Registration is £25 for students, £40 for faculty staff and professionals. The full list of speakers includes international experts of the neuroscience of engagement, social signal processing, immersive theatre, and human-computer interaction.

Image generated from Sanoodi – click the image to access the zoomable map

Sussex’s Researcher Wellbeing Week was a great success last week, and in particular the rounding off of the week with a walk on Friday. The intrepid Chris Kempshall led a gaggle of fourteen researchers out of their natural habitat (campus) at 15:00 and off into the wilds of Stanmer Park. It felt great – we kept a moderate pace so we were able to talk without huffing and puffing, and we stopped regularly when we encountered landmarks along the way, such as the dew pond, Frankland Monument, the badger log and Stanmer Church. We stopped and had pots of tea at Stanmer House, then strolled back past campus and over the A27 to Falmer pond.

We searched in vain for the Farmers’ Market in Stanmer, but perhaps our information is a little <ahem> out of date… in any case, we finished up in The Swan for a well-earned drink (50p discount per drink with your student union card) and a chat in front of the fire at a few minutes after 5pm.

According to Sanoodi (a free online outdoor activity-mapping service) the walk from start to Swan was a round 3 miles, with an overall altitude gain of 144 metres.

• Sanoodi route map of wellbeing walk
• Guide to Stanmer Park [PDF]
• Stanmer Preservation Society (SPS)
• A little bit of history with some useful images : Stanmer House and Park, East Sussex: The evolution of a small downland country house and its setting c. 1710-1805

A bit more about the landmarks on the walk…

Dew ponds are a feature of the South Downs, appearing in many locations along the rolling hills. They are man-made ponds, built for the purpose of providing water for livestock. The dew pond behind the Attenborough Centre was created when the Brighton & Sussex Medical School was originally built, to offset the green space that was lost.

© Sarah Robins-Hobden. licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY)

The Frankland monument is listed, and was erected by Thomas, Lord Pelham, and his wife Ann, who was the daughter of Frederick Frankland.

The Badger log is a sculpture made from a tree that fell in the 1989 storm. The artist is Reece Ingram, and the sculpture was made in 1991. It’s deteriorating naturally, but you can see it in it’s better days here. It is set in an area called the ‘Pleasure Gardens’, behind Stanmer House.

© Sarah Robins-Hobden. licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY)

Stanmer House is a lovely location for a pot of tea, homemade cake, and a chat. Perfect if you want to get off campus and are happy to walk. The ground floor is part cafe, part bar, part restaurant, and in the cooler months the open fires in each room are welcoming… as are the comfy leather sofas!

Stanmer church was declared redundant under licence from the Diocese a couple of years ago. Now the building is used as exhibition and event space, among other things. The ancient yew trees in the graveyard are beautiful, and their trunks so great in diameter that you can actually climb inside one of them.

© Sarah Robins-Hobden. licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY)

Falmer pond - We saw ducks and geese at Falmer pond, apparently a common sight, though we didn’t spot the rats that live there.

The Swan - If you show your student ID at the bar, you’ll get 50p discount off your drink at The Swan – worth noting if you want to get off campus and stay local.

Special Issue: Doctoral research supervision.

Sussex Drosophila Retreat 2012
Dr Sarah Newbury

Drosphila Retreat 2012 delegates

In December, 2011, Juan Pablo Couso in Life Sciences, pointed out to me that it was my turn to organise the Annual Sussex Drosophila Retreat.  I first of all asked my two very efficient technicians, Clare Rizzo-Singh and Karen Scruby, to help me out. We then checked out the venue which was Herstmonceux Castle, near Hailsham.  The conference organiser there was very helpful and explained the costs of each facility and the options we had available. In particular, the conference room was very pleasant with alcoves, an anteroom where refreshments could be served and windows overlooking the moat.

Karen then set about inviting the participants using Googledoc which is very handy as it puts the information straight into a Excel spread sheet. The next big job was to try to get sponsorship.  We persuaded a number of industrial companies, e.g. Qiagen, Fisher, Brand, each of whom sponsored a A4 advert in the abstract book. Agilent also agreed to pay £200 to give a seminar by an expert in high-throughput techniques. We tried various other sources for funding. The Company of Biologists did not fund our small grant application, but the Biochemical Society gave us £200. At this stage we were getting a bit desperate for funding and were thinking of introducing austerity measures such as the group leaders having standard rather than en-suite rooms!

At that point we were fortunate enough to be awarded £2444 from the Doctoral School. This meant we could cover the costs (including the minibuses to the venue, which were surprisingly expensive), the printing of the abstract books and the travel costs for the invited industrial speakers. The organisation of the abstract book took a number of reminder emails but we managed to get all the abstracts together and the booklets printed at the Sussex print room.

In the end, the Sussex Drosophila Retreat went very well. The minibuses turned up, all the invited speakers arrived and the talks were interesting. The anonymous survey showed that the PhD students and postdocs found the event useful and thought it improved their research and transferable skills. A number of people found it very useful to talk to the industrial experts about new techniques. There were criticisms was that there was not enough free time for informal discussions and/or walks around the grounds.  We can address this next time.

We would sincerely like to thank the Sussex Doctoral School for providing us with funding under the Researcher-Led Initiative fund.

Related articles

• Researcher-Led Initiative (RLI) fund: call for applications open! (doctoralschool.wordpress.com)
• TRASH Art evening and PG conference: registration now open (doctoralschool.wordpress.com)
• Researcher perspective: Herstmonceux Retreat 2012 (doctoralschool.wordpress.com)

Monday 30th July 2012

Today, all of the Drosophila research groups from Sussex are heading out to East Sussex to Herstmonceux Castle for the annual Drosophila Retreat. The Retreat consists of three days of presentations and break out discussion groups. This year 23 delegates will be attending and three outside speakers will also give presentations on two evenings.

As a first year PhD student I do not know what to expect and I can say I am quite nervous about what it is going to be like. We had a lovely drive to Herstmonceux Castle which is set in beautiful countryside and I was quite eager to have a walk around the grounds.

The first day got under way as soon as we arrived with presentations by Dr Claudio Alonso’s research group. This was followed by a discussion group session where we broke out into smaller groups to discuss individual presentations and then to present our views back to the group as a whole. This was a really good opportunity to discuss techniques and to gain feedback and advice from colleagues. As a first year it was a great way to get to know other researchers working for the University and to know what research they were involved in.

The evening’s activities involved a pub quiz created by Chris Jones and Joe Waldron. This was a fun activity and a great way to relax with the group. There were several rounds, some science related where we embarrassed ourselves with our lack of general science knowledge, some general knowledge rounds and a special Olympic round. It was great fun and I even managed to be part of the winning team, along with Richard Kaschula, Chris Sampson and Wan Liu!!

Tuesday 31st July 2012

I arrived early for breakfast to make sure I could get some energy for the day. Food was served at set times in a main canteen and the choice was excellent. Each day we had coffee and biscuit breaks in between sessions, so I can safely say none of us went hungry! Tuesday was filled with presentations and discussion groups from Professor Juan Couso’s group. In the evening we welcomed Konrad Paszkiewicz and Karen Moore from the University of Exeter to talk to us about RNA Sequencing.

Wednesday 1st August 2012

Wednesday was the last full day of the retreat and the day I had to present my work to the group. The day started with presentations and discussions from Dr Ted Morrow’s research group. I found this session particularly interesting as Ted’s research is more evolutionary than any of the other groups and it was great to get advice from a different research perspective.

After a quick lunch it was the turn of Dr Sarah Newbury’s research group and I was the second presenter. Everything went well and we had a very useful discussion about our work afterwards. We then were all excited about the end of retreat party!! Balloons were blown up and everyone headed to the pub for a few rounds of pool and darts before the balloon volleyball got underway in the castle. No clear rules or tactics made for a fantastic (and loud) game of balloon volleyball which involved using a balloon as a bat to hit another balloon to the other side of the room (far more fun than you would expect!!) We then hit the dance floor for another chance to embarrass ourselves in front of our colleagues!!

Overall I can say the retreat has been a great few days. It was a great opportunity for me to meet fellow Drosophila researchers and to get help and advice on my project; it will be interesting to see what new advances people have made at next year’s retreat.

Related articles

• Researcher-Led Initiative (RLI) fund: call for applications open! (doctoralschool.wordpress.com)
• TRASH Art evening and PG conference: registration now open (doctoralschool.wordpress.com)

Tomorrow 11:30-12:30, Hive discussion: “Copyright in the digital age – does it offer increasing freedoms or restrictions?” http://sussexresearchhive.blogspot.com/2012/02/copyright-in-digital-age.html

Tomorrow 14:00-16:00, Workshop: “Copyright Issues in the Doctoral Thesis” http://www.sussex.ac.uk/doctoralschool/internal/researcherdev/events/date

Reblogged from TLDU @ University of Sussex:

At a time when it is increasingly important for researchers to communicate their work to the public, researchers at Sussex are being given a head start. Media training is provided as part of the Researcher Development Programme coordinated by the Doctoral School and RUSTLE talked to Ros Barber who says that the workshop was ‘probably the most valuable training I had at Sussex - and I had some very good training here as a doctoral researcher’.

Read more… 887 more words

I am currently in the second year of my PhD in cell biology and embryology with Professor Darrell Evans. It’s a lab based thesis, which is great as I love feeling like I’m actually physically doing something day to day – even if its killing cells by mistake!

The subject of my thesis is fascinating – and one that even I was not aware of before applying for it. Here’s an interesting fact for you: tendon can turn to bone! And no it’s not a freak of nature, it actually happens in a lot of us on a small scale. If we damage our tendons by over exercising or tearing them by mistake, tendons are not great at repairing themselves like muscles do. They tend to do a poor job, leaving tendons very weak and if that wasn’t enough, can lay down a bone like material within the tendon tissue. This also happens in age, possibly due to repetitive strain on the tissue. What’s more, tendon seems to have been neglected in scientific research: shockingly, not much is known about the general biology and development of tendons. The overall objective of my PhD is to identify the basis of the mechanism that results in the ossification of tendons and find out what role the tendon cell plays in it.

Alongside my research, I am a budding science writer. I have found a passion for writing about science, as it allows me to creatively express my fascination for science! I currently run a blog named The Science Informant in which I explore various science topics, from why we faint to the psychology of appetite. I am also Science Editor of Sussex Newspaper “The Badger” and contribute to various online magazine including “Cosmos Magazine” and “Guru Magazine”.

My article for New Scientist is based around the topic of my research – tissues turning into bone – and gives a broad, up-to-date view of the subject. It covers the incredibly debilitating disease that is FOP (Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva – a genetic disease in which most of your tissues turn to bone), an introduction to tendons and how tendon ossification can affect most of the population in age before reporting on some exciting new therapy prospects being studied at the moment.

A huge amount of work went into writing the 4 page feature – especially as a beginner to the field of science writing and with the rigorous requirements of a magazine such as New Scientist! It started off by my going to a networking event for science communications students up in London. Let me tell you – it was probably the scariest moment of my life! When a pub is filled with people you aspire to work for and talk to, it can be somewhat intimidating! But from that I made some great connections, including with a New Scientist editor. Keen as ever, I sent her an article based around my research topic. It was all wrong for them – length, structure, focus – but she very nicely agreed to guide me through the process of writing something that would fit in the magazine! Exciting! I learnt a great deal whilst writing the feature – not only about writing for New Scientist but about how to interview people, how to grab your readers and how to accept a lot of editing! The feature named “Turned to Stone” was published in December and was the perfect Christmas present: Being published in my favourite magazine has been a huge thrill! I can’t wait to write the next one!

Image via Wikipedia

Radio Free Brighton produces the “My Research Records” show, where Brighton-based researchers discuss their research and why it is important. Discussion is interspersed with their favourite music, which may (or may not) be relevant to the research.
You can listen to the broadcasts via Facebook (Radio Free Brighton) or from the webpage http://radiofreebrighton.org.uk/shows/my-research-records/

Get involved:

My Research Records is growing, and needs more researchers to get involved. If you’d like to discuss your research and engage with the public, please send an email to Jonathan: J.M.B.Newman@sussex.ac.uk