Reporter

Royal Society honours

24 July 2012

Five Imperial scientists were honoured by the Royal Society on 10 July. Emeritus Professor Tom Kibble FRS (Physics) and Emeritus Professor and Distinguished Research Fellow Professor Andrew Holmes FRS (Chemistry) have received the Royal Medal, one of the Society’s premier awards. The Royal Medals were founded by King George IV in 1825 and are awarded to just three top scientists each year.

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Tags: Awards and Honours, Bioengineering, Chemistry, Materials, Physics, Staff
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Inventor’s corner: DNA detection

30 May 2012

Dr Tim Albrecht is a Senior Lecturer in the Chemical Physics Group (Chemistry). His research interests include understanding the transfer of electrical charge in liquid environments, its transport across individual molecules and applying this to develop single molecule biosensors that can be utilised as a DNA sequencing device.

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Tags: Chemistry, Inventor's corner
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Staff elections to the Court

28 May 2012

Following the recent elections, the members of staff who will join the Court of Imperial College London are: Professor Ian Adcock, Head of Molecular Cell Biology Group (NHLI), Dr Joshua Edel, Senior Lecturer in Micro and Nanotechnology (Chemistry), and Mr Paul Brown, Mechanical Instrumentation Workshop Manager (Physics).

Tags: Chemistry, Court and Council, National Heart and Lung Institute, Physics
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Festival fever!

24 May 2012

It’s midday on Saturday 12 May on the South Kensington Campus – the sun is shining, bunting and balloons frame the buildings, 1920’s jazz music is floating through the air and the site is alive with staff, students, alumni and their families and friends – all here for the inaugural Imperial Festival.

On 11–12 May the College opened its doors to the public and invited them to take part in hands-on demonstrations, music, dancing, stand-up comedy, street performances and art.

“The idea of the Festival is to provide an annual glimpse into some of the exciting work going on in Imperial laboratories today,” explains Tom Miller, Director of Communications and Development. “It gives people a chance to quiz the scientists on the front line about their discoveries and to learn or discover something they didn’t know Imperial was involved in.”

Conceived two years ago as part of a review into the membership and purpose of the College Court, the original idea for a festival event was born out of the desire to engage people, institutions and organisations outside of Imperial. Its potential to reach broader audiences including staff, alumni and supporters as well as the general public, was met with the decision to run it over two days and partly on a weekend to make it family friendly. The final format had four key elements, starting with a gala dinner on the Thursday night to celebrate staff achievements over the year, the launch of the new Court on Friday, an Alumni Reunion on Saturday, and the Festival itself on Friday evening for adults and on Saturday afternoon for families.

The event was organised in- house by a team led by Natasha Martineau – Head of Research Communications (Communications and Development) – who took on the mammoth task of creating the College’s biggest ever public event working with colleagues including Harriet Martin and Katie Weeks, and colleagues from across College, especially those in Commercial Services and Facilities.

We wanted to lift the lid on the amazing work that goes on at the College

“The main thinking behind the programme we put together was to lift the lid on the amazing work that goes on at the College, and to make it available to anyone who might be interested in what we do and how it affects their daily lives,” explains Natasha. “When you work here you sometimes forget what a privilege it is to have access to this work, and the passion of the people who do it.” Research undertaken by the team revealed that lots of staff and students across College were already involved in public engagement activities. Hoping to draw from this group, an invitation went out to all departments and institutes. Each one came back with a suggestion or two of something they wanted to contribute to the festival – leading to over 30 interactive displays in and around the marquee on the Queen’s Lawn.

Along with a call for proposals came a set of guidelines for the demonstrations. Each group had a relatively small space and was asked to focus on talking with visitors – from young children to members of the Council – and giving them something to handle. “We wanted to move away from the Power Point and posters you might find at academic conferences,” explains Natasha, “and create an environment where our many audiences could have a two way exchange with the scientists and where their questions and ideas might inform or stimulate the way we do research”. Professor John Seddon (Chemistry) got his first taste of public engagement at the Imperial Festival and explains how he enjoyed considering what demonstrations might work using his 14-year-old son as a testing ground to ensure they would be interesting to a public audience. “We had to put on demos that were within the constraints of being safe, nontoxic, non-explosive and not too smelly, but that would make people stop at the stand and think ‘that would be a fun thing to do’.”

John enthusiastically presented a range of experiments at the Festival – including a petri dish full of ferrofluids that, when you applied a magnetic field from below, formed beautiful spikes aligned along the magnetic field. He also did an experiment with corn flour and water to illustrate the properties of materials that could make flexible body armour for soldiers or skiers but would immediately solidify in an accident and offer good protection on impact.

Outside the context of the Festival, public engagement is becoming an increasingly important part of the expectations of public bodies that fund research. “In a way I welcome this approach,” says John, “We get public funding, so we have to justify what we are doing, and it’s also a good way to encourage a new generation of scientists to come forward.”

Dr Sandra Shefelbine (Bioengineering) is a big fan of public engagement and has worked with the BBC, the Dana Centre and the Wellcome Trust. Sandra was keen to get involved in the Festival and gave a lecture on how bones work (called Skeletons out of the closet).

“I think any time you try to describe your science to a lay audience, it benefits how you look at it, and events like this help to spark the intrigue of science at an early age.” she says. “I could describe everything in terms of equations or super-complicated modelling but in order to explain it in a way in which everyone can understand, you have to break it down into what is really important. That often leads me to start thinking ‘Why do we normally talk about it in such a complex way – is it really necessary?’”

The Festival attracted around 7,000 people over the weekend, which is a clear sign of the public’s interest in science, and the event is being fully evaluated by the team over the next few weeks. The hope is that this will become an annual event. “We had so many suggestions, I hope we can return to them in coming years. I also hope the Festival will continue to help public engagement become an integral part of the life of a researcher at Imperial,” says Natasha.

“I think it was the sense of wonder that captured people’s imagination,” muses John, “and as a demonstrator it was also a lot of fun!”

Read what some of our visitors thought of the Festival here

See a slideshow of images from the day here

— Emily Ross-Joannou, Communications and Development

Tags: Alumni, BBC, Bioengineering, Chemistry, Commercial Services, Communications and Development, Facilities Management, Festival 2012, Wellcome Trust
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School students have great chemistry in Imperial competition

11 May 2012

On 3 May eight teams of schoolchildren came to Imperial to compete in the live final of the London Schools’ Chemistry Challenge, battling it out using posters, drama, music and presentations to a present their case for the greatest discovery in Chemistry in the last 100 years.

The initiative began last year, also marking the International Year of Chemistry, which celebrated the contributions chemistry has made to society.

The competition saw over 1,000 school students registered to take aprt, with academics from the Department of Chemistry selecting eight teams for the final.

With an open remit on how to make their case the GCSE and A Level students had to present in front of a panel of judges including Imperial’s Professor of Science and Society Lord Winston; David Philips, President of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Head of the College’s Department of Chemistry Professor Tom Welton.

The winning entry, highly commended by the judges, came from team  “Notre Bam”, a group of students attending Notre Dame School in Surrey. They won for their presentation on polymers, which involved drama and music as well as chemical knowledge. The team received an iPad each, together with a tour of a leading research facility in the future.

Pictured right:  Notre Bam with judges and organisers.

Team member Elizabeth said: “As a group we have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and our knowledge of chemistry has been enhanced by studying the subject outside of our syllabus. We have really benefitted from the experience and look forward to the day at a research centre…and our iPads!”

The event’s was arranged by the Department of Chemistry and the Royal Society of Chemistry, supported by Imperial’s Outreach Office.  One of the organisers, Dr Oscar Ces, said:

“This was a fantastic evening where teams of students from across London showcased their talent and demonstrated the impact that Chemistry has had on society over the last 100 years. It’s been a wonderful way to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry”.

Organisers hope to run a similar event in the summer. 

 — John-Paul Jones, Communications and Development

Tags: Chemistry, Outreach
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Reaching out to business

8 May 2012

Professor Tom Welton, Head of the Department of Chemistry, reports on his experience of being invited to the Imperial Business Partners dinner and discussion on 13 March.

“The Business Partners are a group of companies that have decided that they want to deepen their relationships with the College. These are AWE, BP, BT, GE, Ineos, National Grid, Rolls-Royce, Shell and Syngenta. Dow Chemical, which makes products in the chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics fields, were guests for the evening. Professor Julia Buckingham, Pro Rector (Education and Academic Affairs), led the evening’s first discussion on the world of £9,000 p.a. fees soon to be upon us, and what its consequences may be. Later, we had a second discussion on broader government policy for science and technology funding led by Lord Robert Winston, Professor of Science and Society (Humanities), who either has a remarkable ability to eat and speak at the same time, or doesn’t mind the taste of a cold dinner.

The real stars of the evening were the 20 or so teenagers, who had come to show us Imperial’s Reach Out Labratory in action. These young people were from schools in disadvantaged areas from all over London. They were fantastic. You couldn’t hope to meet people more enthusiastic about doing science. They each grabbed different guests to show us what they were doing and to tell us why the Reach Out Lab is so important to them. If you believe, as I do, that the foundations of Imperial’s success are its students, then I am happy to report that, should they choose Imperial for their degree, the College has a bright future to look forward to.”

Read more here

Tags: Chemistry, Reach Out Lab
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Time out: Cooking society

4 April 2012

Hot apple fritters, sweet pumpkin pie, olive bread fresh from the oven… You’d be hard pressed not to feel peckish after reading about some of the edible treats members of the ICU Cooking Society have made. The society teaches them how to cook healthy and delicious food, and to have fun while doing so.

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Tags: Bioengineering, Chemistry, Student clubs and societies, Time Out
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Scientists save energy by lubricating wood

19 March 2012

A little bit of lubrication can make a big energy saving when manufacturing sustainable biofuels and bio-chemicals from timber, according to research published in the journal Green Chemistry this month.

Imperial scientists have demonstrated that a key part of biomass processing could be 80 per cent more energy efficient by taking advantage of the slippery properties of ionic fluids, which are salts in a liquid state.

The efficiency savings can be made during one of the energy intensive stages of the biomass manufacturing process, when solid timber chunks are turned into a ‘soup’ of fluids and fine wood particles in an industrial grinder, which works in a similar way to a giant coffee grinder. The discovery paves the way to making biomass industry even greener.

Newly felled timber can be treated with ionic solvents that have previously been shown to help processing wood into biofuels and chemicals. While initially this effect was only attributed to the solvents’ ability to partially weaken wood’s tough, fibrous structure, this new study suggests the energy savings are predominantly due to the way that these fluids lubricate the wood chips as they go around in the grinder.

Lead author of the study, Dr Agnieszka Brandt (Chemistry), said: “Tree wood is a mine of really valuable chemicals locked up in a safe that we need to unlock before we can use the different components. Breaking down the timber into a fine powder helps us to access these chemicals, but it needs to be an energy efficient process to make it sustainable. Our previous work showed how the chemical action of ionic solvents was highly effective, but we were surprised to discover how much energy could be saved when we add the ionic liquids during the grinding process.”

Read the full press release here

— Simon Levey, Communications and Development

Tags: Chemistry
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Honours for Bloom, Donaldson and Phillips

19 March 2012

Professor Steve Bloom (Medicine), pictured, and Professor Simon Donaldson (Mathematics) formally received their knighthoods from The Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace on 29 February. Emeritus Professor David Phillips (Chemistry) received his CBE on the same day.

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Tags: Chemistry, Mathematics, Medicine
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Long server: Peter Sulsh

27 February 2012

Peter Sulsh joined Imperial in 1972 as a Junior Technician in the Department of Chemistry and this February he celebrates an impressive 40 years at the College.

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Tags: Chemistry, long servers
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What do you want to be when you grow up?

21 February 2012

Last year Dr Shane Bergin, Intra European Fellow in the Department of Chemistry, pictured, conducted a survey of postdocs to find out about their career ambitions. He explains why it’s important for postdocs to have an exit plan.

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Tags: Chemistry
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Seven EPSRC Fellowships

25 January 2012

Dr James Bull (Chemistry), Drs Amelle Zair and Piers Barnes (both Physics), and Dr Thomas Reddyhoff (Mechanical Engineering) have been awarded Career Acceleration Fellowships by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC).

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Tags: Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Mechanical Engineering, Physics
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Knighthoods and a CBE for Imperial researchers

24 January 2012

An obesity researcher and a mathematician from Imperial have been awarded knighthoods, and an Imperial chemist has received a CBE, in the 2012 New Year Honours.

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Tags: Awards and Honours, Chemistry, Mathematics, Medicine, Rector
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Speaking about green technology

28 November 2011

Dr Ling Ge, a researcher funded by a Leverhulme Fellowship in the Department of Chemistry, was invited to speak on green technology at the inaugural Europe China Research and Advice Network (ECRAN) conference held at the European Commission, Brussels, last month.

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Tags: Chemistry
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Researchers receive over €12 million in grants from the European Research Council

14 November 2011

Nine Imperial researchers are beginning new projects this autumn, after winning more than €12 million in grants from the European Research Council (ERC).

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Tags: Chemistry, Computing, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Life Sciences, Materials, Mathematics, National Heart and Lung Institute, Physics
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