Graduate Students at the Dunn School take centre stage in annual Symposium
Most of the graduate students undertaking their DPhil degrees at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology presented their research at the Graduate Student Symposium, which was held on 29th June 2018 at the Medical Sciences Teaching Centre. For this year’s edition, 12 first-year and 22 second-year students presented their work through posters, while 12 third-year graduates showcased their research in the form of short talks in front of the whole department.
Professor Matthew Freeman, the Head of the Department, inaugurated the symposium, and highlighted that the importance of the Dunn School’s Graduate Student Association as one of the most active student bodies within the University. He also pointed out how most of the student talks can serve as an inspiration for others with regard to scientific data presentation.
The event, which was hailed as “fantastic and with an excellent scientific level” by co-organiser Professor Chris Norbury, was attended by over 100 Dunn School students and staff members. A panel of judges and assessors (formed by groups leaders, as well as a couple of postdocs and final year DPhil students) helped provide feedback to all the students as well as award prizes to the outstanding students from each cohort.
Prizes were awarded as follows: best first-year poster to Thomas Steinacker (Raff lab), best second-year poster to Sheng Kai Pong (Gullerova lab) and best third-year talks to both Tom Beneke (Gluenz lab) and Mustafa Aydogan (Raff lab). Former Head of Department Professor Herman Waldmann generously sponsored these prizes, which were presented by Professor Shona Murphy during the after-symposium reception.
“Giving a talk at the Graduate Student Symposium was great fun. The day gave great insight into everyone’s research and I found the presented posters and talks really inspirational” said one of the third-year winners Tom Beneke. Best talk co-winner Mustafa Aydogan added: “We have the chance to re-assess the quality/impact of our own work at this day every year. As to the prize I was awarded… truly unexpected in general terms!”
The Graduate Student Association (GSA), which organises several events for students and members of the Dunn School, used the symposium to announce the prizes for the Science & Art competition which was held for the first time this year.
The Graduate Student Symposium of 2018 was supported by the companies Starlab (UK) Ltd and Stratech and was co-organised by Graduate Studies administrator Lucinda Riusius and Professor Chris Norbury, with additional help from Professor Anton van der Merwe, Director of Graduate Studies.
Read more information on the Dunn School Graduate programme and its students (including other DPhil programmes) on the student pages.
Written by Dr Anna Caballe (@caballe_anna) and Sonia Muliyil (@Muliyilsonia)
