In March, the Department of Life Sciences held its annual PhD Symposium.

The popular event showcased a range of talks and posters across various research themes and was attended by staff and students from across the department. Prizes were also given for posters and presentations. Here are some thoughts from those who contributed on the day. Many congratulations to all!

Ariane Dellavalle

‘I use a combination of survey data and faecal metabarcoding data to investigate whether birds provide pest control services in the Afrotropics. I am interested in understanding whether forest birds eat agricultural pests and how this service is affected by forest loss.

Attending the symposium was a great opportunity to present in a relaxed and friendly setting. I found the Q&A at the end of my presentation particularly useful for future presentations since it highlighted the parts of my presentation which need better explaining.

The symposium was the first opportunity I had to meet some of the newer students in the department. It was also a lovely opportunity to catch up with students from my cohort.

I find preparing presentations is always a nice way to reflect on my work and its broader context, therefore the symposium was a welcome mini-break from the usual PhD rabbit-hole routine. Sharing my (and my collaborators’) work was a very rewarding experience and hearing about other people’s work was fascinating.’

Serafima Davydova

‘I did a poster presentation as a second year PhD student. It was nice to interact with people from different backgrounds but also talk to people with similar PhD topics. The most rewarding part was sharing my research with others.

By attending presentations of third year PhD students I managed to note down the different formats and their receptions. I also learnt a bit about what types of questions are usually the first to be asked and how in-depth I need to go to match the audience you are giving the talk to.

I met multiple people both in adherent and completely different fields. During my poster presentation window, multiple people with very varied backgrounds came to chat about my poster, which gave me the opportunity to interact with a diverse group of people.

The symposium was a nice bonding experience across PhD cohorts. I was able to see what other people are up to in their degrees and practice my poster presenting skills, which will be useful for conferences moving forward.’

Claudia Blanco Toral

The symposium gave me a very good idea of what lies in terms of attending conferences. It was really helpful as I attended a conference a few weeks after and I could properly enjoy it.

I met a lot of students from other years and from my building. It was very interesting to find out about their research.

I really enjoyed the symposium for many reasons - I had the chance to get a scoop of how attending a conference is, I met other PhD students from other years, and it was a chance to socialise and learn from the colleagues in my year of study.

Symposium Prize Winners

Best First Year Pitch
Agnes Szwarczynska

Best Second Year Poster Performance
(in alphabetical order)

Esme Fan
Gregory Jones
Jingyi Yang
Merrie Caruana
Qi Zhang
Rikin Lau
Serafima Davydor
Zoe Mitchell

Best Lay Summary

Audrey Peters

Best Third Year Presentations
(in alphabetical order)

Ariane Dellavalle
Catherine Parry
Elisabeth Bubna-Litic
James Fawcett
Jonathan Bradshaw

Dr David Mann said: ‘Congratulations to all the presenters of talks and posters – it was a great day, with super science communication and networking opportunities. The standard of presentations this year was exceptionally high, making our job of selecting the prize-winning presentations incredibly challenging.

Second and third year prize winners will be invited by Faculty to present at the Faculty Research Showcase 2024 on 26 September. This is another great opportunity to hear about colleagues’ work and to meet fellow PhD students from other Departments in the Faculty of Natural Sciences (Chemistry, Maths, Physics and CEP).

Well done again to everyone involved this year and looking forward to next year’s event being even bigger and better!’