Progress Report

I realise it has been 3 months since I last wrote in this blog, so it’s high time I update you (all?) with what has been going on.

I have been keeping myself quite busy! Since the last update I submitted my PhD (end of August), attended 3 conferences (LACONA as part of the organising committee, Anoxia and Microfading as a participant and ICOM-CC conference in Lisbon as a presenter). Following the conference marathon I then spent a few days working with Bruce Ford on microfading at Tate. This was a superb experience for me to learn about this new technique. I also got to analyse paint samples that Matisse used, which was very exciting.

Of course, there’s still my viva to go. My viva is next week (*fingers crossed*) so I have been preparing for that. I have also been offered a job in Denmark. I will be moving over there within a month, which takes some work.

This is not the last of my PhD-related work though! I have been selected as a finalist in an Royal Society of Chemistry postgraduate competition which means I get to present my work to judges form industry at the beginning of November. There is also a number of papers still to be written, and of course a lot rests on the outcome of my viva, so wish me luck!

 

 

Filed under: Events and Activities, Research Process, Anoxia, conference, ICOM-CC, Lacona, microfading, PhD, RSC, viva

More…Science and Art

I haven’t written here for a while, but surprisingly when I came over here to write about science and art, I found that the last blog post was about that same topic! This time however it deals with a lecture, not a course.

Twice a week during term time, a member of staff of UCL gives a lunch hour lecture about some topic or other. For the last few of this year, the lecture series went on tour to the British Museum. Appropriately enough, one of these lectures dealt with ‘science and art’, particularly that relating to the investigation of pigments in art and archaeology.

I won’t say much about the lecture as  I wrote about the event for the UCL events blog (which is what the Cheltenham Science Festival blog I had written for evolved into). However, I think that sending the lecture series ‘on tour’ was a great idea as it attracted people who were just on a regular visit at the museum and who would not have attended the lecture otherwise (while people who would travel to UCL can just as easily travel down the road to the British Museum).

Following the lecture I also took the opportunity to pop in to the Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World exhibition. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I hadn’t looked it up previously. I was particularly impressed, however, with the effort of the Afghan people to safeguard their cultural heritage. I think that even if the exhibition just highlighted that fact to me, as I didn’t have much time, it was definitely worth it!

 

Filed under: Events and Activities, Public Engagement, Afghanistan, art, british museum, Cheltenham Science Festival, Crossroads of the Ancient World, events blog, exhibition, Lunch hour lecture, lunch hour lectures on tour, pigments, science, UCL

Interdisciplinarity: Science and Art

Interdisciplinary Studies of Evidence is one of many courses offered through the UCL graduate school skills development programme. I have so far been to three of the sessions in the series, on being a general session on interdisciplinarity, and the other two on evidence in statistics and computer modelling.

Late last month I went to another session in the series: Using Science to Understand Art: Contexts and Communication. It’s taken me quite some time to get round to writing about it. This is not only because I have been busy, but because I needed time to think about what was said.

During the course, Ruth Siddall, the course tutor, spoke about her experience as a geologist working with people in museums (arts). Her research interests deal with the identification of pigments, minerals, mortars and rocks. She spoke about how her skills as a geologist have come in useful in her work, but at the same time, how she needed to adapt to communicate with people in a different field.

However, something she was saying wasn’t sounding quite right to me, at least in the way I am experiencing interdisciplinarity in my work. Something felt jarring, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time. I am still not sure I do! However, I think it has very much to do with how she views herself and how I am encouraged to view myself in my work.

She constantly referred to herself as a scientist (geologist) working with people in the arts. She quite readily and clearly identified herself with the field she has a strong background in: geology. Something which has been niggling me about the way I am encouraged to view myself is that there is a strong desire to see me describe myself as a ‘heritage scientist’ (with the caveat that ‘heritage’ is not an adjective describing the noun ‘scientist’). However, my only background in ‘heritage science’ is that I am working within the field whilst frantically scrabbling around to try to grasp at numerous strands of knowledge I feel are important. Is that enough?

Also, what does being a ‘heritage scientist’ mean in practice? What should I consider to be my strong point? Should it be the science? Or should it be the heritage field? I strongly suspect that the suggestion is that I should consider both to be a strong point. But where does that leave me? It leaves me pretty much falling into nothingness…or does it?

There is still quite a lot I feel I need to digest from that session and from everything I have been absorbing and feeling throughout my PhD. The session pushed me into thinking about things more coherently and systematically. That surely can only be a good thing. People say that a PhD is a journey, and I feel that this is an important part of my journey that I need to come to grips with.

Filed under: Events and Activities, Research Process, geology, heritage science, Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary studies, interdisciplinary studies of evidence, Ruth Siddall, Skills development programme, UCL graduate school

Assessment Workshops: Lifetime of Photographic Materials

Have you ever wondered about loss of information in archives caused by material decay? Or about what makes an archival photograph fit-for-purpose? If so, I will be exploring these questions as part of my PhD.

One of the questions the research project ‘Lifetime of Colour Photographs in Mixed Archival Collections’ aims to tackle is the way material degradation is linked to information content in photographic images. In particular, the point where photographs are no longer ‘fit for purpose’ is of interest. To understand this better I will be exploring this question with various groups of stakeholders – curators and custodians to photographic collectors, scientists and the general public – in order to capture a variety of opinions in a number of workshops.

The aim of the 1-hr workshops is to gauge the opinion on the point at which changes in information content is no longer considered to be acceptable for photographs in archives. The workshops will start with a brief introduction to the project and the exercise. The assessment exercise will consist of a classification exercise of photographs at different stages of degradation. This will be followed by a brief discussion on any issues arising from the exercise. Following the workshops and data analysis, a report on the results of the workshop will be circulated to all participants.

If you are interested in these issues, and want to voice your opinion you can visit the workshop webpage for more information or even better you can register your interest to participate in one of the workshops.

Workshops so far are planned for the following days at the Heritage Science Laboratory (Gordon House), 29 Gordon Street, WC1H 0PP, London.

Monday 4th April 2011 at 4pm

Monday 11th April 2011 at 4pm

Friday 15th April 2011 at 4pm

Thursday 5th May 2011 at 4pm

Tuesday 10th May 2011 at 5pm

Friday 13th May 2011 at 1pm

Friday 13th May 2011 at 4pm

If none of these dates are appropriate, do let me know as further workshops are planned for the future.

I look forward to meeting you at the workshops!



Filed under: Events and Activities, Experiments and Methodology, Public Engagement, Research Process, archival collections, assessment exercise, chromogenic photographs, colour photographs, curators, custodians, degraded photographs, fitness for purpose, Heritage Science Laboratory, heritage scientists, material decay, photographic collectors, photographic conservators, photographic dyes, photographs

Pollutants @ Bite-Sized Lunchtime Lectures

I had the pleasure of being asked to give a Bite-Sized Lunchtime Lecture on the 4th of March. This being the first of the series I was very keen to set the series off to a good start.

My first dilemma was the topic to choose. The aim of the lectures is not for us to present our research per se, but to choose a topic which would be of interest to a general audience. I could see a number of such topics, but the final choice fell on the area of pollutants in museums and archives, particularly those generated inside these institutions themselves.

Part of the reason I chose this topic is that I find that most people think that you only need to protect objects from the ‘big bad environment’ outside. However, sealing things away from this environment is not necessarily the solution; as objects degrade they themselves produce pollutants which if left to reach high concentrations can cause some serious damage.

I won’t say any more about the topic, but will let you go through the presentation yourself.

As for the lecture itself? At the risk of sounding cocky, I must say I really enjoyed it. I was particularly impressed by the level of questions which arose following the presentation. Having a varied audience there definitely made for some interesting questions! Happily, though answering questions at presentations is an area I have identified for improving, I felt like this time round it went well.

So it seems like there was a happy presenter, (a happy supervisor!), and an audience which understood what I was trying to put across. After this experience I can only encourage you to, if a UCL early-career researcher , to apply for a spot in the series yourself. Otherwise, do come and listen if you’re in the area and contribute to the stimulating discussion which arises from such events!

 

Filed under: Events and Activities, Public Engagement, archives, Bite-Size Lunchtime Lectures, early-career researchers, environmental monitoring, heritage science, Indoor generated pollutants, lunch hour lectures London, Museums, pollutant monitoring, pollutants, UCL, volatile organic compounds

Bite-Sized Lunchtime Lectures @ UCL

UCL has had lunch hour lectures since 1942. These are generally given by people high up in the academic ranks at UCL who are well-established in their field. But what about early-career researchers and PhD students who are much earlier in their academic careers? Surely they have something to say about their field of research which is of interest to a wider audience?

This is where the Bite-Sized Lunchtime Lectures come in. Every Friday in term time two early-career researchers will be given the opportunity to give a 15 minute lecture on a topic of their choice related to their research. I was lucky enough to be asked by UCL Public Engagement to be involved in getting this initiative up and running. And it fact it is!

Lectures for this term have already been assigned, but other students can apply for lectures in the new semester up to the 25th of March. So if you are at UCL, and you are excited about what you work on, I urge you – do apply! This term lecture topics range from Monks and Monkeys, to Meddling relatives and even Mars. I wonder what topics will be covered in the new semester!

Filed under: Events and Activities, Public Engagement, Bite-Sized Lunchtime Lectures, early-career researchers, lunch hour lectures, Mars, Meddling Relatives, miracles, Monks, PhD students, research, UCL, UCL public engagement

The Centre for Sustainable Heritage is 10!

The UCL Centre for Sustainable Heritage, where I am based for my PhD, was established in March 2001. This means that starting this month the centre is celebrating its 10th Anniversary with a series of events which started precisely on the 1st of March 2011.

The day started with a meeting of the ICON Science Group on ‘Monitoring and Modelling of the Heritage Environment‘. I was only involved in this as a very willing participant, unlike the other ICON Science Group Meeting I was involved in over a year ago now. It was nice to relax though and hear updates from other researchers about projects I have been aware of, as well as learn about new projects and what they aim to achieve. Keeping the presentations to 10 minutes seemed a good way of making sure that the basic concepts of projects were explained without going in too much detail – after all there was time to network and ask about the details later on in the day.

My main role in the event was then in the afternoon part of the day: an Open afternoon in our Heritage Science Laboratory. The event was organised very well by the research fellows in our department, with people divided over 4 time slots throughout the afternoon. This meant that the people were well spread over the whole time and did not get over crowded at any one time. This did mean though that I was kept very busy talking to people! However, having people from so many different backgrounds attending meant that the discussions arising were often very stimulating, and kept me on my toes trying to tackle my work from different points of view.

Of course, no celebration is complete without a party! A private reception was indeed organised in the evening for people linked to the centre. Being part of the centre meant that it wasn’t only a party for me as I had some things I was responsible for. Nevertheless, it was a great opportunity to talk to people I already knew in the field as well as meeting new ones.

I was utterly exhausted by the end of the day. However the enthusiasm I regained from talking to so many people about my work was definitely worth it!

Filed under: Events and Activities, 10th Anniversary, Centre for Sustainable Heritage, Heritage Environment, heritage professionals, Heritage Science Laboratory, ICON Science Group, Modelling, Monitoring, Open Afternoon, PhD, reception, UCL CSH

Visit to the London Metropolitan Archives

Although my PhD research is being carried out in collaboration with The National Archives (TNA), I am always on the look out for any opportunity which might broaden my view of relevant issues. So when I saw a Behind the Scene Tour advertised on IanVisits’ calendar for the London Metropolitan Archives, I booked myself onto it.

The tour didn’t start off to well I must admit. When I entered I was directed to where the tour should start. However, as time passed, no one came to pick the other three and I for the tour. When 15 minutes had elapsed we went to try to track down what has happening. It seems that we were directed to the wrong room, and the tour had started without us! Around 20mins late a woman came to pick us up and start the tour for us.

The building in which the archives is housed was built for the Temple printing press in the 1930s. It was selected to become an archival building due to the very well supported floors it had to support the printing presses and which are now needed to support all the archival materials stored there.

Having been given a brief history of the place we were then led into the conservation space where we joined up with the rest of the group. A conservator was showing degraded cellulose acetate photographs and of course making us smell the unmistakable smell of vinegar. He had previously discussed with the rest of the group some issues with a map and a bound book which he briefly summarised for us.

From the conservation studio we were then led to the Image and Design area where we were introduced to David Tennant (no, not THAT one). He explained that the work of the department was to producing advertising material for the organisation. However, the main job relevant to the archive is that they provide an imaging service for people for materials which cannot be photocopied, such as parchment, bound books, or hand-coloured materials.

The last area we visited was the archives themselves. Having often been inside TNA repositories I was of course not particularly overawed like some of the others were. They looked as I expected a well-functioning archive to look like. I tried to ask about environmental control (as I didn’t feel that cold in there), but besides being told that there is a set-point it is kept at, I didn’t learn much more.

Coming to the end of the tour I would say I would have two suggestions to others thinking about going on this tour:

1. Do go!
2. Make sure you’re at the right place! The tour leaves exactly on time we were told so if no one comes at that time start asking around.

Filed under: Events and Activities, archival repositories, Behind the scenes tour, cellulose acetate, David Tennant, environmental control, Ian visits, Image and Design, London Metropolitan Archives, Temple printing press, The National Archives, TNA

Communication

As a science-based PhD student in the UK one of the main messages which is constantly filtering down to me is that being a scientist and a good communicator is a difficult thing to do. There are constant efforts to give science students communication skills training where the starting point is often that it is difficult to make science understandable to the general public, but it is something we should aspire to.

Earlier this week I was reading a post on Andrea Sella‘s blog: Tim Radford on Science Communication and came across this gem:

If you think scientists are bad communicators go to an English conference or one on history of art.

As a PhD student working between the arts/humanities and science this rang so true with me! It is often quite easy to spot someone from the arts/humanities from a mile away at conferences or other meetings. As Andrea wrote, they tend to read from a prepared text, rather than expected to be talk their way through the presentation – and this is expected not just accepted sometimes. In fact even people ‘higher up’ in academia do this (as evidenced during the 2 lunch hour lectures I attended at UCL this month, one by a chemist and one by a humanities lecturer).

Over my time here I have spoken to a few arts/humanities students. What I have gathered from them is that the issue of communication skills is not something which comes up quite often in their training/personal development. Nevertheless, presentations in these fields can be just as technical as scientific ones. I am not sure what to think about this, especially since my experience of academic institutions abroad does not really follow this very apparent dichotomy in presentation styles. The one ‘reason’ I have been given is that English has so many nuanced words that it is essential that you use the exact word you mean. But wouldn’t this also be true for people in the sciences?

Filed under: Events and Activities, Public Engagement, Rants, Complaints and General Malaise, Andrea Sella, arts, communication skills, humanities, lunch hour lectures, Science communication, science students, Tim Radford

Research Event at The National Archives

My PhD is one of a ‘new breed of PhDs’ – a collaborative PhD. Therefore, besides UCL, The National Archives (TNA) are continuously involved in the project, from giving me access to their collections, but even more importantly by giving insight where needed. So far however I have been in contact with the staff from the Collection Care Department to which I am attached, and have not had much to do with the rest of this big organisation.

Yesterday however the research and academic liaison adviser at TNA organised a showcase event for the five collaborative PhD students currently working with TNA. We were asked to present a 3-minute presentation giving a brief overview of our work, followed by a discussion with TNA staff present on various issues including how our work fits into the needs of TNA, or how our work can inform specific issues some of the staff had.

As with every time I have had a discussion within the department at TNA, this time round I was again amazed (and excited) at how open a work place TNA is. My experience of big institutions is often that in discussions you just agree with the top person. However here it is quite common to find people disagreeing with each other (including people high up the chain) during a discussion in a very amiable way. To me this form of discussion is a breath of fresh air and something I really admire the people working there for sustaining.

Filed under: Events and Activities, Public Engagement, collaborative PhD, Collection Care Department, discussion, Pecha Kucha, PhD, The National Archives, TNA