The Graduate and Researcher College is delighted to announce the winners of the GRC Prizes 2024. These awards honour outstanding contributions made by postgraduate researchers and members of staff across various fields and disciplines.

The GRC Prizes were established to recognize and encourage the exceptional efforts and achievements of the university’s graduate researchers. This initiative not only highlights the outstanding contributions made by these talented individuals but also serves as a testament to the university’s commitment to fostering a vibrant and supportive research community.

Let us announce the winners of the GRC Prizes 2024:

Research Supervisor Runner-Up – David Garbin

“Receiving the PG Supervisor Prize is a significant milestone I would like to share with my outstanding students. Their commitment to their research and their hard work is truly inspiring! Their critical engagement and international research also enriches our whole academic community. It’s a great honour to work with them.”

Research Supervisor Runner-Up – Marta Farré Belmonte

“I’m very proud to be the Runner-Up for the GRC Research Supervisor Award, and I’m very thankful to my research postgrad students that nominated me. I take a lot of pride in supervising students and helping them develop into amazing scientists, being recognised by my lab students and the Graduate and Researcher College feels very special.”

Research Supervisor Winner – George Saridakis

“Receiving the 2024 GRC Prize for Research Degree Supervisor is an immense honour, coupled with the profound joy of having contributed to the growth and development of my research students. Many thanks to my students, co-supervisors, and colleagues for their unwavering support and collaboration over the years.”

Postgraduate Researcher Runner-Up – Krysia Waldock

“For the importance of my research topic to be understood and recognised as ground-breaking, and the work I have done outside of my PhD, to be recognised, means a lot. This is especially the case where I work in a field (disability/neurodivergence & religion) that is under-researched and not always seen as important.”

Postgraduate Researcher Runner-Up – Waksh Awais

“I am glad to have won the GRC Runner up prize this year and it has really motivated me for my academic career. I also greatly acknowledge the support provided by my supervisors, KBS and all other communities at University of Kent.”

Postgraduate Researcher Winner – Basma Eldoukhi

“I am very proud to be the 2024 GRC Postgraduate Research Student Winner. This award is a clear and nice recognition for all my hard work, commitment and integrity to my research, the university and diverse societal causes using my voice, skills, expertise, power, courage, fierce bravery, and conviction. This award is a reminder of what legacy and mark I want to leave in the academic research and community within the university and wider. I dedicate this award to the people of Gaza and every Palestinian scholar. Research is about and for the people and values, so when the time comes, we need to be  loud and clear to stand up, speak up for these values and people and be the change that we want to see in the academia and everywhere. It has been a tough year and I am so delighted to be winning the Graduate school Prize for postgraduate student. It means a lot to me and I very much appreciate the nominations and the award.”

On the 3rd of July 2024, the GRC welcomed staff and students alike to our Annual Postgraduate Conference.

It was a busy and vibrant day celebrating all of our postgraduate researchers, thank you to all who attended. If you have any feedback from the event, please fill out our form here.

This year, the Graduate and Researcher College (GRC) collaborated with the Division of Arts and Humanities, the Division of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Kent Business School and the Division of Natural Sciences to celebrate our postgraduate researcher community.

The day kicked off with research talks,  panel discussions, poster presentations, interactive sessions and divisional Q&As. We were then also joined by Kent Union, The Brilliant Club, Library Services, Careers Services, and Student Support and Wellbeing. After enjoying a Kentish buffet lunch students and staff mingled and networked, before heading off to more talks, panels, presentations and sessions.

Awards Ceremony 

We ended with an awards ceremony and drinks reception, which celebrated the winners of the Three Minute Thesis,  Academic Poster Competition, Academic Talks Competition, ECR Participation Competition, Supervisor Competition and the GRC Prizes. We were delighted to announce the winners of all our competitions this year at the event. These were:

Three Minute Thesis

Runner-Up – Olasunkanmi Arowolo

Winner – Becky Mcneill

Academic Poster Competition

Division of Natural Sciences Runner-Up – Amy Powell

Division of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Winner – Olivia Keers

Kent Business School Winner – Maryam Ajaj

Academic Talks Competition

Division of Natural Sciences Runner-Up –  Mariam Yacoub

Division of Natural Sciences Winner – Ed Deshumukh-Reeves

ECR Participation Competition

Division of Natural Sciences Winner – Jake Hudson

Supervisor Competition

Division of Natural Sciences Winner – Professor Michelle Garrett

GRC Prizes

Research Supervisor Runner-Up – Dr.  David Garbin

Research Supervisor Runner-Up – Dr. Marta Farré Belmonte

Research Supervisor Winner – Professor George Saridakis

Postgraduate Researcher Runner-Up – Krysia Waldock

Postgraduate Researcher Runner-Up – Waksh Awais

Postgraduate Researcher Winner – Basma Eldoukhi

We were delighted to see so many of you at the Annual Postgraduate Conference – thank you for joining us and making it such a wonderful day!

Hear what some of our students had to say about the day:

“I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and thought that all of the presentations were engaging followed by enriching discussions.”

Subhadip Mukherjee

“This year’s conference was absolutely fantastic. It was brilliant to see so many divisions collaborating and such a large portion of our PGR population in one space! Genuinely a massive well done to you and your team and it was a pleasure to be a part of it.”

Ben Bradley

Hi! My name is Becky and I am a second-year PhD student studying Forensic Psychology at Kent. My research focuses on exploring a new theory of paedophilia which suggests that this sexual interest falls into two pathways: one that is more biologically created, and another that is more environmentally created. I am using a combination of questionnaires, scales, and interviews to gain an idea of how a sexual interest in pre-pubescent children develops, and how it is perceived by those who have it.

I entered the 3MT competition after seeing it advertised and being encouraged by my supervisor to take part. Since I haven’t had the chance to attend many conferences so far in my PhD, I haven’t really been able to showcase my research or practise my presentation skills, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to do so. Even if you are lucky enough to attend plenty of conferences during your studies, the 3MT competition is a great chance to demonstrate an ability to present your research in a clear, succinct manner to an audience who may not be experts in your field, or may not even be that familiar with it at all. Once I started practising my talk, I realised just how short a time 3 minutes is to try and get across something that I’d been working on for nearly 2 years!

Some advice I would give to those considering taking part:

• One way I found helpful was to imagine that I was at a social event meeting strangers, and they had asked me what my PhD topic focuses on. That way, I could figure out how I could explain it in a simple manner, while getting across the important information.
• Draft a speech to start with – even if it is in bullet points, this will form the basis of the speech and make sure you are hitting the key points that are outlined in the guidance for 3MT. Only focus on the really key parts – it might be tempting to go into detail, particularly with complex research, but that’s part of the challenge: how well can you present your PhD to someone who doesn’t study your subject, in a very short period of time?
• Read it aloud while timing yourself – it’s best to not look at the timer while doing this as it can be quite off-putting! This will give you a good idea of whether you are way over or under in terms of time, and you can tweak your speech accordingly
• Even if you don’t have solid findings yet, or feel as though your research isn’t quite developed enough, that’s fine! I didn’t have any findings at the time I applied for 3MT, and I presented what I expected to find
• If you have the opposite problem, and you have too many things to talk about in your speech, that’s fine too! I only spoke about one part of my research as I wouldn’t have had time to talk about the other part – the judges don’t need to know every aspect of your PhD, just a bit of it is enough, and they are focusing on your ability to present your research clearly, enthusiastically, and professionally
• Try to think about the really key parts of your research when creating your slide. I found the slide one of the hardest parts, and in the end I went for a very simple, fairly vague message, which I explained in my speech. There are various approaches you can take to creating your slide, which are in the guidance resources for 3MT, so I definitely recommend taking a look at them. The main thing is to make sure you don’t overcrowd your slide or make it look dull; the judges won’t want to read a lot of text alongside you talking, and things like images are more eye-catching than a graph or table!
• It doesn’t have to take ages, for those who might be worried about balancing 3MT alongside their studies – I would honestly say it took me longer trying to perfect my powerpoint slide than creating and recording my speech!

The 3MT competition is a great chance to demonstrate an ability to present your research in a clear, succinct manner to an audience who may not be experts in your field, or may not even be that familiar with it at all.

I was thrilled to hear I had won the Kent competition, and after doing so, I was very pleased to receive the prize (£200!), and my entry has been submitted to the UK semi-finals for the national 3MT competition. While I don’t know yet the outcome of the semi-finals, it is fantastic to have got this far, and I will at least be able to say that I was a contender in the UK semi-finals for the 3MT competition. Taking part in something like this will look great on a CV in terms of showcasing presentation skills – not only to a room full of experts in the field at a conference, but to a lay audience with a very strict time constraint.

I would thoroughly recommend taking part – you never know, you could be the next UK 3MT winner!

On July 3rd, the Graduate Researcher College hosted the annual PG conference.  Thanks to the hard work of organisers Thomas Cheale and Edoardo Peroni, the School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Actuarial Science (SMSAS) sessions were a resounding success, consisting of discussions, great talks and interactive sessions.

The day started with registration and coffee, giving everyone a chance to settle in. In the first session, we heard two fascinating talks. Edoardo Peroni gave an introduction to soliton theory, and James Bradshaw followed with an interesting talk on kink collisions, complete with videos and graphics.

Session two shifted towards interactive mathematics experiments. Morgan Reese demonstrated the theory of vortices with a water tank and home-made vortex generators made from plastic bottles. Then, Thomas Cheale led an interactive statistical experiment using randomised response techniques to estimate how many audience members didn’t like their supervisors, while keeping answers confidential. Finally, Painos Chitanga introduced the game N-pile Nim and showed how to use maths to win it.

The third session consisted of an industry panel with three former PhD students who shared their experiences and gave advice. Javier Aguilar Martin talked about moving from academia to the private sector and how to effectively leverage a PhD in industry. Lucy Barnes shared her journey working as a civil servant and starting her own company. She gave tips on managing work-life balance. Jack McKenna discussed the different paths into academia after a PhD and emphasized the growing importance of teaching.

We ended the day with a poster session featuring the work of current SMSAS students. Special thanks to Rogerio de Lemos for printing the posters. Amy Klintberg’s poster, titled “When Midnight is an Odd Number: The Mersenne Composites That Are Revealed in mod(Odd),” won the award for best poster in the division of Computing, Engineering, and Mathematical Sciences (CEMS).

The 2024 PG Conference at SMSAS was a success, thanks to Thomas Cheale and Edoardo Peroni, as well as everyone who participated. It was an opportunity to learn, share, and connect with others in our field.