PhD students share research at colloquium event

Posted 2 December 2014

Postgraduate research students from Harper Adams University came together to share the latest developments in their work and present project posters.

The annual Postgraduate Student Colloquium is an opportunity for PhD research students to engage with the wider research community at Harper Adams by giving presentations to their peers, research assistants and post-doctoral researchers.

This aids students in both raising awareness of their own research, and also helping to develop crucial communication skills such as delivering oral presentations to a large audience.

The format consisted of short platform presentations from first year students, outlining the background to their projects and future research plans. Presentations were also given by third year students and included findings from experiments.

As well as the presentations, all second year PhD students were asked to produce posters which were then judged by senior members of academic staff. The award for the best poster was presented to Fittonia Elgina, with second prize going to Joseph Roberts.

Researcher in Plant Pathology, Alex McCormack, co-organised the event. He said: “The Colloquium is a valuable event for PhD researchers because it is an opportunity to hear about research from other departments that you perhaps don’t hear about on a daily basis.

“The event has also become quite large now, lasting a whole day, due to the large number of PhD students present on campus and at other institutions.

“It was good to see many of Harper Adams’ core research areas such as crops, animal science and engineering present, alongside a growing cohort of entomology, conservation, and social science based subjects.

“This mixture of subjects is a really good opportunity to view how agriculture sits in the wider context of society and the environment."

Helping Alex to coordinate the event was Researcher in Entomology, Charlotte Rowley.