During October 2019, some of our CDT students hosted a one-day student conference at the University of Exeter. This was co-organised with some PhD students from the Centre for Photonics and Photonic Materials (CPPM) from University of Bath- the “Exeter-Bath Knowledge Transfer”. The aim of this event was to bring together researchers from both institutions and share the research that is being carried out in optics and photonics. In total, 23 students attended this event (9 from Bath, 14 from Exeter) and had the opportunity to present their work and learn about each other’s research projects. This event was useful for interchanging ideas and to begin establishing a network between the CPPM and CDT.
The program of the conference consisted of several oral presentations, some white board explanations and a poster session. At the end of the conference, our students gave a tour around some of the laboratories and the nanofabrication clean room facilities. Finally, a social was held at the Imperial to end a successful day.
The Exeter-Bath Knowledge Transfer event was organised thanks to seed funding that Iago Rodriguez Diez, Harry Penketh, Ben Hogan and students from the CPPM obtained from the collaborative discussion-led incubator workshop “Light@Bath”. This workshop took place in May at University of Bath for the International Day of Light and was supported by the EPSRC-funded project Reimagining Recruitment. The purpose of the event was to bring together researchers who work in photonics in order to exchange ideas, propose problems that are yet to be solved and generate collaborations. The outcome of this workshop was the organization of the one-day conference “Exeter-Bath Knowledge Transfer”.
Iago, one of our CDT students who co-ordinated the event, reported:
“This event was a very nice opportunity for getting to know what another research centre working in photonics does with light. As the main Exeter co-organizer of the event, this was a very good practice for me to challenge my organization and time management skills in terms of personal development. Thanks to everyone involved in the event!”