A perspective from the Chair

Almost two years in the planning, Hermes 2014 took place on the weekend starting the 25th of July 2014, in the inspiring setting of Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. 

Between 10am and 1pm on Friday the 25th of July, 60 people from across the globe arrived, in time to receive their welcome packs and have lunch before attending the first master class, by Prof. Craig Carter.

Back when we first inherited the project in October 2012 (after having been attendees at Hermes 2012), we knew that we wanted to have Craig Carter involved. We started with a small team of just 5 first year PhD students and 1 second year PhD student, split between 3 institutions, with just inspiration, creativity and time on our side. I say that, but we also had a little helping hand; Peter Haynes’ application to EPSRC paid the deposit on Cumberland Lodge; and conversations with Julian Walsh (to whose memory Hermes 2014 was dedicated to) encouraging us to think big. When we first spoke to Craig Carter, we weren’t sure what science communication aspect we were going to focus on at Hermes 2014. One of his key skills is bringing data to life, which he does with exceptional grace in a program called Mathematica. So, we talked about getting the participants at Hermes to do presentations that were entirely visual, with no words. Although we did not follow that theme, his support from the beginning was very encouraging.

Craig certainly lived up to his reputation with a beautiful presentation at Hermes. Everything was done in Mathematica. He ran live simulations in Mathematica while he was speaking. He explained to us the tricks of the trade of making art with materials modelling simulations — having been involved in many art collaborations over the past decade.

Each master class was split into three parts: the talk, the breakout session and the question and answer session. This discussion based learning approach was really appreciated by the participants. We then had three more incredibly interesting and stimulating master classes by three well known academics, Peter Gumbsch (dislocation dynamics and how it connects to the higher length scales), Sharon Glotzer (the contribution of entropy to the ordering of nanoparticles) and Nicola Marzari (ab initio simulations: the good, the bad and the ugly).

When we were originally deciding upon the master class speakers, we had several criteria. Among them were: great scientific reputation, high standard of science, multi-scale materials modelling and outstanding presentation ability.

On the first evening of Hermes we were graced by the presence of Damian Allsop, the 4th best chocolatier in the world (as rated by Georg Bernardini, an authority on the subject of chocolate tasting). Damian, walked us through the process of producing chocolate, from the difficult to grow cocoa, to the fermentation, drying and eventually tempering, all the while teasing our taste buds with little pieces of divine brown gold.

To pay for things like the ice-breaker chocolate tasting session, scholarships for participants from developing countries, and prizes for the best presentations we had to raise substantial sponsorship. That was by far the hardest part of organising Hermes. We approached many companies. There were highs and there were lows. Each time though, we learned. Each time we honed our pitch and supporting documents. The key, we found, was to make a relationship with that company, to find out exactly how we benefitted them and to be very specific about how they helped us. There is no, one-size-fits-all sponsorship package.

Starting on Saturday afternoon at Hermes, the participants were given their task. They had to each prepare and deliver a 5 minute presentation on one of the master classes that they had heard. They worked in groups and the master class speakers came to their groups to talk to them in more detail about their work. To help them in their task, we arranged a workshop by Adelina Chalmers, who dedicated a lot of her time to making Hermes a success. This workshop was about how to prepare a presentation. It was followed by another workshop on Sunday morning, by Piero Vitelli, on how to deliver a presentation. Both of these workshops received a lot of praise. For many of the participants it was the first formal training in delivering a presentation that they had ever received.

Piero Vitelli’s counsel and guidance, in the development stages of Hermes, was really instrumental in our choice to make the science communication task a presentation with no visual aids. It was through conversation with him that we came up with the rough plan of how to get 44 participants to each do a 5 minute presentation in a reasonable amount of time, while keeping the emotion and interest high.

On Sunday afternoon the emotions were high as our judges arrived at Cumberland Lodge in time to provide a panel for the six parallel sessions of participants presentations. The presentations were all done outside, on the grass, in beautiful weather. Each one of the participants really put their hearts into their presentations and it showed. Kindle paperwhites and 3-year Mathematica licenses were awarded as the science communication prizes for the best two presentations in each parallel session. Although only a few of them got prizes, all of them were amazed at the progress that they had made in their presentation abilities in such a short amount of time.

The synchronicity between the master classes and the participants’ presentations really helped in getting the science and the communication skills to sink in. This was part of the design, and it really worked. The students really thought about what they had to present and took advantage of the presence of the master class speakers to ask questions and dig deeper.

Sunday evening brought the formal aspect of the summer school to a close with an insight into science communication through the mass media by academic and presenter, Mark Miodownik. He was exceptionally honest and told us about how it’s really tough to be both an academic and a science presenter. He encouraged us to consider it though, as he highlighted how little communication is done between scientists and the mass media, but how essential it is.

It doesn’t end here though. On the Monday morning many of the participants went on a walk around Windsor Great Park and on Monday evening almost a quarter of the participants met up in London for a burger and a beer. The Facebook group is still active, with three quarters of the participants having made contributions. A new team has been formed out of these participants to organise the next Hermes. They have big ambitions — I look forward to seeing them realised.

Marc, Chair of Hermes 2014

Hermes co-organisers: Daniel Rathbone (cohort 3), Joel Posthuma de Boer (cohort 3), Ali Hammad (cohort 3), Ben Kaube (cohort 3), Thomas Edwards (cohort 3), Andrea Greco (cohort 4), Flaviu Cipcigan (University of Edinburgh) and Anibal L. Gonzalez Oyarce (University of Cambridge).

Presentation prize-winners:

Glenn Monyihan, Leonid Kahle, Arthur France-Lanord, Kanghoon Yim, Farnaz Ostovari, Frederike Jaeger, Severin Schmitt, Jacqueline Tan, Michael Ferguson, Elena Kubyshkina, Amanda Diez, Mitesh Patel, and Sindhu Seethamraju.

A perspective from an attendee

The 4-day summer conference at Hermes was nothing short of exciting and meaningful. It definitely was a good mix of technical learning during the master-classes, and wholesome fun in our chocolate tasting experience with one of the world’s best chocolatiers! The best thing that accompanied this hearty journey was the company we had; the friends we made came from such diverse backgrounds, and the speakers we had were remarkably knowledgeable and approachable. And how amazing it is f or this conference to be held at the most magical location: Cumberland Lodge. Located within Windsor Great Park, imagine waking up in a castle everyday with nature right at your doorstep. Such was the quintessential atmosphere that made the whole conference enjoyable and really comfortable, especially for someone like me, who was initially worried about the difficulty of the content, but truth be told, it was a really positive learning environment.

Jacqueline Tan (cohort 5)