The Department recently held its first PhD Symposium, serving as the new centrepiece of our annual celebration of our research strengths and activities.
The Symposium brought together our PhD students' third year oral presentations and second year poster presentations into a single, conference-formatted two-day event, held off-site at the Babbage Theatre on the New Museums Site, with posters, lunches and refreshments in the adjoining, and newly-refurbished, Student Services Centre.
Head of Graduate Education, Dr Ross Waller, commented that: "Combining our PhD second year poster presentations with our third year research project talks in a two-day symposium has been a real success. Not only has it captured the buzz and excitement of a conference, but it also provided a wonderful snapshot of the Department's research breadth and diversity."
With the Department having launched a new Friday Seminar Series in the 2018-2019 academic year, highlighting the research of our Principal Investigators and postdocs, the PhD Symposium now also replaces our annual Research Day that normally would take place in early January. Dr Marko Hyvönen tweeted: "I think we have found the correct format for our Departmental annual meeting."
The PhD students' talks and posters are both core components of graduate training within our Department, with the students assessing their peers' efforts based on their scientific content and presentational qualities. Everyone was greatly impressed with all of the presentations and, after much deliberation, prizes were awarded as follows:
Third-year oral presentation prize winners:
- 1st Prize: Ziyue Zeng
- 2nd Prize: Ramsay Bowden
- 3rd Prize: Tom Dendooven
Second-year poster awards:
- Jasmine Cornish
- Fiona Jenkinson
- Natasha Murphy
Congratulations to the prize winners, and thanks to all our graduate students who made this first Symposium a fantastic success!