22 Oct 18. PhD Expo 2018 success

With over 70 students from Heriot Watt University and University of Edinburgh, with the latter having representatives from ESRIC, Chemistry, Informatics, Psychology, Brain Sciences, Cardiology and the Centre for Inflammation Research, we were delighted with the attendance at this year's PhD Expo event.

We were extremely fortunate to receive the support from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Canon Medical Group Europe Ltd, and Professor Robin Sellar, for this PhD Expo event, ensuring that we not only provided fantastic prizes for each winner, but that we also had refreshments and food offered to everyone during the networking sessions. This year, our sponsors also provided one half of our judging panel, along with representatives from Heriot Watt and Univeristy of Edinburgh.

Here is a photo of our judges, alongside the Chair of the Expo, Dr Gerry Thompson:

• Marco Razeto, Canon Medical Research Europe Ltd
• Dr Ali Dun, Heriot Watt University
• Dr Marius de Groot from GSK
• Dr Grant Mair, Edinburgh Imaging
• Dr Gerry Thompson, Edinburgh Imaging

(WATCH OUR VIDEO - link at the end of this page)

 

We asked Dr Marius de Groot from GSK, why he believes the Edinburgh Imaging PhD Expo is a great opportunity for PhD students:

I think it's a good opportunity for the students to get together to see all the different departments of the University that are involved with imaging. Either developing imaging techniques & methods, or using these techniques for clinical or preclinical questions. Hearing from all the different groups involved and getting to speak to them during networking - is a really positive element of this event.

Dr Marius de Groot 

 

Edinburgh Imaging PhD Expo winners 2018

With the standard of entries being of such high quality this year, the judges felt that having only one winner per section wasn't sufficient, so created a runners-up prize for each award. 

 

Best Clinical Oral presentation, receiving £200:

Student: Jack ANDREWS

Title: “18F-FLUORIDE PET-MR IN VALVULAR AND CORONARY HEART DISEASE”

Highly Commended Clinical Oral presentation

Student: Beth YORK

Title: "Quantitative imaging biomarkers of demyelination and remyelination: reproducibility of MTsat vs. MTR."

 

Best Preclinical Oral presentation, receiving £200:

Student: Benjamin THOMAS

Title: "PET/CT: identifying sex differences in glucose disposal in calorie restriction"

Highly Commended Preclinical Oral presentation

Student: Adrian GARCIA BURGOS

Title: “Three-dimensional Super-Resolution imaging in living intact pancreatic islets”

 

Best Visual presentation receiving £50:

Student: Sally VANDEN-HEHIR

Title: "New tools for visualising nanoparticle delivery to promote healthy remyelination"

Highly Commended Visual presentation:

Student: Wendy MCDOUGALD

Title: "Multi-centre standardization of preclinical PET/CT imaging: a necessary step towards achieving translational imaging datasets"

 

We asked Dr Gerry Thompson, what the goals of this event are:

We run the Edinburgh Imaging PhD Expo every year as we believe it is a great opportunity for students not only to present their research but also for them to network with other academics, institutes and industry to understand the value in sharing their knowledge and building collaborative relationships.  Our goal is to encourage doctoral researchers to communicate their research effectively, practise sticking to deadlines, and to time limits and adhere to formats as seen at larger conferences, to enhance their experience and to add to their CV. 

Dr Gerry Thompson

 

The afternoon was a great success, and students seemed to really enjoy the event, with feedback comments;

• "Very much enjoyed the venue and quality of talks"

• "I was amazed at the high quality of presentations - better than some conferences I've been to"

• "Really thought the 5 minute talks worked well

• "Great opportunity for PhD students to practice speaking in front of a reasonably large audience"

Our survey results confirmed:

• Over 71% thought the oral presentations were excellent
• Over 90% thought the posters were of a good or excellent standard
• Over 71% thought the location of the venue was excellent
• Over 80% thought that the Expo was good for networking opportunities

 

Please watch our video including highlights from the expo and feedback from the judges, sponsors and winners of the poster and presentation prizes.