Monthly Archives: November 2016

29Nov/16

GRADnet Class: Introduction to Public Engagement

29th November 2016GRADnet, Public EngagementSean Ryan

Introduction to Public Engagement, 21 February 2017, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS

Do you want to explore ways of sharing your research with many different audiences? Whether it’s public talks, writing in our blog, running art / science collaborations, doing some stand-up comedy or simply standing on a box in a street corner, this session will help you get started.

The day will include:

A morning session introducing Public Engagement and Outreach with examples of previous projects carried out in SEPnet physics departments
A choice of two afternoon sessions. One will be hands on training on how to write about your research for blogs and articles
The other session will be on presenting your research in an informal public setting. After this session you’ll be able to take part in events such as FameLab, Three Minute Wonder, Science Showoff, Pint of Science or Soapbox Science.

Log on to the VRE and register here. Registration deadline 11 February 2017

25Nov/16

SEPnet launches Shattering Stereotypes

25th November 2016Diversity, OutreachOutreach, Shattering StereotypesJacob Dunningham

Shattering Stereotypes is an innovative pilot project investigating how Physics Outreach Officers can help shatter gender stereotypes found in schools.

Shattering Stereotypes will start dialogue and debate with over 400 Year 8 students across the South East. SEPnet Outreach Officers will deliver three activities across the year with Year 12 physics and science students from the participating schools.

These activities include:

An introductory workshop introducing the idea of gender stereotyping and how it can have an effect on GCSE and A-Level subject choice and therefore future careers.
A STEM careers evening for Year 8 students and their parents featuring role models from across all the different types of scientists showcasing how different types of people can succeed in STEM, regardless of gender.
A final extended project where we will ask the Year 8 students to get creative and present their views and opinions on gender stereotyping and how it has an effect on them and their school. We will encourage the students to consider all sorts of ideas for the project!

With these three activities we hope to kick start a school-wide discussion on Gender Stereotyping and how it can be tackled.

The participating schools include:

Charles Darwin School, Biggin Hill.
Lampton Academy, Hounslow.
Overton Grange, Sutton
Preston Manor, Brent.
St Peter’s Catholic School, Guildford.

The SEPnet team is excited to work across these schools and hopes each of them will give an interesting case study on this pilot project.

The project has been developed in consultation with the Institute of Physics’ Gender Balance team and based on the findings of Closing Doors and the recommendations outlined in Opening Doors. The first workshop also includes part of the highly successful People Like Me workshop developed by SEPnet and WISE.

The project is being fully evaluated by an experienced team led by Elizabeth Jeavans. A full report on the pilot project will be available in late 2017 / early 2018. If you would like to keep up to date and be informed of progress, please e-mail us and you will be added to the Shattering Stereotypes Mailing List.

If you are a Physics Outreach Officer or a mixed-gender secondary state school and would like to take part in a potential second year of the project, starting in September 2017, please do get in touch

25Nov/16

The SEPnet Annual Students’ Expo goes from strength to strength

25th November 2016Employer EngagementVeronica Benson

150 SEPnet students, employers and academic staff celebrated the achievements of 80 summer placement students at the annual Student Expo at RSA House in London.

Sarah Medley of Culham Centre for Fusion Energy gave an engaging and informative talk about working at Culham, the range of opportunities for physicists and her own exciting career path. Dr Frances Saunders provided an inspiring keynote address about her varied and illustrious career offering valuable advice for students about the importance of finding work you feel passionate about.

The students’ presentations and posters get better and better each year. This year’s winners of the best posters were:

Ashley Morahan, University of Southampton at Adaptix
Luna Borella, Royal Holloway at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy
Gavin Sandison, University of Surrey at Fourth State Medicine
Anastasia Manu, University of Southampton at National Physical Laboratory
Curtis Hentschel, University of Surrey at Photonics Technologies
Abbie Bray, Queen Mary University at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

The Institute of Physics sponsored the 6 prizes. Each winner a signed copy of the brand new book ‘Aliens’ edited by Jim Al-Khalili and a copy of his co-authored book ‘Nucleus: a trip into the heart of matter’ (the only coffee table glossy hardback on nuclear physics in the world!)

You can view photos from the event on Google+: https://plus.google.com/collection/kTopME

21Nov/16

SEPnet Outreach is looking for a Workshop Developer for Physics: What, Why, How?

21st November 2016OutreachOutreachJacob Dunningham

SEPnet is looking for a workshop developer for Physics: What, Why, How? These workshops will become the standard workshops SEPnet Outreach Officers deliver to Key Stage 3 students across the region.

Details for the project, including current ideas, can be found here.

The workshop development brief can be found here.

SEPnet Outreach will accept proposals up to £11,000 which should include any travel expenses and VAT if applicable. Any proposed budgets above this amount should be justified within the proposal. Deadline for proposals is 17.00 on Tuesday 6 December 2016.

Contact
We strongly recommend those interested to contact Dominic Galliano on 0207 882 5063 / 07702 363 731 or d.galliano@qmul.ac.uk for an informal chat and additional information.

21Nov/16

NuSec Personal Development Grant – Open to PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in the field of nuclear security science

21st November 2016PhD, ResearchVeronica Benson

NuSec Personal Development Grant: The Nuclear Security Science Network ‘NuSec’ promotes research and technology in nuclear security. The network is open to all academic, industrial and government scientists and engineers working in nuclear security and acts as a forum to encourage collaboration, networking and capability for all stakeholders.

Aim of Grant: To support Early Career Researchers and established staff across a range of personal development activities related to nuclear security science, including attending research conferences, carrying out industrial placements, or attending training courses. Also to strengthen the research and innovation capacity of scientists in the field of nuclear security science and to develop new collaborations between researchers and partner organisations.

Scope: To include any mechanism which achieves the aims and objectives of the programme. Funding will be offered to support travel and subsistence costs plus event registration fees or other associated costs.

Award Value: Grants will be awarded in the range £500 – £2000. Early Career Researchers (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers) are NOT required to obtain matched funding.

Application Procedure: Applications must be made using the application form that can be downloaded from the NuSec website www.nusec.uk. There is an open application deadline for these grants with a decision made to the applicant within 6 weeks of submission. The assessment of proposals will be carried out by the NuSec Management Group.

Eligibility: Applicants should be researchers who are based either at a university, research establishment or a company within the UK. Applicants are expected to either be active in the field of nuclear security or wishing to apply their expertise from other areas into nuclear security research. Applicants will normally only receive one award across the duration of the network.

Further details: Visit NuSec’s website or contact info@nusec.uk.

16Nov/16

Planetary Science School a great success!

16th November 2016conference, GRADnetCristobel Soares

23 SEPnet PGRs attended the 2-day planetary science school at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, Middlesex. The school was led by senior researchers in the SEPnet region and comprised four sessions exploring different aspects of planetary science through a mix of lectures, seminars and tutorials.

Thank you to the following contributors: Dr Susanne Schwenzer, Frances Butcher and Jack Wright , Open University; Dr Rob Fear and Dr Catriona Jackman, University of Southampton; Dr Simon Green and Dr Stephen Lowry, University of Kent and Dr Setnam Shemar and Dr Tian-Hong Loh, NPL.

Joint winners of the poster competition were Paul Hallam, Queen Mary University of London: “Investigating the Depth of Gaps formed by Planets in Protoplanetary Discs” and Daniel Staab, Open University: “The Dispersed Matter Planet Project”. Both winners were awarded Amazon vouchers. Chris Malliband, Open University , received a special mention for his poster: “1:3m Mapping of a quadrangle on Mercury”.

Overall feedback was very positive and one PGR said the school was a “very interesting intro to planetary science as a whole”.

Thank you to NPL for hosting this event on behalf of GRADnet.

14Nov/16

Citizen Science as a Tool for Schools’ Outreach

14th November 2016Outreach, Public EngagementOutreachJacob Dunningham

Did you feel a slight chill during last year’s partial eclipse? This phenomena has been observed by eclipse watchers over the centuries. Thanks to 4,500 citizen scientists across the country, along with meteorologists at University of Reading we now know why. This project was a successful national science activity, stimulating interest from Cornwall to the Shetland Islands, with both scientific and engagement value.

The results can be found in papers published in a special ‘eclipse meteorology’ issue of the world’s oldest scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. Alongside the science results there’s also an evaluation report on how the citizen science project was used a schools outreach tool. This paper was written by Dr Antonio Portas, then SEPnet Outreach Officer at the University of Reading’s Department of Meteorology and the other scientists leading the project, Dr Luke Barnard, Prof Chris Scott and Prof Giles Harrison.

The paper gives details on the logistics required in carrying out this type of citizen science project, including details on how they anticipated problems with data collection and solved this through using standardised web forms. This may be of particular interest to those wishing to run similar types of experiments or even replicate this one for the next eclipse across North America in 2017.

Results from the outreach evaluation are also included. In total, 96.3% of participants reported themselves as ‘captivated’ or ‘inspired’ after taking part. The paper also contains a discussion on school selection; 60% of the schools that took part in the experiment lie within the highest quintiles of engagement with higher education. This emphasizes the need for the scientific community to be creative when using citizen science projects to target hard-to-reach audiences.

As to the science itself, the project results show that the wind change is caused by variations to the ‘boundary layer’ – the layer of air closest to the ground. Prof Giles Harrison explains: “There have been lots of theories about the eclipse wind over the years, but we think this is the most compelling explanation yet. As the sun disappears behind the moon the ground suddenly cools, just like at sunset. This means warm air stops rising from the ground, causing a drop in wind speed and a shift in its direction, as the slowing of the air by the Earth’s surface changes.”

The outreach evaluation paper can be found here. The analysis of the data collected through the citizen science experiment can be found here. The full special ‘eclipse meteorology’ can be found here.

14Nov/16

SEPnet organises its 8th annual Students’ Expo on 23rd November at RSA House in London

14th November 2016conference, Employer EngagementVeronica Benson

The annual Students’ Expo provides an excellent opportunity for students to showcase their work through presentations and posters to over 150 employers, academic tutors and peers in a prestigious London venue.

The scheme grows from strength to strength. This year 85 students were successful in finding industry and research placements with a range of large and small companies and research organisations.

Students will exhibit their poster and give a one-minute presentation about their project. Prizes will be awarded for the best posters.

This year’s keynote address will be delivered by Dr Frances Saunders, former IOP President and Chief Executive of Dstl.

Students have the opportunity to network with employers and explore job prospects with recruiters.

For more information about SEPnet’s summer placement scheme email summerplacements@sepnet.ac.uk

14Nov/16

REGISTER NOW – GRADnet Winter School – Free to attend

14th November 2016conference, GRADnetSean Ryan

GRADnet Winter School 13-15 February 2017, Cumberland Lodge, Great Windsor Park, Berkshire SL4 2HP

This 3-day residential school will focus on the skills required for effective leadership and team-working. The core activity will centre around a multi-media case simulation of the ill-fated Columbia Space Shuttle mission. In this mission, NASA engineers and leaders sought to understand the nature and threat associated with a technical problem that occurred on launch. Over the course of the mission, they analysed the damage, assessed the risks, and decided what to do. Leadership, organisational culture, communication, personality characteristics, formal systems and job positions are amongst many complex issues that affected the course of the decision-making process.

Workshop participants work in teams to analyse the simulation, using materials supplied by NASA. Each team takes the role of one of the key NASA managers or engineers, initially experiencing only those events that that person had at the time of the mission. This adds a rich dimension to the case experience as participants recognise how perceptions of the same event can vary.

See attached for further details and a draft timetable. Columbia’s Final Mission Winter School Timetable 2017 Draft

To see what happened at the last Winter School look here.

This is a free event and all reasonable travel expenses are covered by SEPnet.

Log on to the VRE and register here. Registration deadline 13 January 2017.

Cristobel

Cristobel Soares-Smith

SEPnet Graduate Network Administrator

mailto:gradnetadmin@sepnet.ac.uk

01483 682270

www.sepnet.ac.uk

01Nov/16

A PGR’s perspective on the GRADnet Induction Day

1st November 2016UncategorizedCristobel Soares

Michael Hubbard, a first year postgraduate researcher at the University of Surrey gives his perspective on the GRADnet Induction Day held on the 26 October 2016 at the Park Crescent Conference Centre in central London.

“The GRADnet induction day was an enjoyable day out of the office. The day presented a brilliant opportunity to meet new people, even from your own university; not to mention networking with old friends from our undergraduate years. The workshops I attended provided me with an insight into the world of getting a paper published and explored the world of MATLAB”.

Month: November 2016

GRADnet Winter School 13-15 February 2017, Cumberland Lodge, Great Windsor Park, Berkshire SL4 2HP