Recent projects
Some recent projects or postgraduate travel funded by the Alumni Foundation are featured below. We hope that these projects will inspire you to get involved in similar events and activities, or even come up with your own ideas!
If you’d like us to feature your Alumni Foundation funded project or event on this page, make sure you send us your feedback report as soon as possible, together with copies of any press coverage, or web links to any relevant websites. Feedback, including high resolution photographs, should be submitted through Blackboard (make sure you obtain the consent of any identifiable people in the photos for use on our website). We’ll then select the best reports to feature on our website.
Postgraduate Travel - Charlie Colenso (BSc 2008)
I would like to thank all those involved in enabling me to attend a Gordon Research Conference on Ion Channels this July (2012). The conference was held in South Hadley, USA and it is only with the help of the Alumni funding that I was able to attend the conference due to the cost of the flight and conference registration. For this I am eternally grateful.
The conference was really awesome. I met so many lovely people who work in and out of my field. I presented a poster and also gave a 2 minute 'Data Blitz' presentation which was hugely beneficial as it gave me public speaking practice and also meant that people knew who I was and what I worked on, so I had several people come to me afterwards with suggestions to aid my research. This was really helpful. I was also able to give some 'computational' suggestions to 'experimentalists' working on my channel. The conference was an amazing opportunity to network and I feel I did this rather well. I introduced myself to several people high up in my field and had many really interesting conversations. Through this I got a few offers of post-doc work which I am really happy about!
The conference really stimulated my passion for science and gave me the opportunity to speak with people who work on the same channel as me which I have not had from the other 2 conferences I have attended during my PhD. The conference aims at sharing unpublished data with other scientists so a lot of new, exciting ideas and concepts were introduced.
I am so happy and pleased to have attended the conference as I feel it has not only benefited my research but also my future career. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity!
Conservation Group Report
"The Bristol University Conservation Group travelled to Instow beach in North Devon to help with the construction of a soft engineering sea defence project. We worked with Rupert Hawley from the North Devon Biosphere project as well as being supported by Rodney Cann from Devon County Council. The aim of the project was to stabilise the sand on the beach using sustainable chestnut paling fencing to prevent it drifting onto the nearby road, which can cause flooding by blocking the drainage systems.
Everyone enjoyed the opportunity to construct something that would help the local community. Despite the occasional rain shower everyone worked incredibly hard and managed to put up nearly half a mile of fence in just under two days. It was a good opportunity to get some hands on experience that was related to some of our member’s degrees as well as a chance to see parts of the South West we may not otherwise get the chance to see as students. Many of the local residents using the beach commented on how impressed they were with the quality of our work.
We promoted the Alumni Foundation through our Facebook page, website, and in our forthcoming annual newsletter. Additionally the local newspaper, The North Devon Journal, supported our work with an article and the kind contribution the Alumni Foundation made to the trip was featured. The grant was used along with contributions from members to pay for the minibus we used over the weekend. We are very grateful to the Alumni Foundation as it wouldn't have been possible to run the trip without their help."