KCL Women in Physics Conference - London 2018 and a new Topic to study!
Hello fellow space geeks!
It has been a couple of weeks since my last blog post, degree intensity increased over the course of the last month and unfortunately has to take priority - I am now onto Topic 9 entitled "Can we lead a chemical free life?" which has seen me grow some cress, and extract B Carotene from carrots! Yep, even though I am doing this through distance learning I still get to carry out some exciting practical experiments at home. Much to my son's dismay I am yet to carry out a practical experiment that involves something going bang!
I promised a few weeks back I would write up my review of the KCL Women in Physics Conference I attended at Kings College London. The conference was free to attend and was made possible by the kind donations from The Institute of Physics and The Ogden Trust.
So what was the purpose of this conference? You may remember in one of my previous posts that I had said that since commencing my studies I had discovered that there was still a high proportion of women within the STEM industry that were disadvantaged because of their gender. Something that to me seems utterly ridiculous in this day and age. Hearing and reading stories that women in science were not able to obtain funding, grants and jobs in the industry because of their gender really shocked me. I am not normally one for shouting out about equal rights, as I naively thought that in this present day such things barely existed anymore.
The KCL Women in Physics Society aims to address this and help develop a close knit community whilst allowing support , mentorship and progress. The conference held annually is an event to help support those of us in STEM.
So my day started with a short train journey into Euston and then onto Kings College London. Its not very often I travel alone and yes I did end up getting lost! I casually walked out of the tube station, walked in the direction that I thought the college was to discover I was in fact round the back....spotting a fellow women in STEM who looked equally as lost in front of me, we teamed up and managed to find the front entrance!
Upon reaching the entrance we were greeted by members of the society who kindly gave us a programme for the running order of the order and a name badge (its not very often I get a name badge so this made me feel very important - sad I know haha).
The day consisted of a number of key note speakers on stage, with a few workshops thrown in and a chance to network at the end of the event.
My main reason for attending was for the networking opportunities, never under estimate the importance of this one skill! At some point in the future that conversation you had a few years back will benefit you :)
The speakers at the conference included Dr Margaret Harris who is the Industry Editor at Physics World, Dr Rachael Padman from the University of Cambridge, Divya M Persaud a planetary scientist and Prof. Carla Molteni from Kings College London.
All these ladies talks were informative and inspiring, although I admit Prof. Carla Molteni's talk went a little over my head (remember I am only just learning the basics of Physics and her talk was a bit more in depth! I perhaps needed to have an interpreter next to me to explain what all the equations and words meant lol - it was still interesting nonetheless). I particularly liked the talk given by Divya as her content was more planetary based (I was particularly impressed that during the course of her career she has visited NASA and SpaceX), she is currently working on developing methods of Mars image data fusion and automated feature recognition ahead of the ExoMars 2020 rover launch.
The end of the day saw a Panellist event discussing the future of physics in Academia, held by a number of graduates from differing colleges and Universities, the ladies on the panel included Soraya Caixeiro, Dr Jasmine Sandhu, Dr Jess Wade, Dr Sarah Morgan (who I inadvertently met during lunch not realising she was one of the speakers! Of course I asked the question "so what do you do?" only to find out 10 minutes in after another lady joined us that Sarah was a panellist! Doh!) and finally Dr Eva Phillippaki.
Overall the event was an informative and inspiring one and I enjoyed hearing about others experiences in the field, where they started off and where they are now.
This event is held annually, so why not pop along next year!
Finally this week I have taken the plunge and registered on my next two modules for my degree. Essential Mathematics 1 (not particularly looking forward to this one) and Physics and Space (finally a module dedicated to the area I started this journey on in the first place!). Excitingly I will get to go on a residential school next year to cover Lab skills, should be an interesting few days.
Good news from this week too! Remember that TMA I was completing a few weeks back, well my results came in and I have already successfully passed my first year! That's with two TMA's left and 2 iCMAS left to complete. So technically I don't really have to do anymore but what a waste that would be? Plus Topic 10 is all about why the sun shines and I don't want to miss that one :)
Now I am off to go and eat some Easter chocolate, enjoy the rest of the bank holiday space geeks!
Em
It has been a couple of weeks since my last blog post, degree intensity increased over the course of the last month and unfortunately has to take priority - I am now onto Topic 9 entitled "Can we lead a chemical free life?" which has seen me grow some cress, and extract B Carotene from carrots! Yep, even though I am doing this through distance learning I still get to carry out some exciting practical experiments at home. Much to my son's dismay I am yet to carry out a practical experiment that involves something going bang!
I promised a few weeks back I would write up my review of the KCL Women in Physics Conference I attended at Kings College London. The conference was free to attend and was made possible by the kind donations from The Institute of Physics and The Ogden Trust.
So what was the purpose of this conference? You may remember in one of my previous posts that I had said that since commencing my studies I had discovered that there was still a high proportion of women within the STEM industry that were disadvantaged because of their gender. Something that to me seems utterly ridiculous in this day and age. Hearing and reading stories that women in science were not able to obtain funding, grants and jobs in the industry because of their gender really shocked me. I am not normally one for shouting out about equal rights, as I naively thought that in this present day such things barely existed anymore.
The KCL Women in Physics Society aims to address this and help develop a close knit community whilst allowing support , mentorship and progress. The conference held annually is an event to help support those of us in STEM.
So my day started with a short train journey into Euston and then onto Kings College London. Its not very often I travel alone and yes I did end up getting lost! I casually walked out of the tube station, walked in the direction that I thought the college was to discover I was in fact round the back....spotting a fellow women in STEM who looked equally as lost in front of me, we teamed up and managed to find the front entrance!
Upon reaching the entrance we were greeted by members of the society who kindly gave us a programme for the running order of the order and a name badge (its not very often I get a name badge so this made me feel very important - sad I know haha).
The day consisted of a number of key note speakers on stage, with a few workshops thrown in and a chance to network at the end of the event.
My main reason for attending was for the networking opportunities, never under estimate the importance of this one skill! At some point in the future that conversation you had a few years back will benefit you :)
Yep that's me in the red top listening intently!
Me again doing a bit of networking!
The speakers at the conference included Dr Margaret Harris who is the Industry Editor at Physics World, Dr Rachael Padman from the University of Cambridge, Divya M Persaud a planetary scientist and Prof. Carla Molteni from Kings College London.
All these ladies talks were informative and inspiring, although I admit Prof. Carla Molteni's talk went a little over my head (remember I am only just learning the basics of Physics and her talk was a bit more in depth! I perhaps needed to have an interpreter next to me to explain what all the equations and words meant lol - it was still interesting nonetheless). I particularly liked the talk given by Divya as her content was more planetary based (I was particularly impressed that during the course of her career she has visited NASA and SpaceX), she is currently working on developing methods of Mars image data fusion and automated feature recognition ahead of the ExoMars 2020 rover launch.
The end of the day saw a Panellist event discussing the future of physics in Academia, held by a number of graduates from differing colleges and Universities, the ladies on the panel included Soraya Caixeiro, Dr Jasmine Sandhu, Dr Jess Wade, Dr Sarah Morgan (who I inadvertently met during lunch not realising she was one of the speakers! Of course I asked the question "so what do you do?" only to find out 10 minutes in after another lady joined us that Sarah was a panellist! Doh!) and finally Dr Eva Phillippaki.
Overall the event was an informative and inspiring one and I enjoyed hearing about others experiences in the field, where they started off and where they are now.
This event is held annually, so why not pop along next year!
Finally this week I have taken the plunge and registered on my next two modules for my degree. Essential Mathematics 1 (not particularly looking forward to this one) and Physics and Space (finally a module dedicated to the area I started this journey on in the first place!). Excitingly I will get to go on a residential school next year to cover Lab skills, should be an interesting few days.
Good news from this week too! Remember that TMA I was completing a few weeks back, well my results came in and I have already successfully passed my first year! That's with two TMA's left and 2 iCMAS left to complete. So technically I don't really have to do anymore but what a waste that would be? Plus Topic 10 is all about why the sun shines and I don't want to miss that one :)
Now I am off to go and eat some Easter chocolate, enjoy the rest of the bank holiday space geeks!
Em
I'm doing MST124 and SM123 too in October!
ReplyDeleteGood Luck Steve :)
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