Sally Hogg – Education
Influencing and Informing Government Policy
Sally is the Senior Policy Fellow in the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) where she works to mobilise knowledge about early childhood development to inform national and local policy. Sally has had a varied career in charities and national and local governments, leading teams to develop and implement interventions for families in the early years, and campaigning successfully to drive policy change. She has also authored a range of influential policy reports relating to the importance of the earliest years of life and issues affecting families during that time.
Nicky Buckley and Kavya Neeba – Centre for Science and Policy
An Introduction to the Centre for Science and Policy
Nicky is the Director of Fellowships and Networks at CSaP. She also develops CSaP’s academic networks, supporting researchers to plan policy engagement, and develops interactions with other universities in policy engagement. Nicky is the institutional lead for the Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE) project, funded by Research England.
Kavya is a Policy Engagement Network Coordinator and is responsible for working collaboratively with the Knowledge Exchange and Impact team in the University’s Research Strategy Office to develop and share opportunities for researchers to contribute to policy and connect them with policy professionals. She also works to convene a University wide ‘Policy Engagement Network’ to facilitate academic knowledge exchange and support academics in developing policy engagement activities. Previously, Kavya has worked with policy think tanks and NGOs in India, particularly within the education sector. She holds a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Birmingham and an Integrated MA in Development Studies from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
Elisa Galliano – Physiology, Development and Neuroscience
An Introduction to Creating an Effective Scientific Poster
Elisa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience (PDN) at the University of Cambridge. Elisa trained in Italy, Rotterdam and London. Following a Sir Henry Welcome Postdoctoral Fellowship, where she spent four years investigating experience-driven plasticity in bulbar dopaminergic interneurons and the effects of such plastic modifications on the first synapse in olfaction and on olfactory behaviour in Matthew Grubb’s lab (King’s College London) and Venki Murthy’s lab (Harvard University), she started her lab at the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. In October 2020 she joined Fitzwilliam College as Fellow and Director of Studies in Biological Natural Sciences.
Elisa will share her tips on what and what not to do when creating the perfect poster!
Jo Montgomery – Dr Jo Science Solutions
#I am Remarkable Workshop
Jo is a Primary Science Specialist. She is a qualified teacher and research scientist with more than twenty years experience delivering fun and engaging hands-on science workshops in schools and supporting teacher professional development. She has worked in scientific academic research, clinical trials and preclinical development in the pharmaceutical industry, teaching at primary, secondary, FE, HE and adult training. She has a BSc (Hons) in Biology and Biochemistry, a PhD in Neuroscience and QTS.
The I Am Remarkable programme is a global movement that empowers everyone to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond. I Am Remarkable is about breaking down biases: Imposter syndrome. Stereotypes. Culture. For many reasons, lots of us feel uncomfortable sharing our achievements. By amplifying stories and research on the transformative power of self-promotion, we want to inspire every single person to share their accomplishments.
It includes the goals:
1. Lift the motivation and skills of self promotion for underrepresented groups (including women)
2. Challenge the social perception around self promotion
During the 90 minute workshop, you will learn the importance of self-promotion in your personal and professional life and be equipped with tools to develop this skill. It’s a really empowering, feel-good, thought-provoking exercise to lift us up, celebrate our successes and support others.
Lucy Spokes & Diogo Martins Gomes – Public Engagement, University of Cambridge
A Plan for Public Engagement
Dr Lucinda Spokes is Head of Public Engagement at the University of Cambridge. An atmospheric chemistry researcher by background, she now supports researchers and communities to engage collaboratively, effectively and enjoyably with each other, sharing information, ideas and inspiration.
Diogo is the Public Engagement Manager for the Schools of Clinical Medicine and Biological Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He is responsible for developing strategies and practices to embed a culture of excellence in public engagement with relevant research areas at the University. His career has always been linked with Education and Public Engagement. Diogo has worked in several institutions in Portugal, the Republic of Ireland and the UK in Education, Impact and Public Engagement. Diogo holds a PhD from the School of Education, National University of Galway, Ireland. Diogo’s research focused on the partnerships between science education at the primary level and public engagement initiatives offered by Universities. Diogo continues to use his research skills to collaborate with researchers to publish the results of their Public Engagement initiatives in peer-reviewed journals.
We love a plan! And one of the planning tools we use in public engagement is a logic model. In this session we’ll use this tool in exercises that will allow you think about why want to engage, the outcomes and impact you want to achieve, who you want to engage with and how to reach them. We’ll look at how to run your project efficiently and how you might evaluate to learn and evidence your success. We’ll also consider the places you run events in, the resources you might need, the language you use and how you can make your engagement more inclusive.
Rebecca Williams – MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit
Rebecca is a third-year PhD student at the MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit researching apathy in dementia. She is also the City Coordinator for the Pint of Science festival this year and the Lead Organiser for Summer CAMP (Cambridge Access to Mental Health and Psychology), a programme which aims to encourage undergraduates from under-represented backgrounds to explore an academic career. As a science communicator, Rebecca greatly enjoys giving talks on a wide variety of subjects, but is excited to give her first talk on the wonders science communication itself.
Craig Brierley – Office for External Affairs and Communication, University of Cambridge
Have I got news for you: how to get your research into the headlines
Craig is Head of Research Communications at the University of Cambridge, managing the team responsible for promoting research across all disciplines. His own focus is on clinical medicine. Craig was named Charity Writer of the Year in the 2019 Medical Journalists Awards. He previously worked at the Wellcome Trust and before that at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, where he managed to get Kermit the Frog to comment on bioethics. He is a big Japanophile.
Paul Fletcher – Psychiatry
Paul is the Bernard Wolfe professor of health neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and an expert on psychosis and schizophrenia. Paul trained in medicine and psychiatry before taking a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. He uses combinations of pharmacological challenges, neuroimaging and larger scale behavioural studies in healthy and clinical populations, with the aim of understanding the basis of learning and decision-making in the human brain. In 2014 he started working with Cambridge games developer Ninja Theory to develop Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, which was launched in 2017 and has now reached six million players. Paul has continued this collaboration with Ninja Theory in advance of the release of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 in May 2024.
17:10 Reception in the gardens of Newnham College
18:30 Close