing all the information delivered to us, we were left to our own devices. Although overwhelming and challenging, my team managed to come up with a concrete idea that focused on business and infrastructure. I gained important experience and knowledge from this collaborative process. Working together with other interdisciplinary, inter-institutional and international PhD researchers, academics and industry professionals meant that we learned a lot from each other. Delivering our final team pitch was a highlight for me – we were given feedback from a range of academics and industry professionals from different fields.

I would encourage PhD researchers to apply for similar professional development opportunities when they are offered. I was able to build networks, collaborations and connections with participants in the programme, and also benefit from the professional/personal development, team-building skills and interdisciplinary exchanges. I have gained a wider perspective on research that engages with the cities of our future, and I am interested in expanding on this area of concern further with the new friends, collaborators and research networks I have fostered at the Global Fellows Programme on Cities of the Future.

[1] https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/publications/files/wup2014-highlights.pdf.

Photos

UNSW PhD researchers (L to R): Malshika Dias, Henrique Benites and Charishma Ratnam and UNSW Visiting Researcher Daniel Lu (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore).
Cycling track at the Velodrome, Olympic Park, London.
View of East London redevelopments from the Emirates Cable Car from Emirates Royal Docks to North Greenwich.
My team that worked on a business and infrastructure idea for the week (L to R): Stephanie Hewitt (ICL), Kahar Abula (TUM), Charishma Ratnam (UNSW), Heba Awadh (ICL), Clare Hunt (ICL), Shreyash Hadke (NTU), Mayu Sakuma (TUM), Mudussir Ayub (TUM), and Christopher Voss (TUM).

 

Inter-group Bowling Event 2018

by Adrian Brown, Clinical Medicine PhD student.

We originally decided to organise a social event to try and help our fellow colleagues beat the January blues! Once we had a spare moment, and to stop the students going on a New Year’s strike, we decided to organise an after-work bowling event. We invited students from Investigative Medicine and the Division of Brain Sciences to attend the inter-group networking event on Friday 12th January 2018. We were very fortunate and extremely grateful as this event was funded by the Graduate School. Attendees were randomly divided into teams across the three bowling alleys hired and participated in some friendly competition to find the top scoring team and player. We also shared some delicious pizza and drinks. After one game, the teams were reshuffled and play resumed. While the bowling skills among the group varied Jamie was the bowling champion among the group!

Aygul Dagbasi, a 1st year PhD student in Investigative Medicine particularly enjoyed the event commenting “I had a great time at my first PhD social event! It was a fantastic way to get to know people from the lab in a more informal setting”. Katerina Petropoulou, a final year PhD student also added “I haven’t bowled in years but the event was the most fun I’ve had at a social event during my PhD”.

Thank you again to the Graduate School for funding the event. As you can see from the photographs, everyone had a lot of fun and we look forward to the next event!

 

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!