Scheduling my Cheltenham Experience

The Cheltenham Science Festival is getting closer and closer, and my excitement level is getting higher and higher. Thanks to the UCL bursary I have the opportunity to attend quite a good number and range of events (though some events I really wanted to attend did overlap, so difficult choices had to be made too).

Well, are any of you attending the festival? If so, this is the event schedule I will be following: quite hectic but still highly enticing.

Day	Event	Time
Thursday	The Ultimate Piano Lesson (extra event)	5:00 pm (60mins)
	Heston Blumenthal in Conversation with Harold McGee	6:30 pm (75mins)
	Fakes and Discoveries: The Madonna of the Pinks	9:00 pm (60mins)
Friday	Robert Winston: Bad Ideas?	2:00 pm (60mins)
	Bill Bryson: 350 Years of the Royal Society	4:30 pm (75mins)
	Performance Under Pressure: Stressed Out?	6:30 pm (60mins)
	A Question of Science	9:00 pm (90mins)
Saturday	The Bigger Bang	10:00 am (60mins)
	Chemistry: A Volatile History	2:00 pm (60mins)
	Is this the Golden Age of Science Writing?	4:00 pm (60mins)
	Coast: Alice Roberts and friends	6:30 pm (60mins)
	FameLab International	8:30 pm (120mins)
	The School for Gifted Children	9:30 pm (90mins)
Sunday	Science vs Magic	10:00 am (60mins)
	Stopping the Spread of Superbugs	2:00 pm (60mins)
	The Wavewatcher’s Companion	4:00 pm (60mins)
	Call My Scientific Bluff	6:15 pm (60mins)
	Stand Up Mathematics	8:00 pm (60mins)

It would be great to meet up with you there, or to hear your thoughts about the events and the Science Festival in general. So if you’re going to be there, drop me a comment here, ping me on twitter, or smoke signals would otherwise have to suffice.

There are a few more things in the pipeline for me to get more involved during the festival. But more about that later!

Filed under: Events and Activities, #cheltscifest, Cheltenham Science Festival, schedule, UCL bursary

Ethnographic Object Analysis

Another of the courses offered through the UCL graduate school is one on ‘Ethnographic Object Analysis‘. I had planned on attending last year’s course but during the month of May I was on a research visit in Pisa so I had to cancel my registration. I have been keeping an eye out for it all this year, and when registrations started being accepted for this year’s course I immediately signed up.

‘Why would I be interested?’ you might be asking. Well, although I am not working with ethnographic collections per se, I am interested in museum and archival collections. However, I don’t have a museum studies background but a scientific background. Nevertheless, working in an interdisciplinary environment it is always highly useful to understand something of the background of the people you are dealing with. A problem with interdisciplinary work is that often people come to the table with a different way of thinking, methodology and also a different vocabulary. This certainly does not facilitate discussion!

The course was divided into 5 sessions: Analysis, Description, Displaying, Conservation, and finally Analysing Ethnographic Photographs and Archives. I was of course particularly interested in yesterday’s sessions on photographs. I liked the fact that we were presented with a wide variety of materials which we discussed in terms of dating and interpretation, but even further in an ethnographic context, such as what might be being implied by the photographs, or what has been inscribed into them further than what you might see at first glance. It was highly enlightening to see photographic materials from this point of view, rather than from a simply material one.

A plus of the courses was that we were always around 8-10 students. This allowed for much more discussions to take place. Also, there were practical sessions throughout all the sessions. This made it a very hands-on experience, which definitely helped us learn even more from the programme. Also, the fact that the course was not only taught at UCL but sessions were also held at the British Museum and the Horniman museum was definitely a bonus!

Definitely one of the better courses I have attended through the graduate school. I must say that I am very glad to have these courses available. they allow me to learn more about areas I need to know more for my research, as well as about areas I am personally interested in. These courses definitely enhance my experience here!

A Light-Hearted Look at Ethnography

Filed under: Events and Activities, Analysis, archives, british museum, collections, conservation, description, displaying, ethnographic collections, ethnographic object analysis, ethnography, Horniman Museum, interdisciplinary studies, Museums, photographic archives, Skills development programme, UCL graduate school

NOISEmakers – an Introductory Meeting

As I wrote in a previous post, earlier this year I got accepted onto the EPSRC NOISEmaker‘s programme. Yesterday was the introductory meeting so I eagerly went off to meet the others and learn more about what will happen in the coming year.

First up was a small lunch over which all us NOISEmakers got to know each other better and just in general chatted along. This was then followed by a short presentation about what will be happening in the coming months. They told us about the workshops on podcasting, writing, media training etc they are preparing and I can’t wait to start learning more about these different opportunities! There is also the possibility to attend a number of science festivals and other events. So it looks like it will be a good time (and the other people in the programme are nice – so looking forward to seeing them around!)

The last part of the meeting was a presentation by Alok Jha, a science journalist at the Guardian.He spoke to us about how science journalism works. He also presented the point of view of the journalist when it comes to working with scientists, and their needs, to make us aware of how things often work out. It is of course always interesting to put yourself in the other person’s shoes so quite a useful presentation.

End of the meeting then meant a trip down to the pub! There the head of public engagement of UCL met up with three out of four (out of twelve) of the new NOISEmakers from UCL and we had a bit of a chat (and a drink). I must admit he is highly entertaining – so looking forward to what comes out of that! The UCL NOISEmakers look like a very nice bunch, as are all the others, so on to our NOISEmaking!

PS: I also learnt that there were more than/around 60 applicants for the programme and only 12 got chosen – WOW – I’m impressed by myself

Filed under: Events and Activities, Alok Jha, EPSRC, Guardian, Media Training, NOISE, NOISEmakers, podcasting, public engagements, science festivals

UCL Graduate School Bursaries: Cheltenham Science Festival

A few weeks ago, in the same week I had applied for the NOISEmakers programme, I had also come across a bursary scheme from UCL to attend the Cheltenham Science Festival. Having lived in Malta, events like this have mainly been on a quite limited scale, with nothing as big as this festival appears to be. I was immediately interested, and particularly with this being in the midst of my time working in the laboratory (not that exciting when you spend more time waiting for the equipment to equilibrate rather than actually doing work), I decided to participate. Also, I thought it would be good practice to observe how other scientists interact with the public and put their message across without deleting the scientific accuracy of their work. 

The application procedure involved me writing around 200 words about public engagement in science. I thought that I could quite easily do that and so off I went. This is the entry I came up with:

The concept of public engagement is slowly but surely being introduced into the vocabulary of scientists. However, an understanding of what it really means is often lacking. Public engagement is not just about ‘telling’ people about your research. As the word ‘engagement’ indicates, it also requires the involvement of the public; the public are expected to have the opportunity to interact with the research, discuss it and at least attain an understanding of it at its very basic level.

The question may arise on whether this is important. Shouldn’t telling the public that ‘my research says so’ be enough? This might have been considered so a few years ago, where the word of the professional or the academic was held very much as fact. However, in the technological world we are living in now, where answers may be found at the click of a button, the blind belief in what others say has been eroded. The public often comes to interact with scientists with preconceived ideas which may not be correct.

It is thus the duty of the scientist to be able to interact with their audience in a coherent way to them while maintaining the accuracy of what is being said. Engaging with the public is the only way to forward science and scientific knowledge in today’s world. This is the reason I agreed to participate in a workshop for schoolchildren recently, and maintain a research blog for communicating my work to a wider audience, amongst others.

It seemed like they liked what I wrote! I got nominated by the graduate tutor as the nominee of my department, and further more I was chosen by the graduate school as one of ten students to receive a bursary to attend this festival! The bursary involves 150GBP for spending on tickets for events at the festival, and a further 400GBP for travel, accommodation and subsistence for the days of the festival.

Having looked at the programme I already am very excited about attending this festival, listening to the talks and debates and participating in the interactive experience. I am also looking forward to attending a real science festival. I will definitely let you know how it went!

Filed under: Events and Activities, Travel, NOISEmakers, public engagement in science, science festival, The Times Cheltenham Science festival, UCL bursary

Graphical Representation

Recently I have been having some issues with how to present my data and how much of it to present.

I am always inclined to insert graphs wherever possible. To me graphs represent an easy way to at a glance get a quick idea of the overall trends being discussed. However, it seems like this love of graphs rests mainly with scientists. However, doing research in an interdisciplinary field means that often I am not presenting my work to scientists, but to people from the arts & humanities. This means that my background and that of my audience is quite different.

So far it is proving to be a quite steep learning curve to figure out how to adapt what I say for a specific audience. I feel like I am definitely getting better (and this I hope is the reason I was chosen to be a NOISEmaker - that during the interview I managed to get my point across in an accessible way). However, there is still some way to go. I realise that the only way to improve is to learn more about the issues and also get more practice under my belt.

Today this article on bad ways of graphically representing your work. It made me think about how other people might react to the different graphs and images I have been using in my presentations. Are they serving their purpose? Or do I insert them just to fill in some space? And how much is my love of graphs and graphical representation of ideas in my presentations hindering my explanations rather than helping them along?

Love Graph?

Filed under: General, Rants, Complaints and General Malaise, graphical representation, graphs, love graphs, presentation skills

Presentation at IAQ Meeting

I thought I’d share an edited version of the presentation I presented with you. Hope you enjoy it!

Filed under: Uncategorized, IAQ Presentation, Volatile Aldehydes in Libraries and Archives