The IMSE Team are happy to welcome this year’s Molecular Engineering MRes students.

This year we have 13 students from a variety of different countries including: US, UK, China, Lithuania, Taiwan, Hong Kong. The students come from a variety of different academic backgrounds – including chemistry, chemical engineering, applied physics, materials science and engineering, biotech engineering, and mechanical engineering.

Roberto Gambarini, The MRes student rep has said "After almost two years since the pandemic started, it’s refreshing to be back on campus with a renewed inspiration in science". The new students are very excited to start working together and to learn lots from the course.

After almost two years since the pandemic started, it’s refreshing to be back on campus with a renewed inspiration in science Roberto Gambarini

The 2021-2022 cohort started the welcome week with some team-building and ice-breaker activities. IMSE’s Events Officer Leah Adamson put together an escape room for the cohort, based on the London tube map and places in London. The students had to break out of the MRes room in groups by working together to solve the puzzles and riddles. Unfortunately, only one team made it out in time as the escape room tasks were extremely hard! One of the teams had remote attendees; students worked together to solve the puzzles using the equipment for hybrid (simultaneous remote and in-person) teaching. 

After a well-deserved break, the students enjoyed a welcome lunch where a few of the last year’s alumni and some of the academic staff joined them. Fei Gao and Jiaqi Lui from last year’s cohort attended the lunch to meet and welcome the new students. Also in attendance were IMSE Manager Steph

 Pendlebury, plus some of the academic staff who will be teaching this year’s cohort: Niall Mac Dowell, Jason Riley, Andrea Bernardi, Koon-Yang Lee, Nic Harrison, and Talia Shmool. Amparo Galindo, IMSE Co-Director, and Omar Matar, Chemical Engineering Head of Department, formally welcomed the students to Imperial. George Jackson, Personal Tutor, introduced himself and encouraged the students to come and see him if they ever wanted to discuss anything. Course Co-Directors Niall Mac Dowell and Koon-Yang Lee gave a welcome talk and introduction to the course.

Another Welcome Week activity that the students participated in was a walking tour of the South Kensington area. The MRes alumni provided a list of their favourite places around South Kensington and then the current MRes students took a tour with some key alumni insights. A few places on the list were: Hyde park, East side restaurant and bar, Janets, and the Natural history Museum.

On the same day in the evening, IMSE held their first in-person alumni event at the Angelsea Arms to welcome the new cohort. Griffin Gui and Javiera Perez were in attendance for the alumni mixer and gave the students some great advice about the upcoming year. One key piece of advice was that the students should work together and use each other’s expertise in an interdisciplinary way of working, and not be afraid to ask each other questions.

Since welcome week the students have already mastered the hybrid model of working together, becoming expert users of the Teams teleconferencing kit in the MRes teaching room. Many of them attended IMSE’s Annual Lecture together. The IMSE Team look forward to seeing what this year’s cohort will do to together – we think they have a fantastic year ahead of them!