#BSFwomen

As part of the British Science Festival, there were two events held at the University of Birmingham (UoB) encouraging the involvement of women in science. The first was a networking event and the second was a panel discussion on the topic of women in science on TV. I attended both and had a really great evening. 

On the way into the networking event, I spotted Jon Wood (@jonwoodscience) with his "I'm a Science Grrl - talk to me!" badge from Saturday's event, and immediately pinned one to my dress! I managed to meet a lot of new people at the event both from UoB and from other universities and companies. The event was also linked to it's own Padlet site, which enabled attendees to scroll through an online pinboard to see who else was there. 

After the networking, there was a mass re-location to the panel discussion. The panel of Elizabeth McIntyre, Alice Roberts, Lucy Pilkington and Gia Milinovich were initially asked questions by the chair Caroline van de Bruf before the discussion was opened to the audience. 

It was really interesting to hear from both the production/direction side and also the presenter side. 
The presenter needs to be a knowledgeable specialist who can bring the passion for their subject across to a mainstream audience. New technological advances such as green screening and remote filming have enabled a wider range of experts to get involved, as there is no longer the need to to abandon your home and family for long filming hours for months at a time.

The number of women vs men on scientific TV programmes was also discussed in detail. Alice Roberts argued that there are a number of prominent female scientific presenters, but for some reason they don't get remembered! Figures have shown that the percentage of presenter led programmes with a "lead woman" are comparable to the percentage of female professors, so TV is not mis-representing society. However, all the panel agreed that TV has an important role, almost a responsibility, to provide role models that can encourage more women into science. 

It was interesting to hear how scientific presenters don't arrive ready made! Some programme budgets now include a pre-production period for training in presentation skills for those who need it. However, we learnt that it takes a lot of time to develop the skills to become a good presenter, and those with experience found that teaching was a great help. The consensus was that, if you can teach a subject to a first year undergraduate whilst keeping them awake at 9am, you can present it to anyone!

The discussion then moved on to whether universities and employers could do more to help. The fact that the UK is the worst country in Europe for mat(/pat)ernity leave was shocking, as this means that there is less choice of who stays at home to look after children.

Once the discussion was opened to the audience, we heard more experiences of interaction with TV - both good and bad. As a student on a Doctoral Training Centre (with 4 years of funding and time for public engagement), I have had the opportunity for more training and experience compared to colleagues on more standard PhD programs. 

The evening finished on an optimistic note, with the encouraging words that more science on TV is the future, and that women can (and will!) be a large part of that future. 

I found both events really interesting, and the latter made me think about the wide range of opportunities available in scientific TV: not just being in front of the camera. It also gave me the chance to share tips and encouragement with other early career researchers who are in a similar position to me trying to balance a PhD with science communication. 

I'm a ScienceGrrl - talk to me!

On Saturday, I was lucky enough to be involved with an activity for the British Science Festival (BSF). It was organised by the Birmingham chapter of Science Grrl: an organisation which celebrates and supports women in science. The description in the BSF booklet was:

"ScienceGrrls will be invading the city, each wearing a badge inviting you to talk to them. Try to guess what they do by studying their props and find out why they love to work in science as they take to the purple soapbox. Pick up a postcard and collect as many stamps as you can."

A simple idea, but it worked brilliantly! Initially, the area outside the library was a bit quiet, but the science busking events in the square were quick to kick off and soon the area became quite busy. We all had postcards with us to give out, and had some pretty impressive badges made by Jon Wood to identify us. I went down to the area by the science busking gazebos and quickly discovered how much fun you can have talking to families! 

The aim of the day was to get the kids (especially girls) to learn more about the range of different things a "scientist" can involve. An opening line that went down well with the girls was "Do you want to hear about all the different kinds of science girls can do?". I then went on to use my beaker necklace and conical flask earrings to help them guess that I was a chemist, and the fuel cell membrane in my pocket to talk about hydrogen. I had some really great conversations, including one extremely enthusiastic girl who exclaimed "That's so cool!!" when I told her about using hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity. This made my day! 

The best comment that I had all day was from a parent of a girl who was about to go into secondary school. She said (and I'm not making this up!)

"I always thought of science as being a 'boy' thing, but now we've come here and spoken to all of you today, we know that's not the case"

 And it's comments like that that make you realise how worthwhile these activities really are - I'm proud of being a Science Grrl, and just slightly disappointed that I can't wear the badge all the time...

View from the top of the new library 

Think Corner

Today I did my first session volunteering at the University of Birmingham's research pop-up shop Think Corner. It is a shop in the Pavillions shopping centre in Birmingham city centre that is full of different activities showcasing the research that happens at the university. It is running from the 25th August to the 13th September 10-6 and is free for anyone to pop in and have a look round. The idea is based on a think corner from the University of Helsinki where the same thing is done permanently.

This morning there were activities involving Bob the robot (@BobStrands, right), gravitational space, proteins, the brain and many more! @jonwoodscience was also doing some science busking (below). All the activities were really engaging for the public - especially the kids, and it was great to see so many people getting involved. @DrAliceRoberts's tree of life is a great activity - this involves painting an image of an animal, which then gets put onto the tree of life on the wall of the shop. 

My job was to go out and encourage people to come inside (Bob took a photo of me while I was flyering which you can see below).  The phrases "free activities for kids" and "robots" usually went down pretty well at drawing attention!

I have another few shifts coming up during the period that the shop is open, and I'm looking forward to seeing the range of research being showcased in different activities and the tree of life becoming more populated. I would encourage everyone to come down and have a look - most activities are for a limited time only. 

It's next to H&M in the Pavillions shopping centre, just off the High Street: see you there!!

 

A visit from Climate KIC's "The Journey"

Last night I went to an event held at the Birmingham Innovation campus organised by Climate KIC. Before then, I had never come across the organisation or what it did. they are currently in the middle of running a summer school for PhD and Masters students across Europe called "The Journey" (#Journey2014). This involves them travelling around Europe for 5 weeks: first learning about the challenges faced by going low carbon, then about business and economics with the aim to come up with a business idea at the end. 

The event last night was a networking session followed by some talks for the students on "The Journey" to meet with local entrepreneurs and those working in low carbon technologies, as part of the beginning of their summer school. 

During the networking, I spoke to a few of the students on the scheme about what they were doing and what they are studying outside of the programme. One of them was very keen on hearing about my placement with POST (see previous blog posts) and so I happily gave her one of my POST business cards so she could find out some more information. I also spoke to another researcher from the University of Birmingham who was just starting a project working on smart cities. 

The first talk was from Clifford Hill, the regeneration manager for Birmingham city council. He spoke about how the city is trying to deal with the 3.2 million tonnes of waste it produces each year, as currently a large portion of it is incinerated. The city's Total Waste Strategy aims to work towards a zero waste economy, where waste is recycled for a productive economic use. He stressed the importance of looking not only locally, but regionally and nationally when considering planning. There are a number of challenges preventing a zero waste economy including were imperfect information (cause by a lack of communication between those producing the waste and those who could use it) and product design (making products that cannot be easily fixed, but easily replaced). If a zero waste economy is to actually happen, there is a need for a societal re-think on how we deal with and perceive waste, combined with a strong political will. However, I believe this is possible - I always think about how if you had told people a few years ago that they would be sorting their rubbish into different bins, they would have said that would never happen, but yet now almost everyone does. The presence of the Birmingham Green Commission is evidence that there is the political will in the city, although in the questions afterwards someone questioned whether this was enough to influence business will. 

The second speaker was David Cole from Smart Innovations Grid. He spoke about the process of developing a new product, getting funding and taking it to market. He built up the back story before revealing the product: a device for controlling and monitoring the consumption of energy. When I was working at POST,  there was another fellow writing a note on Smart Meters and so we had discussed them a few times. It seems to me like the kind of technology that will be taken on board as soon as people realise how useful they can be! Although a Daily Mail headline that I spotted almost two years ago ("They can turn your fridges off!") always reminds me of the need to be careful when dealing with public perception. 

It was a really interesting evening, and I have come away wanting to learn more about the city's low carbon aims (and how they plan to meet them!) and also about Climate KIC. Who knows, maybe next year I'll apply for "The Journey"... 

MH2014 Part 2: Hydrogen storage celebrities, my presentation and dinner at Old Trafford.

Wednesday was the day of my presentation and the most relevant to me in terms of the other talks taking place as well. There was only a morning session: so a short day but very informative. The "celebrity" of my field (Ping Chen), who was the first to discover the system reversibility was also speaking, which was exciting! My talk went well once I got over initial nervousness, and I had no difficult questions, so all was well :-)


The afternoon had a planned excursion to a country house. Having worked in one for 5 years I decided to take the opportunity to go out on the bike. I plotted a 70 mile route on Google and headed out into the sunshine. 5 and a half hours later, I got back after climbing over 4,500ft, having wished I'd also plotted the elevation! I just about had enough time to turn myself around for the conference dinner at Old Trafford, the Manchester United football stadium. This was exciting for a lot of people, but not me! The dinner was good, although a bit late coming... 

Thursday was less well attended, probably due to the number of people out until gone 2am the night before! The plenaries were interesting reports from the US Department of Energy and a group using metal hydrides in satellites. I spent the rest of the morning working up my experimental data from the previous week whilst watching the Commonwealth womens triathlon race. After a trilogy of cheesecakes at lunch, I went to some interesting afternoon technical sessions on a range of topics: including one from someone who had waited so long for a UK visa that their flight landed 30 mins before their presentation! 

Again, before the poster session I went to the quays, swimming one more lap than on Tuesday! The poster session was more relevant to my work today and therefore more interesting and productive. 

Friday was just a morning session, but with some interesting presentations. It seemed a shame for the presenters that the programme was quite bare, but the attendance during the sessions was reasonably good. 

Overall: a well organised and productive week. It has definitely given me and my supervisor some things to think about for the future and provided a great opportunity to meet and talk with other researchers from around the world in this area.  

MH2014: Metal hydrides conference part 1: networking at MOSI and freezing on the hottest day of the year!

My second international conference of the year was the Metal Hydrides conference, this time at a more local venue of The Lowry on the Quays in Salford, Manchester. Not exactly exotic, but going to a conference near home does have its benefits (mainly that I was able to bring my bike in the boot of the car!). 

The week began with an early start (even for me!) to be at the Lowry for 9 via dropping cars and luggage at the hotel. The first session began with a plenary lecture that set the scene for the rest of the conference: a discussion of the current energy system and the potential for application of hydrogen technologies, notably metal hydrides. 

This conference was much more focussed than WHEC in South Korea (see other posts) and so many of the technical sessions were very relevant and interesting. All the "big names" in my research area were there, and so it was great to hear what they are doing and also to speak with them during the breaks. 

The welcome reception was held at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) and was a good opportunity for me to catch up with some of the researchers I had met a year ago at the Gordon conference in tuscany. I also discovered some areas of the museum I had missed on my previous visits this year. 

Tuesday began with plenary lectures reporting back on the status of hydrogen technologies in the UK and Japan. It is promising to see how close the Japanese car manufacturers are to commercialisation of the technologies. Most of the UK progress is in research at an earlier stage of development. 

I then took a break from the sessions to finish off my presentation before attending some more interesting technical sessions in the afternoon. Before the poster session, I then went swimming in the quay! I had left my wetsuit at home, but decided to risk it (it was the hottest day of the year!) - I managed 45 minutes before turning blue and heading back to the greenhouse-like conference room on top of the Lowry (below) to look at the posters.

 

WHEC day 4: exploring Gwangju and karaoke!

There were no sessions in the morning today that were relevant to my research, so I decided to only go along to the conference centre in the afternoon. I planned to go hiking, but woke up to some very low lying cloud and so decided against it. I ran to the outside gym where I was joined by a few locals before heading back to the hotel and then out into the centre of Gwangju. 

The subway was very friendly to English-speaking foreigners and I easily navigated myself into the centre. There were no obvious tourist sites, so I just wandered around - including going up a tall building to see the view of the city, and seeing the memorial to the massacre that took place in the 1980s. 

After my exploration of the city I went back to the hotel and then went to the conference centre. Annoyingly the presentation that I had gone in specifically to see was cancelled and so I stayed for the closing ceremony. A lot of prizes were presented for oral and poster presentations (none to anybody that I knew), although a lot of recipients had left already. Before leaving the centre, I went to the Kim-Dae-Jung exhibition. He won the Nobel Peace Prize, and it was interesting to see what work he had done on North/South Korea relations and see what the medal looks like. 

Once the conference had finished, I went out for dinner with some of the other members from the DTC and some others we had met during the conference. We had traditional Korean barbeque and then went out for another Korean tradition: karaoke!