Wednesday13th June 2019
The Staff Research Conference is also held annually and follows on from the PGR. Just like the PGR the Staff Research Conference allows staff members to present the research they are undertaking to fellow staff, post and undergraduate students. Several of our brilliant academic staff members presented throughout the day.
Head of department Dr Angela Preistman along with Dr Dave Skingsley and Dr Richard Halfpenny presented on the Entomological collaborations underway with Tri-services Environmental Health Officers. This collaboration follows a successful bid to supply the MoD (Ministry of Defence) with training, identification and guidance on entomology for Environmental health officers, who are deployed around the globe to support military and humanitarian aid. The afternoon sessions saw talks from Dr Gavin McStay on Mitochondrial respiratory chain assembly in health and disease. PhD student Eleanor Atkins presented her collaborative work with Dr Richard Halfpenny of the improvement of biodiversity and wellbeing value of urban road verges through the inclusion of hedges and wildflowers.
This work is developing on from Eleanor’s thesis research that she presented at the PGR. Paul Orsmond spoke about his work on turning consultancy into collaborative research while Dr Kevin Reiling presented his research into using ‘Feeding astronauts’ as a vehicle for delivering the Primary Science curriculum effectively to nurture scientific thought and curiosity.