Postgraduate researcher commended for conference presentation

Posted 22 October 2014

Harper Adams postgraduate research student, Fittonia Elgina, has been commended for her excellent presentation skills during a conference for early career scientists, recently.

Fittonia delivered a presentation about her work on Campylobacter to delegates at the Society for Applied Microbiology (SfAM) Post-graduate and Early Career Scientists (PECS) Research Conference. She was named the best oral presentation.

The event took place at the Royal Society of Medicine in London with the theme of ‘Current methods in microbiology.’

Fittonia, from Indonesia, is researching the development and evaluation of an on-farm cost-effective biosensor method for Campylobacter detection in poultry for her PhD. She said: “I am delighted to have received this award as it was my first oral presentation at an external conference.

“Being a non-native speaker, my supervisors encouraged me to practice and gave me valuable feedback, as well as all of the opportunities to rehearse at Harper Adams such as research seminars, meetings and events.

“Attending the SfAM PECS research conference was a great experience as a PhD student specialising in microbiology, and the award has definitely made me feel more confident and motivated to communicate my research more.”

Campylobacter is the most common cause of food poisoning in the UK, with around four in five cases originating from contaminated poultry.

Fittonia’s work is part of research being conducted at the Department of Food Science and Agri-Food Supply Chain Management at Harper Adams.

She is the recipient of the Faccenda Postgraduate Research Scholarship and is supervised by a team of experts, including senior lecturers Dr Lynn McIntyre and Dr Jayne Powles; and Dr Steve Moore of Faccenda Foods Ltd.