Another successful SEPnet Students’ Expo

This week the annual Students’ Expo in London provided an opportunity for summer placement students to showcase their projects while on placement through presentations and posters to over 160 employers, academics and fellow students. This year 91 students were successful in finding summer industry and research placements through SEPnet.

The event included morning and afternoon student presentations and poster sessions. Charlotte Lister, our morning speaker, talked about her career journey from SEPnet summer placement student to physics graduate to project manager at Ultra Electronics (through networking at a previous SEPnet Expo!). Students were able to network with employers and exhibitors throughout the day to discuss potential career and job opportunities.

The standard of the presentations and posters gets better every year.  As one employer put it, ‘I thought all the students were really talented and had worked on such a wide range of fascinating projects’.

This year’s keynote address was delivered by Paul Ettinger, physics graduate and Co-founder of Caffe Nero.  Paul gave an inspiring account of his diverse and entrepreneurial achievements in a talk entitled ‘The Physics of Coffee and Music’.

Congratulations to this year’s 6 poster prize winners – Alex Hunter of Queen Mary whose placement was with Black Swan; Madalina Mironiuc of Southampton (Colour Holographic); Stephanie Bennett of Royal Holloway (NPL); Grace Maxted of Kent (Tesla Engineering); Toyah Overton of Royal Holloway (University of Southampton) and Sholto Bateson of Sussex (eOsphere).  Each won a copy of Jon Butterworth’s ‘A Map of the Invisible’ sponsored by the Institute of Physics.

Alex Hunter

Madalina Mironiuc

Sholto Bateson

Stephanie Bennett

Grace  Maxted

Toyah Overton