Report on our annual NHLI Postgraduate Research Day

In early July the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI) hosted its annual Postgraduate Research Day.

Our postgraduate students were invited to present their research through talks and posters, allowing all NHLI PhD and MD(Res) students to showcase their work to fellow students and staff in the department. The day is an excellent opportunity for students to network with peers and present their work as well as experience the format and requirements of a scientific meeting. Attending supervisors and lab members are able to critique and advise the PG students to help them for future presentations in their careers.

Following the successful event we asked a couple of attending students to give us their thoughts on the day itself.

What is your name & what are you studying?

Koval Smith, Fulltime Student, PhD Clinical Medicine Research (3^rd Year). 

What role(s) did you undertake on the day, and how did you find the experience?

On the PGR Day I gave a 7 min presentation on some of the work done during my PhD. It was my first time presenting my work to such a large and diverse audience of not only senior academics but also my peers. At first it was a bit of a challenge to try and summarize the important aspects of my work in 7 minutes but after a few tries with my supervisor’s help we managed to get across the important messages. Despite it initially being a bit nerve wrecking it turned out to be quite fun in the end.

I also had the opportunity to judge both posters and presentations. I found this quite interesting as it not only gave me an idea of what was expected but also showed me the diverse nature of the work being undertaken within the NHLI.

What do you think are the benefits of the PGR day for students?

I think it’s a brilliant opportunity to practice giving scientific talks as if it was a big international conference. Starting within your institute is the perfect opportunity for friendly feedback and suggestions on techniques and ways to improve. It gave me to the opportunity to also meet people who I may have communicated with via email on certain projects and also have a friendly face to face discussion about our science.

What could be improved?

The day often is quite packed. So this means that unfortunately some talks which students may find interesting can be missed due to clashes. But overall I think it works very well.

What is your name & what are you studying?

David Salman, Clinical Research Fellow, PhD Clinical Medicine Research (3^rd Year).

What role(s) did you undertake on the day, and how did you find the experience?

I presented, which was useful practice for preparation and keeping things concise. It was also good to get to questions on my research.

In addition, I judged posters - I found it very useful doing this with an experienced academic, to see how they developed their questions etc.

What do you think are the benefits of the PGR day for students?

The usual things - hearing about other research, presenting, answering questions. I found socialising with senior academics very helpful (pub afterwards and tea breaks). It is a good source of informal mentoring. I found it an enjoyable day, with lots of skills to be learned/developed. I enjoyed the informal aspect too - it is not always often you can meet with senior academics from different departments to chat.

What could be improved?

Feedback, or even just marks, on presentations after the event so know what could be improved.

Thanks go to the NHLI education team for putting on such a fantastic event, with Tony Umelo bringing everything together to ensure a smooth day for all.  Thanks to all research and academic staff whose input and participation on the day is invaluable to its success.

And of course congratulations to the day’s winners:

Sam Watson - First Place Poster Presentation (clinical)

Faith Uwadiae - First Place Poster Presentation (basic science)

John Mackey - Highly Commended Poster Presentation (basic science)

Amelia Bercusson - Highly Commended Poster Presentation (clinical)

Eleanor Humphrey - Highly Commended Poster Presentation (basic science)

Simon Brill - First Place Oral Presentation (clinical)

Sarah Bowling - First Place Oral Presentation (basic science)

Gaia Kiru - Highly Commended Oral Presentation (clinical)

Maeve Elder - Highly Commended Oral Presentation (basic science)

NHLI Thesis Prize for 2016 was won by Enrique Gallego-Colon.