Editor: Erin Pallott
With some great early feedback, we are excited to keep the momentum going with this series. In this edition, there are some amazing examples of projects people are working on alongside their research, that are all incredibly different from each other. In honour of Postdoc Appreciation Week, we’ve been especially reaching out to postdocs to hear about their work, and we welcome submissions any time from both PGRs and research staff.
Please email anyone on our team if you have anything you’d like to promote through the blog, or maybe give a colleague a nudge if they have worked on something that’s worth shouting about!
Alis Hales
Whilst scientists only make up 0.1% of the world’s population, we are huge producers of waste, with life scientists contributing approximately 2% of global plastic waste each year.
Despite being in the final year of my PhD, it hasn’t stopped my drive to improve sustainability. This year, our lab was thrilled to be the first in the University of Manchester to receive the Gold Leaf (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework) Award. Isobel Taylor-Hearn and I also recently received a commended award for our contributions to social responsibility at the University of Manchester.
Editor Note: There is a new training session available for those interested in learning how to make lab work more sustainable.
Ian Prise
Whilst my head belongs to science, my heart belongs to music. My first and truest love is Progressive Rock, an odd genre of music that reached stadium rock levels in the UK in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, its star waned and by the late 1970s, it was no more. However, Prog Rock still has a small and dedicated fan base and I wanted to assemble a group of fellow rock fans to bring this story to life. About a year ago, I sketched the outline of a podcast, following the rise and fall of this unique genre, structured around my 40 favourite albums. About twice a month, I’d discuss these albums with my friends and slowly but surely A Sorta Young Person’s Guide to Prog Rock was born. We’re almost wrapping up season 1, so if you know Prog Rock already or enjoy bands like the Beatles or Pink Floyd, there’s almost certainly some new music in the podcast to discover. I was surprised to see how many science skills – long-term planning, presentation, storytelling – I used in this project. Whilst producing a podcast is a lot of work, it’s so rewarding to chat with friends about one of my passions, and if you’ve got a weird little obsession that you feel other people need to know about, I highly recommend going for it.
Charlotte Mellor
I’m both a Widening Participation Fellow and a MAP tutor at The University of Manchester. These roles involve doing outreach with local schools and colleges. I think it is very important to help young people make informed choices about their future and to see beyond what they may be familiar with as options for them. I also love helping children to get excited about science. One of my proudest moments was when a child at a junior school I was visiting told me that they were actually enjoying science for once! I’m so grateful that the university provides these opportunities.
Megan Priestley
This summer marked a full year of the Lydia Becker 5-a-side football team, the creation of which is one of my proudest achievements during my PhD. As many great ideas start, the team first formed in the pub after the Lydia Becker Institute’s annual summer symposium. After a couple of pints, I did a whip around to see if anyone else, like myself, had absolutely no football experience but fancied giving it a go. I somehow managed to convince 10 people from my department to agree (some more reluctantly than others) to have a little kickabout.
15 months have now passed and our little team has played almost every week since. We’ve grown from 10 colleagues to a team almost 60 players strong, so many in fact we have had to split into a ‘Beginners’ and an ‘Intermediates’ team (the latter run by Josh Hughes). During this time, we’ve had our own shirts made, hosted an awards night, got absolutely battered in a game against the Brain Inflammation Group (BIG) football team, and all around had a wholesome time. The Becker football team has shown me how important it is to have a work-life balance – easier said than done with the pressure and antisocial hours that can come with a PhD. There’s nothing better to let off some steam than a good run around with friends, and it really makes me look forward to Mondays.
The next big fixture we have on the cards is a “PI and Post-Doc versus PhD student” charity match on the 6th of October, in support of Asthma + Lung UK. All are welcome to come and watch the carnage; all we ask for in return is a donation of any amount on our JustGiving page. We’ll be on pitches 1 and 2 at Denmark Road sports centre, with kick-off at 5.30pm, followed by drinks in Turing Tap. What could be more entertaining than watching PIs, post-docs and PhDs going head to head in a metal football cage?
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