Alumni reunite at the Imperial Festival 2013

Alumnus and family explore the Festival Research Zone

On Saturday 4 May, Imperial welcomed 840 alumni and guests to the South Kensington Campus for the largest Alumni Reunion in recent years.

As part of the Imperial Festival, attended by over 10,000 members of the public, the Alumni Reunion gave former Imperial students the chance to experience the best on offer at the College today. Standing out from the crowds with their bright orange lanyards and name badges, alumni and guests were treated to demonstrations, displays and exhibitions from over 200 Imperial students, academics and researchers. Many enjoyed getting up close and personal to reptiles, dancing in the silent disco and participating in the Science Comedy Collider (with fellow alumni Helen Arney (Physics 2002) and Adam Kay (Medicine 2004)).

William Wong (Management School 1998) said: "I was just blown away that you can walk through this huge marquee sitting on the Queen's Lawn and see the output of so many departments. I noticed that the students and researchers at the stands share one key thing: they're very enthusiastic about their work and they're really good ambassadors for the College, doing public engagement on the front line. They're good at explaining rather abstract, complex things. The Reunion is also great for networking and meeting people - the badges are really quite useful as an ice-breaker; in Britain we are still rather reluctant at approaching people, I think!"

The graduation years of alumni present ranged from 1943 to 2012 and, with strong representations from the City & Guilds College and Royal School of Mines Alumni Associations, there were plenty of opportunities to network and catch up with old friends.

Dr Ponnampalam Linkeshwaran (Civil and Environmental Engineering 1998) explained that there was something at the Imperial Festival for the whole family. His children, who accompanied him to the event with his wife, made polymer worms in the Reach Out Lab while at an exhibit by the Department of Earth Science and Engineering in the Research Zone, he heard more about the Mars Rover: "We've read about it in the news obviously, but I wasn't aware that Imperial was involved. The researcher here seems to be at the heart of the mission. I think missions like that really capture the public's imagination and also engage the younger generation."

Providing a memento of the day, limited edition Alumni Reunion 2013 mugs were on offer to the first 500 alumni through the gates. The new Alumni Visitor Centre, which opened earlier in May, also drew in over 100 alumni, giving them a taster of the new executive lounge and meeting space for visiting alumni, located in the College Main Entrance.