Looking back at a ground breaking year for Imperial

by Andrew Czyzewski, Robert MacGladrie 19 December 2013

2013

We take a look back at some of the highlights of 2013 at Imperial, including scientific discoveries, College & community events and notable people.

View a downloadable pdf of the round-up of the year click on the image below...

...or scroll through the summary slideshow, complete with captions, below (click on the icon in the top right for the fullscreen view):

The College's vision for the new Imperial West Campus came into focus in March with a 25 ACRE site now earmarked for research and translation activities

'Here at Imperial you’ve got the right answer, which is to capture the flash of inspiration, harness the bang and convert it into wallop for the London and the UK economy,' Boris Johnson, Mayor of London at the ‘Launching the Vision’ event for Imperial West

54 first year medical students donned their white coats and stethoscopes in August to start their journey at LKCMedicine in Singapore, a joint medical school between Imperial and Nanyang Technology University

In March scientists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN cemented the discovery of the mass-giving Higgs boson

Professor Tom Kibble (Physics) was awarded a Dirac Medal later in the year for his part in devising the theory behind the particle, while two other scientists Peter Higgs and Gerald Guralnik were awarded a Nobel Prize for their part

NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover provided the most definitive proof yet of ancient water flow on the red planet in May

Professor Sanjeev Gupta (Earth Science and Engineering) and colleagues from NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission found tell-tale sedimentary deposits suggesting a dried up riverbed

'Climate change is happening and we are conducting a dangerous experiment with our planet,' Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, responds to the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) landmark fifth report in October

$2 trillion — what it will cost per year to half CO2 emissions by 2050, less than 1% of global GDP, according to Imperial report

2013 could go down as the year Imperial was recognised for its efforts to level the playing for women working in science. The College received an institution-wide Silver Athena Swan award while the Department of Chemistry received a Gold award. Several other departments also received silver or bronze awards.

Over 10,000 people descended on South Kensington for the second Imperial Festival in May

In August Professor James Stirling became the College’s first Provost – responsible for the core academic mission, namely education, research and translation

Professor G. ‘Anand’ Anandalingam took the helm of the Business School in August as Dean in August, relocating 5904km from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.

It’s been a glittering year for Professor Joanna Haigh, Head of the Department of Physics, who was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the New Year Honours and also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)

'All of us in the College community play a role in the education and experience of our students,” Vice-Provost (Education) Professor Debra Humphris launched the Education and Student Strategy in October

16 seconds — the winning margin of Imperial College Boat Club in the Women’s Eights Head of the River Race in March

Some of the more bizarre happenings of the year included staff and students bungee jumping from the Queen’s Lawn in the name of charity for RAG week…

… and one of our researchers David Legg (Earth Science and Engineering ) naming an ancient creature he found in the fossil record after the actor Jonny Depp.

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Andrew Czyzewski
Communications Division

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Email: press.office@imperial.ac.uk
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Robert MacGladrie
Communications and Public Affairs

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