qma 2014

Centre of the Cell a People’s Palace for the modern day

QMA THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI

AND FRIENDS OF QUEEN MARY

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Clear skies for Emily

125 years of excellence and innovation in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science

10 years of the Mile End Group from John Major to Tony Blair

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QMA | Queen Mary’s Alumni magazine | 2014

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Contents

Development and Alumni DirectorateQueen Mary University of LondonMile End Road London E1 4NSTel: +44 (0)20 7882 7790email: [email protected]/alumni

To catch up on issues of the Queen Mary Alumni e-Newsletter, please visit www.qmul.ac.uk/alumni/communicationsIf you would like to subscribe, email [email protected]

Welcome ........................................................................3Year in photos 2012-13 ..................................................4 Queen Mary news ...........................................................6Clear skies for Emily .......................................................8Islam and the West .....................................................12Centre of the Cell ........................................................16Blowing the whistle on the REF ....................................20Annual Fund ...............................................................22Queen Mary Students’ Union ........................................24125 years of excellence and innovation .......................26International partnerships ...........................................30From bench to bedside ................................................3210 years of the Mile End Group and MEG100 ................36Arts training in the spotlight ........................................38QProjects ...................................................................40Alumni news ...............................................................42Noticeboard ................................................................48

WelcomeA very warm welcome to the first issue of your new alumni magazine, QMA.

This issue charts a busy and important couple of years in the history of Queen Mary, during which time staff and students played roles in the success of the London Olympic and Paralympic Games (page 8); we were invited to join the Russell Group, which represents 24 leading UK universities, including Oxford and Cambridge; we welcomed former Prime Minister Tony Blair to campus to speak at the 100th Mile End Group event (page 36); and we celebrated major achievements across all three faculties.

In recent years, Queen Mary’s stature as a global university has grown and this is visible through our student body, our staff and the expansion of our activities in transnational education. At the same time, we remain very conscious of our roots in the East End of London and continue to interact with and support our local community, particularly through public engagement activities at the newly refurbished People’s Palace at Mile End and the Centre of the Cell at Whitechapel (page 16), and through the large number of student volunteers coming through the Students’ Union (page 24).

I am aware that, for some alumni, this is the first publication you may have received in some time, for which I apologise and can assure you that this is the start of what will be more frequent communications. Many alumni have played and continue to play important roles in Queen Mary’s progress by providing time, money and expertise. You are our finest ambassadors and I am constantly impressed and delighted by the high regard in which you hold your university. I sincerely hope that you will continue to champion Queen Mary and become involved in our work in the future.

Best wishes,

Professor Simon Gaskell President and Principal

3,000+ members

Any section of this publication is available in large print upon request. If you require this publication in a different accessible format we will endeavour to provide this where possible. For further information and assistance, please contact: [email protected]; +44 (0)20 7882 5585.

The information given in this publication is correct at the time of going to press. The university reserves the right to modify or cancel any statement in it and accepts no responsibility for the consequences of any such changes. For the most up-to-date information, please refer to the website www.qmul.ac.uk

Disclaimer: opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the individual writers and contributors. Photos: Jon Cole, www.jonathanclephotography.com ISSN: 1743-5676

This magazine has been printed on environmentally friendly material from well-managed sources.

Editorial by Rosie Fiore, www.rosiefiore.com


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Year in photos

2012- 13Scientists track navigation routes of bumblebees

Oral history project captures stories of conflict and peace in Irish border regions

Researchers discover invasion of fresh-water non-native species in River Thames

AUTUMN

WINTERQMUL’s Wolfson Institute wins Research Project of the Year at THE Awards

Historic 1936 Rutt organ restored to former glory Iconic People’s Palace reopens following extensive refurbishment

Study finds premature babies survive birth but still suffer health problems

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SPRINGQMUL/RSC Shakespeare masterclasses held in Brazil

Launch of Centre of the Cell’s ‘Sponsor a Neuron’ campaign

Slumdogs and Millionaires: Geography undergraduate fieldtrip to Mumbai

QMUL partner school St Paul’s Way rated ‘outstanding’

© ALL Design

© João Millet

Researchers complete largest study of sequencing of human disease

Salters’ Festival of Chemistry creates a bang at QMUL

SUMMERQMUL-BUPT Joint Programme students graduate in Beijing


© Bea Nagy

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Queen Mary news

The meaning of serviceThe Queen Mary Archives and the School of History began work in September 2013 on a project to develop enhanced teaching materials for secondary schools on the nature and meaning of military service in WW1. The project is sponsored by the Centre for Public Engagement at Queen Mary. They aim to draw on the Queen Mary Archives and the Barts and The London Hospitals Archives to identify individual stories to give scholars a deeper and more personal understanding of the realities of military service.

BBC’s ‘World War One at Home’ projectDr Dan Todman is one of several experts taking part in the AHRC-BBC collaborative ‘World War One at Home’ project. This will tell the story of WW1 through the people whose lives were transformed – in their homes, schools, churches, theatres, streets and factories. Dr Todman will advise BBC London on the War’s impact in the capital.

For more information about these projects and other initiatives, visit: www.qmul.ac.uk/ww1

Queen Mary and the centenary of World War OneAs the whole country pauses to mark the solemn anniversary of the start of the Great War, researchers, teaching staff and students will be involved in a wide range of projects and public engagement exercises. Drawing upon our research excellence across the humanities, science and medicine, we will be working with a wide range of institutions on initiatives and events which will explore the course and consequences of the War. Our programme from 2013-18 includes public lectures, conferences, workshops, concerts, research, teaching and much more.

One of the world’s most international universitiesQueen Mary has been named one of the most international universities in the world in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013-14. With some 150 nationalities studying and working on campus, Queen Mary is ranked joint nineteenth.

The rankings examine a university’s international student numbers, its percentage of international staff and the proportion of research papers published with a co-author from at least one other country.

Queen Mary has more than 1,500 EU students and almost 6,000 international students in London, with a further 2,000 students studying in China for a joint degree with the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

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Humanities and Social Sciences

Science and Engineering New cyber research institute launched Queen Mary scientists will be helping to develop new ways to protect our online security through a new cyber research institute established with GCHQ, the UK’s electronic eavesdropping agency.

Made up of teams from six universities – Queen Mary, Edinburgh, Imperial, UCL, Kent and Manchester – the institute will bring together academia, industry and government to focus on investigating new ways of automatically analysing computer software to reduce its vulnerability to cyber threats.

Professor Dino Distefano, a specialist in software verification from the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, will lead on finding security vulnerabilities in computer code. He says: “Computer code is ubiquitous now, running most of our everyday services, from the nation’s electric grid to credit and debit cards in shops. This new institute will help to identify weak spots within the software code and ensure we can develop resilience to cyber-attacks.”

New industry-led programmes in the social sciences Queen Mary has become one of the first universities in the country to offer an LLM in Energy and Natural Resources Law. Launched in response to demand from both students and the legal market, the new programme will cover law in the oil, gas, nuclear, mining and renewable and sustainable energy industries.

We have also become the only School of Law within the University of London to offer a Masters of Law specialism in International Shipping Law, and the first university in London to offer a full-time, one-year Masters in Public Administration (MPA). The MPA has become increasingly popular as a route to senior management in local, regional and national government, and NGOs, regulatory bodies and the not-for-profit sector.

Research shows a Living Wage increases happiness and saves money Research by Professor Jane Wills in Geography reveals that one in five London workers are paid ‘poverty wages’. While the current minimum hourly wage stands at £6.19 per hour, campaigners suggest that a minimum of £8.30 – the London Living Wage – is needed to cover the basic cost of living.

The new research is the first of its kind to provide data showing that the Living Wage increases the happiness of workers. A large workplace survey found that half of employees felt more positive about their workplace once the Living Wage was introduced, with 52 per cent feeling more loyal to their employers. The research shows that the government could save almost £1 billion per year if all workers in London received at least the Living Wage, because of the increase in taxes paid and a reduction in welfare spending.

School of Medicine and Dentistry Wolfson Institute recognised for life-saving research The Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, at our School of Medicine and Dentistry, this year celebrated a haul of international awards recognising their pioneering research. At the Times Higher Education Awards in 2012, Queen Mary picked up Research Project of the Year for work led by the Institute’s Professor Attila Lorincz into developing a new screening test to detect the virus that causes cervical cancer. The test is of particular benefit in poorer nations where there are no screening programmes.

The other awards received were:

• Professor Jack Cuzick (Mathematics, 1971), who runs the Institute’s Centre for Epidemiology, Mathematics and Statistics, was recognised for the outstanding cancer prevention research that he has conducted over his career, receiving an international award from the American Association for Cancer Research.

• Professor Sir Nicholas Wald, Director of the Institute, received the Hamdan Award for Medical Research Excellence in the field of fetal medicine in recognition of his pioneering contributions in antenatal screening for congenital malformation.

• Research jointly led by the Wolfson Institute into the long-term impact of breast cancer screening received an international award from the Radiological Society of North America. Stephen Duffy, Professor of Cancer Screening, accepted the award on behalf of the research team.

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“I met Emily, a Games maker at the Paralympic Games. She talked of what the Games meant for her and what participating in wheelchair basketball means to her. ‘It has lifted the cloud of limitation’”Lord Coe CH KBE, Chairman, London Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

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Clear skies for EmilyThe face of the National Council of Volunteer Organisations and a star Games Maker from the 2012 Paralympic Games, Queen Mary alumna Emily Yates is going far – to Rio 2016 and beyond

When Emily Yates was in Year 7, at South Craven School in Keighley, her class was due to go on a school trip to Germany. The school had misgivings about taking Emily along as she was a wheelchair user, but Emily’s mum, Gene Spencer, lobbied for Emily to be included on the trip. The school agreed, and promised to make any necessary special arrangements. It turned out that Emily needed very few “special arrangements”. She had a support worker on the trip, and she stayed in the same hostel as her classmates, where she had to contend with a few stairs. She took the occasional taxi. She discovered that a few years before, another pupil who was in a wheelchair had not gone on the trip because it might have been too difficult. Aged just 12, Emily realised that many disabled people were missing out on opportunities because they believed that “it would be easier for everybody else if I didn’t go”. At that moment, she realised she would spend her life working for greater opportunities and freedoms for people like herself. And with everything she has gone on to achieve, South Craven School has stood behind her, supporting the plucky girl who showed such ambition.

Even if you think you haven’t heard of Emily Yates, it is likely that you have. She featured in Lord Coe’s rousing and touching speech at the Closing Ceremony of the Paralympic Games: “I met Emily, a Games maker at the Paralympic Games. She talked of what the Games meant for her and what participating in wheelchair basketball means to her. ‘It has lifted the cloud of limitation’, she said.”

Now 22, Emily graduated with a degree in English Literature from Queen Mary in July 2013. She was no stranger to volunteering before the summer of 2012, and worked with several volunteer organisations throughout her degree, also working with Represent London to mentor previously disadvantaged young people and get them involved in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This endeavour bore fruit both for Emily as a Games Maker, and for the young people she encouraged. In April 2013, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) hosted an event at which Paralympic athlete Tanni Grey-Thompson and others discussed whether the Games had indeed “Inspired a generation”, as the slogan would have us believe. It appears that 73 per cent of young people who were involved in the Games in some capacity have gone on to work on other projects and as volunteers.

The Games were certainly life-changing for Emily. We talk about how the Paralympics changed the public perception of disability. “There are many more opportunities for disabled people,” she says. “People in general are more aware, and tend to be more helpful. The fear of disability has subsided somewhat. In a funny way, thanks to the Channel 4 campaign Meet the Superhumans, people seemed to begin seeing disabled people as more than able, as capable of great things.”

When asked if that view has had some negative implications, she says “Yes. The range of disabilities is so enormous, and sometimes people can have unrealistic expectations. Disabled people can end up feeling they have to prove that their disability exists.”

Emily says that she herself has never experienced discrimination from members of the public. She puts this down to her confidence and outgoing nature. Emily is a twin, and she and her sister Lucy both have Cerebral Palsy. Lucy can walk, and Emily is a wheelchair user. From a very early age, their parents encouraged them to be independent. They attended mainstream primary and secondary schools in North Yorkshire. Lucy is a Fine Art student at Nottingham Trent, and Emily frequently drives up to visit her. Both sisters have always participated in a wide range of activities – Emily’s trip to Germany being a case in point.

When she was 16, Emily won the opportunity to travel with a charity called Journey of a Lifetime Trust (JOLT), a small organisation dedicated to helping disabled, ill, neglected and abused young people. She went on a trip to South Africa, Namibia and Lesotho, and experienced things that she had never dreamed possible. She cage-dived with sharks, went pony-trekking through the mountains of Lesotho, rode an elephant, went on a helicopter ride over Cape Town and volunteered in schools. It was, truly, a journey of a lifetime and it helped her to realise just what was possible for disabled people when they have the proper support.

Filled with confidence from that experience, Emily next undertook a month-long trip to the Sinai Desert in 2010 with the Yorkshire Schools Exploring Society. She was the only disabled person on that trip, and the organisers insisted she travel with her mum, Gene. At first Emily was reluctant, but in hindsight says she is so grateful that her mother went with her. They lived with a Bedouin tribe in the desert, and went scuba diving in the Red Sea. She found it very tough, and said she would cry every night because she was so tired. The trip was not designed for a disabled person, and it was difficult to make all the activities accessible. For example, camels were the only mode of transport, and she found it extremely difficult to get on and off the camel’s back. “I discovered my limits,” she admits, but she was inspired by the challenges, and wanted to see how far she could go. Much, much further, it would seem, and in 2011-12 Emily spent a year on exchange at St Mary’s College at the University Of Melbourne in Australia, returning just in time to take up her position as a Games Maker, working with the Wheelchair fencing team at the Paralympics.

These experiences helped Emily to consolidate her aims – and meant that in 2014, she will be launching into the biggest project of her life, a project which synthesises her talents – her love for travel and volunteering – and her considerable people skills.

“I have been commissioned by publishers Dorling Kindersley to write a travel guide to the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games for disabled visitors. The aim is that the guide should be given away free, so my first task is to talk to corporate sponsors to raise the funds to make that possible. We need approximately £500,000 if we want to print a million copies, or £300,000 for half a million copies.” While it sounds like a tall order, Emily is confident that big corporations will be keen to get involved. Michael Stanfield of Dorling Kindersley concurs: “DK fully supports Emily and will work closely with her to aid the success of this unique project. We hope to build a solid relationship with Emily and look forward to working with her on many more projects in the future.”

The last six months of 2013 saw Emily ramp up her airmiles tally considerably, as she set about working towards her ambitious goals. After a month interning for her local MP she set off for Chengdu and Shanghai in China, on a full Queen Mary scholarship to study at Sichuan University. She attended lectures in Taoism and participated in activities such as Tai Chi and Kung Fu.

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She returned to Queen Mary for three months to work as a Volunteer Administrator for the Students’ Union, matching student volunteers with suitable volunteering roles within organisations. She was also at the helm of the Freshers’ Crew, 80 students who help to orient the new students and give them a week to remember.

Emily then spent a month in Glasgow, writing an accessible travel guide to the Commonwealth Games, in association with Rough Guides. She stayed in a different hotel every night, reviewing bars and tourist attractions. Her trip was sponsored by UnLtd, a student social entrepreneurship funder.

Emily’s dreams for Rio came a step closer in December, when the British Consulate invited her to visit the city, on a trip generously sponsored by Santander. The Consulate set a week-long programme for her in which she met and presented in front of numerous authorities and government officials including the Rio 2016 Organising Committee and the Brazilian Paralympic Committee. Follow Emily’s journey

on Twitter: @EmilyRYates

She also managed to squeeze in some tourist time, having a go at adapted surfing on Barra Beach with locals with disabilities, and attending drum workshops and dance classes at a Samba School for the Disabled.

While she was in Rio, MetroRio, the equivalent of the London Underground, invited her to visit some recently adapted tube stations. They aim to make all their existing stations accessible and build several new ones before 2016. Following these meetings, MetroRio offered Emily a position as a freelance accessibility consultant from April this year. So once again, she is Rio-bound, ready to prepare for the Games. For Emily Yates, it seems anything really is possible, and we predict we’ll be seeing a great deal more of her in the years to come.

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What does the current crisis in Syria have to do with the First Crusade? They are both part of a long and complex relationship between the world of Islam and what we broadly refer to as “the West”. A ground-breaking Centre at Queen Mary brings together the disciplines of history, law, politics, modern languages and literature to learn more.

Dr Tom Asbridge, Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam and the West, tells a fascinating anecdote to his MA students about his time as the historical advisor on the 2005 Hollywood blockbuster Kingdom of Heaven. Director Ridley Scott called him in to watch a scene that took place shortly after Saladin had sacked Jerusalem. The actor playing Saladin, Ghassan Massoud, is seen walking through a wrecked room. A cross has been knocked to the floor and he thoughtfully picks it up and replaces it on a table. “Isn’t that an amazing scene?” said Scott, “It wasn’t in the script. Ghassan just did it, and when I asked him why, he said ‘That’s what Saladin would have done.’”

“Except,” said Dr Asbridge, “there is compelling first-person, Arabic testimony from an advisor to Saladin, that tells us in great detail about their entry to Jerusalem. And Saladin ordered the cross to be removed from the roof of the Dome of the Rock and smashed.” Scott found this enormously frustrating. He felt the dramatic weight of the moment and the positive message outweighed the need for historical accuracy, but Asbridge was unmoved. “It’s a nice untruth,” he explains, “but an untruth nevertheless.”

untangling WestIslam

and the

a thorny relationship

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untangling West

a thorny relationship

“Whether people are working in different disciplines or on different periods of history, or addressing different questions, they often don’t take the time to ask, ‘What does that represent in the round?’”

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In the end Dr Asbridge opted to have his name removed from the film credits. “Ultimately, they weren’t interested in how people might have thought or felt or acted,” he explains. “They only wanted information about historical artefacts.”

This anecdote serves as a useful illustration of Dr Asbridge’s feelings about medieval history, specifically the Crusades, and his broader interest in the relationship between Islam and the West through the ages. He feels that the relationship between the two groups over the past 1,300 years has often been misrepresented in academic circles and in popular discourse. “In the scholarly world there is a tendency to allow pockets of knowledge and study to exist in isolation and not connect them,” he observes. “Whether people are working in different disciplines or on different periods of history, or addressing different questions, they often don’t take the time to ask, ‘What does that represent in the round?’ It’s too easy to try and create a neat summation of the relationship, to say ‘It’s always been violent’, or ‘It’s always been close, and so much joins us together’. But that’s simplistic. I don’t want to be a propagandist. I want to reflect reality. It’s true it has always been a fractious relationship but it is multi-faceted in every aspect – political, military, cultural, legal, even linguistic. So what does that mean?”

Dr Asbridge, a medieval historian, spent six years working on his critically acclaimed single-volume history, The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land. After its publication in 2010, he began to think about the relationship between Islam and the West. “I wanted to contextualise what I understand about the medieval world in a bigger picture,” he says, “And address the nagging question: what has been the nature of the relationship between the Muslim world and the Western world? And so the idea for the Centre came out of my own intellectual hunger for a broader world in which to study.” When he began researching other academics and departments at Queen Mary, he discovered that there was already a great deal of expertise within the university. He approached academics in the fields of History, Politics, Modern Languages (especially those of the Iberian world), Law and English Literature. “The hope is to grow and involve other areas of study in the future,” he says, “For example we see a strong link with Geography, especially in the field of migration studies.” It was a game of ‘join the dots’, and the first students embarked on the dedicated MA in 2010, with the Research Centre formally launching in November 2012.

One of the first questions the Centre addressed was to attempt to define those complex terms “the West” and “Islam”. These are very broad expressions for multifaceted and changing societies, and depending on one’s perspective, period or position, the answers can vary greatly. For example, in modern day terms, we associate Islam with the Middle East and North Africa, but in medieval and early modern studies, the Islamic world would have been concentrated around the Mediterranean. Increasingly, our understanding of the terms is affected by the migration of people of all cultures – in the

“In the scholarly world there is a tendency to allow pockets of knowledge and study to exist in isolation and not connect them”

study of Islam and Sharia law in modern Europe and Britain we are no longer talking about Islam and the West as two separate entities, but as multicultural societies in the same space.

Researchers at the Centre cover the widest possible range of topics, from late medieval Spanish history to Ottoman Egypt, and from international relations in the Arab Middle East to immigration, refugee and nationality law. The student body is as diverse as the topics they study. “In the three years of the MA, around 50 per cent of our students have been Muslims,” says Dr Asbridge, “But the rest come from a wide variety of backgrounds and religions. We have had Christian and Jewish students, students from the UK, and also international students from the USA, Germany and Japan.” Dr Asbridge says teaching such a diverse group with a good gender balance means that discussions in class can be very fruitful. From 2015, the MA course will be absorbed as a stream within the wider School of History MA programme.

While the Centre is undertaking ground-breaking research and reaching a varied student body, how do they relate to the outside world? The Centre’s location in Mile End places it at the heart of the largest Muslim community in Britain (there are 71,000 Muslims in Tower Hamlets, according to the Office for National Statistics, 36 per cent of the population of the borough). While members of the wider community are encouraged to attend public events at the Centre, Dr Asbridge says they are proceeding slowly before forming formal affiliations with any organisations. “If you’re tied to one group,” he explains, “Another group might not talk to you.” So although they speak to a great many community organisations and interact with, among others, the Muslim Council of Great Britain, there will be a 12-24-month procedure in which they consider any formal links very carefully.

However, there is a real opportunity for the Centre to reach out to school children in the borough and beyond, encouraging dialogue and educating them on key issues around Islam and the West. As a result, some PhD and MA students piloted a schools day with a select group of AS history students in 2013. The Centre encouraged students to lead the day as an opportunity for them to develop and extend their organisational and public speaking skills. Dr Asbridge and Dr Chris Philips, a specialist on Syria and Jordan and on

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the role of identity in the politics and international relations of the Arab Middle East, supported this pilot event. The students who attended came from three distinct groups: schools which are very local to the Mile End campus, which tend to have a high percentage of Muslim students; schools from further afield where there are few, if any, Muslim students and some misinformation about the world of Islam; and schools where research has shown there are students who may be interested in studying history at Queen Mary and ultimately joining the Centre.

The Centre hosts other public events throughout the year. There is an annual public lecture, which in 2013 was given by renowned author and cultural commentator, Tariq Ali. The 2014 lecture, due to take place in May, is entitled “Islam, Politics and the Great War”, and will be presented by Dr Eugene Rogan, a Fellow of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He is the author of The Arabs: A History (Penguin, 2009), which has been translated in to nine languages and was named one of the best books of 2009 by The Economist, The Financial Times and The Atlantic Monthly.

The Centre also presents regular research seminars, which are more academic and aimed at a smaller group (around 30 people), where papers are given by people working at the coalface of research. In 2012, the Centre held a very successful forum event, which focused on Syria and featured multiple speakers, followed by an hour of debate. This was an ideal forum to encourage dialogue and get a mix of people in the room. Dr Asbridge hopes to host many such events in the future, and sees the on-going debate about multiculturalism versus integration as a fertile future topic, and a question which affects all communities in the UK.

And as for Dr Asbridge himself? What does the immediate future hold? When we met, he was in the final stages of completing a new book, a biography of medieval knight William Marshal. When asked why he had chosen this particular figure, he smiled ruefully. “I’m trying not to gush,” he admitted, “And tell you that he’s the greatest guy who ever lived.” He talks excitedly about Marshal’s relatively humble beginnings as the younger son of a minor Lord, his rise to fame as a tournament knight and his ultimate position as ruler of England. There is a BBC programme to accompany the book. “And the Hollywood biopic?” We enquire lightly? “I’m not being funny”, he says, “but there are talks...”

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QMA | Queen Mary’s Alumni magazine | 2014ArtsTwo: home of the Centre for the Study of Islam and the West

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Centre of the Cell a People’s Palace for the modern day

It’s a Tuesday afternoon in the Centre of the Cell nucleus, a space-age oval room with dramatic red lighting and a host of bleeping, flashing, moving exhibits. Three Year Nine boys from a Stepney Green Maths, Computing and Science College class are crowded around a display.

They’re trying to identify which alleles in a pair of genes cause congenital deafness. They’re laughing and enjoying the interactive nature of the game, which includes video and a touchscreen display with a slider which they can move to examine the different areas of the genes. They haven’t found the correct pair yet, and David, a medical student and Explainer in charge of their tour, steps in and talks them through the problem once more. This time they get it right. In a short video, the scientist who made the discovery, Professor David Kelsell, congratulates them and poses an ethical question: “If you have this genetic information, should you use it to select embryos without the deafness gene?” The boys move onto the next display, loudly discussing their views on this thorny question.

These 30 students are but a drop in the ocean. To date, more than 75,000 children, young people and families have visited the Centre of the Cell or participated in one of their outreach programmes. Over half of the visitors come from schools in Tower Hamlets, but there are also significant numbers from the adjoining boroughs of Newham and Hackney, and increasingly from further afield – south London, other areas of the capital and the suburbs, and a rising number of international groups, including a group of Saudi princes on a visit to London recently. During school holidays, the Centre holds sessions for family groups and members of the public. Many distinguished guests have also passed through the Centre, including Princess Anne, Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex, and David Willetts, the Minister for Universities and Science. At the HEFCE conference in April 2013, Willets acknowledged the vital work the Centre does for all the people of London. “Currently, the spillover benefits of excellent widening participation initiatives – such as Queen Mary’s Centre for the Cell on the Whitechapel Road – are not recognised. I want to see the right incentives in place for more such initiatives.”


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VIPs notwithstanding, it is the people of east London for whom the Centre was built. Its aim is simply to foster a passion for science and to encourage young people to consider it as an area of study and a possible future career. As school groups enter the Blizard Building and cross the glass bridge to the Centre, they look down into laboratories filled with working researchers. This is real science. The researchers, the Explainers who lead the Centre sessions, and the STEM Ambassadors, postgraduate scientists who volunteer to talk to groups about their work and being a scientist, are of a widely diverse ethnic mix, and many are local east Londoners. Students of any ethnicity are likely to encounter a scientist who comes from a similar background to their own.

The work of the Centre doesn’t end within the walls either. The dedicated Centre of the Cell website has had 37 million hits from 162 countries, and a vibrant outreach programme takes shows and workshops on scientific subjects out to schools. The format and content were developed in close collaboration with schools – front-end evaluation is key to everything the Centre of the Cell creates. However, its Director Professor Fran Balkwill, feels that students get the maximum benefit from visiting the Centre itself.


“This is the finest exhibition of its kind anywhere in Europe”Lord Robert Winston, Professor of Fertility Studies, Imperial College London

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We meet Professor Balkwill in the courtyard outside the Blizard, an arresting building in Whitechapel designed by Will Alsop. The Blizard is home to the Centre, alongside facilities for the Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, and extensive research laboratories. Professor Balkwill is an exceptionally busy person – one has to assume she has been granted more hours in the day than mere mortals, because her achievements are simply staggering.

She is the driving force behind the work at Centre of the Cell, while maintaining an impressive academic research career at the same time – she is Professor of Cancer Biology at Barts Cancer Institute, where she leads the Centre for Cancer and Inflammation. She is a frequent plenary and keynote speaker at international meetings and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, as well as a non-parliamentary board member of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Chair of Understanding Animal Research (UAR) and a member of the Royal Society Faraday Award Committee. She also serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee of Breakthrough Breast Cancer. She has written 13 science books for children on cell and molecular biology – her titles include Have a Nice DNA and The Egg and Sperm Race. She was awarded an OBE in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Professor Balkwill guides us into the Blizard Building and we sit in a set of red chairs arranged in rows, which take up the north corner of the foyer. This is the holding area for groups visiting the Centre of the Cell. The group from Stepney Green have already gone upstairs to the Centre itself.

The Centre is currently raising funds to expand. They plan to build a new building called the ‘Neuron Pod’, which will resemble a giant nerve cell and which will be located in the courtyard of the Blizard. Sitting with Professor Balkwill in the foyer, it’s clear why they need this additional structure. The foyer is busy – it is a thoroughfare to the Nucleus café and the 400-seat Perrin Lecture Theatre. As we sit there, hundreds of medical students file in to attend a class. “Bookings for the Centre are up year-on-year,” Professor

“Centre of the Cell... will inspire students and allow them to develop their interest in science”Hasib Hikmat, Head of Science, Bow School


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Balkwill observes, “and there’s no reason to think they’re going to decrease. Currently, there is nowhere for groups to have lunch, and we have to time our introductory and closing sessions to avoid clashing with students going in to and out of the Perrin. A dedicated space would greatly increase our potential capacity, and would host live science shows, hands-on workshops, debates, films and exhibitions. It could also be used by other sectors of the university, and outside organisations.” The Neuron Pod will be a dramatic and striking structure (again designed by Will Alsop), and corporate and private sponsors can choose to sponsor one or more of 500 ‘dendrites’ or branches, which will protrude from the Pod’s exterior and light up the building.

When we go up to the Centre, we are struck by the articulate, vibrant young people leading the session. There are three Explainers – David and Hannah, both second year medical students, and Ruksana, who trained as an English teacher but applied to work at the Centre, having attended programmes there. Professor Balkwill explains that they are part-time employees of the Centre, working 10-15 hours a week, and they receive training to lead the shows. “It greatly enhances their communication skills,” she explains. “They have to think in great detail about what they know, and find a way to explain it so that it is appropriate for the age and level of their group.” When we chat to David and Hannah, they say that this group, Year Nines who are all approximately 14 years old, is an optimum age for them to work with. “They understand the basic science behind what they’re seeing,” says Hannah. “Younger groups who haven’t done the background work can be more challenging to explain to, but they gain so much from visiting the Centre.”

Each group is also accompanied by a STEM Ambassador, a volunteer postgraduate scientist who is on-hand to chat to students about careers in science and the realities of working in this exciting field. STEM Ambassadors also receive training and are CRB-checked. They too get the opportunity to hone their communication skills, and the experience of working with young people enhances their CVs.


When the session ends, we all return to the seating area in the foyer, and the boys fill out evaluation forms. David leads a question-and-answer session. The boys want to know how much a scientist earns. STEM Ambassador, Reetika, a second year PhD student, gives them a well-considered and realistic answer. “Most of us work in the field because we’re passionate about it and love science. You’d probably start on £20,000-£25,000, once you had your PhD,” she says, “But it would go up from there.” “To what?” The boys ask. “Could we be millionaires?” The Explainers and Reetika laugh. “It’s unlikely, but anything is possible.” “So, guys, what do you think?” David says, wrapping up. “Do any of you think you might consider a career in science?” With typical teenage reluctance, the boys are reticent to raise their hands. A few do, hesitantly. One boy, sitting by the window, half raises his, then drops it. His friend, sitting beside him, grabs his elbow and pushes his hand into the air. They grin.

In 1882, novelist Walter Besant wrote in All Sorts and Conditions of Men: “Two millions of people, or thereabouts, live in the East End of London. They have no institutions of their own to speak of, no public buildings...they have nothing”. Besant’s observation led to the establishment of the People’s Palace, a place of learning for all the people of East London, and the cornerstone of Queen Mary as we know it today. “The Centre of the Cell,” Professor Balkwill observes, “is a People’s Palace for the twenty-first century.”

“Most of us work in the field because we’re passionate about it and love science”Reetika, STEM Ambassador

The Research Excellence Framework (known as REF, and formerly the RAE) is the way that the government assesses the quality of research taking place at UK universities. It happens every seven years and is important because the results determine how the research councils allocate their money to fund university research each year – worth around £1.6 billion in 2013. The results also feed into annual university league tables put together by newspapers.

Most of the assessment (65 per cent) is based on ‘research outputs’ – published research papers and books. While 20 per cent is based on ‘impact’, a new element introduced to demonstrate that research has had benefits beyond academia. The key thing here is that the ‘impact’ must stem from a particular piece of research. It could be something like a cure for a disease, a new piece of technology or a museum exhibition that captures the public imagination.

Academics don’t always welcome government initiatives like this, and the REF generated its fair share of heated debate within the sector. The most controversial aspect of the assessment was the introduction of impact statements. But initial concerns that this would favour commercial ‘spin-outs’ and the ‘easily measurable’ to the detriment of other types of work were addressed. For example, sharing the results of your research with the public counts. As does impact on culture, health, policy, the economy and the environment.

One thing even the government wouldn’t deny: REF is a lot of work. To give you an idea, the final word count for Queen Mary’s written elements – 106 ‘impact’ and 21 ‘environment’ documents – was 362,000 words, longer than David Copperfield and Ulysses, and not far behind War and Peace. So what good has come out of this? In an era when universities are being placed under increasing pressure to establish the value of what they do, perhaps impact is no bad thing. It’s a clear opportunity to highlight the contribution universities make to our society, in ways that may have previously been overlooked.

Here are just a few examples from Queen Mary. Did you know that scientists in our Astrophysics department have been taking the latest results from a NASA space mission to Saturn into the GCSE classes of schools in Stepney Green? Or that, thanks to Queen Mary research, 2,500-3,000 additional women per year in the UK have a breast cancer detected early through two-view mammography? It’s not only about saving lives; it’s also about improving them. One of our geographers, Professor Jane Wills, has used her research to drive a campaign for a Living Wage to ensure a better quality of life for low-paid workers. Many large companies and employers, including Queen Mary, are now committed to paying this. We’ve also helped to create jobs in places as far away as Papua New Guinea.

European Union rules relating to the export of canned tuna might not be everyone’s thing but a change in policy, initiated in

Blowing the whistle on the REFUnless you’re a keen follower of higher education news, you’ll associate the word REF with a Saturday kick-about or Match of the Day. But for academics and other university staff it’s an acronym that can send shivers down the spine.

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part thanks to research by Dr Liam Campling from the School of Business and Management, is estimated to see the tuna industry in Papua New Guinea grow by $50 million by 2018, and local employment increase from 5,770 to 20,000.

This is before we’ve mentioned the cutting-edge software bought by Facebook, the theatre performances in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, the television documentaries and radio programmes, the changes to legislation, the museum and gallery exhibitions, the advice on the UK constitution, the exposure of inequalities in the treatment of mental health patients linked to their ethnic background, and even changes to government policy on imported bumblebees – all of which

stem from our research. There are many more examples from Queen Mary and from universities around the country. It’s clear that these institutions are very far from the ivory tower myth occasionally perpetrated.

At the end of November, a group of people gathered around a desk and watched as with a tick of the terms and conditions box and a hit on ‘submit’, REF came to an end. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief sweep through the corridors of departments around the university. But it’s not quite over yet. We should spare a thought for the carefully selected expert panels of academics and other users of university research, who this year will give up their free time to read and assess all this information. The results of their deliberations will be published in December, but whatever the outcome, there is one thing we can be certain of – the whole university pulled together on this project, and learnt a lot about itself in the process.

To find out more, visit www.qmul.ac.uk/research

“Queen Mary’s written elements – 106 ‘impact’ and 21 ‘environment’ documents – was 362,000 words, longer than David Copperfield and Ulysses, and not far behind War and Peace”

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Emerging Labour MarketsThis project, supported by a grant of £3,000 from the Annual Fund, addresses the issue of a labour market for new graduates that is changing rapidly year-to-year, particularly in sectors such as new technology, health, engineering and sustainability.

The project is developing guides – available to students shortly – which cover sectors such as biotechnology; sustainability and environment; big data and technology services.

These guides have been created through interviews with industry representatives and Queen Mary faculty to ensure that they are appropriately targeted and to ensure that modules taken by students are relevant to these emerging opportunities. Once completed, the guides will be complemented with careers workshops and sector-specific online content. “With the UK labour market changing

almost as fast as the introduction of new technologies, it is important that careers information be kept up-to-date with emerging sector trends.”Dr Maya Mendiratta, QMUL Careers Consultant

Annual FundEnhancing the student experienceLaunched in 2011, the Annual Fund is comprised of the Queen Mary Fund, the Barts and The London Fund and the Dental Centenary Fund. Each Fund allows donors to choose which area of Queen Mary will benefit from their generosity. Within those elements, donors can further choose to either provide financial support to undergraduate students; postgraduate students; or fund projects which will deliver new academic and extra-curricular activities.

The Annual Fund has raised over £600,000 thanks to the generosity of more than 1,000 alumni, staff and friends, with one-third of those funds already at work across the university.

It is remarkable what many like-minded donors, making relatively modest donations, can achieve. The average regular gift – those given monthly, quarterly or annually – is equivalent

to £15 per month, whilst single gifts range from £5 to £2,000. Collectively, these gifts enable Queen Mary to provide financial support and new opportunities beyond what is otherwise possible, and makes an enormous difference to the lives of current and future generations of students.

Here you can read about just a few of the projects which have benefitted students so far, with many others underway. Making a gift to the Annual Fund is easy – simply visit www.qmul.ac.uk/alumni/supportingqm and follow the links.

A sincere thank you to all donors to the Fund so far – your support is greatly appreciated and we hope that you will choose to make a gift to the Annual Fund this year to provide further support and new opportunities to students here.



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How can I support the Annual Fund?It is easy to make a gift to the Annual Fund. Please visit: www.qmul.ac.uk/alumni/supportingqm or email [email protected]

Every donation makes a real difference to students across the university. Thank you for your support.

QMUL Festival of Sport Event at the Copper Box, Queen Elizabeth Olympic ParkThis event, held at the start of the academic year, provided students with the opportunity to try out a variety of sports in one of the Olympic Park’s most recognisable venues and where a number of Queen Mary sports teams are now able to train and compete.

The event was run by QMSU’s Get Active programme and was staffed by QMSU Volunteering. The event proved a great success in increasing participation in sport amongst the student body.

“It was great to see so many of our students engaging with the Union through sport at this event. We’re very grateful to have access to this venue and for the support of the Annual Fund in making it happen.”Sarah Sarwar, QMSU President

Teddy Bear HospitalTeddy Bear Hospital’s (TBH) aim is to help young children overcome their fears of doctors and hospital environments in a playful, non-threatening way, to understand their bodies and how to live safely and healthily and also to improve medical and dental students’ communication skills with young children and their parents.

“This year I have found it a lot easier to participate in any of the stations at the Teddy Bear Hospital clinic, because the resources are so helpful!” Parisa Khonsari, second year Medical student

The Barts and The London Annual Fund and Dental Centenary Fund supported the project with a grant of £1,150, which has been used to improve advertising through the website (http://teddy.smd-edu.qmul.ac.uk) and provide additional equipment for the sessions.

As a result, the number of student volunteers has increased by 80 per cent and has allowed TBH to be run on a fortnightly basis. By May 2014, TBH expects to have visited 15 schools this year – an increase of 50 per cent.

Scholarships and Hardship16 Scholarships, worth £1,000 each, were awarded to the best-performing Home/EU and international students in both first and second year undergraduate examinations across the faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences and Science and Engineering. In addition, two Annual Fund Masters Scholarships were awarded to Queen Mary graduates wishing to pursue postgraduate study.

The School of Medicine and Dentistry elected to use funding for student support to provide £44,000 worth of hardship funding, which addresses an acute problem within the School owing to the length of the undergraduate programmes.

Ray Kinsella (Annual Fund Masters Scholarship recipient)“As a teenager that had an unsettled home life, I rejected formal education and stopped going to school aged 14. Twenty years later, and with a history of drug and alcohol problems, I cleaned up my act and felt that I would like to better myself. After successfully completing

the Return to Study course, then the Access to Higher Education Diploma, I won a place at Queen Mary on the English BA programme which I completed, graduating with a 2.1 in 2013. Although it was extremely challenging, my experience of studying for a degree at Queen Mary has changed my life. I enjoyed the challenge so much that I decided I would like to do a Masters.

Having kindly been awarded an Annual Fund Scholarship to study for my English MA, my life continues to be transformed. The scholarship has helped me immensely with the cost of travel, books, and supporting myself through the year. It is hard to put into words what my university experience continues to do for me; my confidence, self-worth, and communication skills have grown immeasurably, and the step up from undergraduate to postgraduate studies has instilled in me self-belief, and shown me that anything is possible in life.

I would like to thank the people who have made this opportunity possible. The Annual Fund Scholarship has helped me in many ways; I feel that my MA is not only stimulating me intellectually, but it is helping to equip me with the relevant skills that I need to live a successful life.”

We have seen lots of posters for an election around campus. Are you all coming to the end of your tenure?Ali:We work for a full year from August to July but once the elections are underway in March, we become old news and everyone on campus is talking about the incumbents.

Sarah:We’re halfway through our tenure, but in a sense, it’s almost like a six-month term. It’s a little frustrating because it seems like we have only just found our feet and fully understood how things work and now it seems it’s almost time to leave again.

How has your experience been?Sarah:It’s been a really steep learning curve. The position has so much responsibility and I had never done anything like it before. I’ve learned so much – it’s really fascinating to learn how a Union works behind the scenes, and I have found it comforting to know that everyone who works here genuinely has students’ interests at heart. I believe we’ve done so many great things this year, which I hope will have a lasting impact.

What do you consider to be your big successes?Sarah:We came up with the Society Development Plan, which gives societies a lot more autonomy in how they work. It allows them to develop themselves towards working like mini-organisations, and that really empowers the students to lead that work themselves. We’ve also worked on the QM Skills Project, which allows students to create a portfolio of their engagement with the Union. They attend skills development workshops so they have a record of all of the different skills they have acquired at university alongside their degree. We’ve been really lucky in getting the university to endorse that this year. It makes real steps towards improving the employability of Queen Mary students. It’s only at the pilot stage but I think it’s a project that will really grow.

Students really care about employability and increasingly they look to the Union as a facilitator and a provider of those skills.

There’s a real awareness that just having a degree isn’t enough – you need experience and to have certain skills, and we are seen as a provider of that now.

Is that true of Medical and Dental students too?Ali: I think they have a slightly different perspective. Employability is less of a factor because the course is structured for you to go into work once you graduate. However, there is the very real issue of competitiveness, where if you want to end up in the top jobs, and top training courses your CV has to be very, very strong. That incorporates a wide variety of things – showing leadership, management, organisation, interpersonal skills, and increasingly, involvement in research. If students are considering going into academia and doing research, having a background in working on research on your CV can help you a great deal.

We’re working on a project called the Research Opportunity Platform. It allows researchers to share their projects with students who can then apply to work on them. These require different types of research, including lab work and clinical work in hospitals. This really helps students to develop key skills. And even those students who aren’t considering research as a career path see the value. When you are working on a ward, you are a scientist too.

Sarah: I think the value in students being involved in research is true in all departments. We started a similar project called ‘Students as Researchers’ this year, where academics can employ students to assist them in their research. That allows undergraduates in departments like History and Politics to view academia as a viable career option. We piloted the project this year with the Library and the School of History. There’s dual value to this – it means students are developing employability skills while benefiting the university as a whole, and that they are working towards the university’s stated goal of knowledge dissemination. It’s just as valuable to the students as it is to the academics.

Queen Mary Students’ Union

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Making student politics relevant for 2014 We met Sarah Sarwar, the President of the Students’ Union, and Ali Jawad, Vice President Barts and The London, on the morning after the candidates for the 2014-15 Executive Officers were announced


What else has the Union been working on at Barts and The London?Ali:We have worked very hard on the issue of mental health. As future doctors we treat patients with mental health issues and we are taught not to stigmatise them, yet within the medical and health care community, there is a huge stigma about suffering from any kind of mental health problem. One of the key problems for students at university, especially in medicine and dentistry, is issues with mental health, whether it’s depression or something more serious. It’s very prevalent and thus it’s something we’re trying to work on – to raise awareness and remove stigma.

Getting back to the election, what turnout do you expect?Sarah:Queen Mary has one of the better turnouts. I think we have 18-20 per cent? It’s still not high – apathy is one of the biggest problems for Unions across the country. Our engagement level is much higher, but getting students to actually vote is quite a struggle.

What kind of students vote?Ali: Some demographics are harder to reach, and that translates into making it harder to encourage them to vote, because they can’t see what the Union will do for them.

Sarah: The humanities tend to have a higher voter turnout than some of the Science and Engineering departments. We have a real issue in engaging with students

studying the sciences. It’s a little different over at Whitechapel, where there is a good culture of engagement with the Union.

Ali: And historically, if you look at the candidates, a lot of them come from the humanities.

Aside from the voter turnout, would you say Queen Mary students are politically engaged?Sarah:I think they are very aware of their own personal situations and they know what they need to get the most out of university. They realise it’s tough out there. They also have an awareness of the wider political issues within higher education. When we stood for election, we learned we couldn’t just talk about the things we would fix. We realised we needed to include some idea of our values and principles in our manifestos. It’s not just about having Draper’s open for longer. It’s also about getting employability skills and action campaigns to improve people’s experience as students. I think students

are catching on to what the Union can do for them and what power it holds. I also think students are political by nature and we are becoming a little more diverse in terms of the students we attract into student politics.

Tell me a little about the candidates for 2014-15Ali:There are a record number of candidates and they are all very

exciting. They come from very different backgrounds. Unusually, for example, we have Welfare and Education candidates from the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science. There is also, for the first time, a postgraduate candidate for President. We’ve also seen candidates from the student staff and student media running for President. It’s great to see members of previously underrepresented groups now accessing the Union and now considering running.

Do you think this is as a result of your work?Sarah:We hope so. We’ve tried really hard to engage with postgraduates and the student staff, and we’ve worked really closely with student media, including the student newspaper and magazines, throughout the year.

Ali: I think that with our own elections last year, people saw us running and getting elected and we came from different backgrounds to previous candidates. It gave scope for more students to consider themselves as candidates. Traditionally, many sabbatical officers come from a sports background. It’s nice to see candidates coming from other groups. Just by running and being in the public eye, we are showing that things can be done differently. I think we’re seeing a new dawn of engagement.

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Sarah Sarwar and Ali Jawad


125 years of excellence and innovation

The School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science

In April 2013, we were delighted to celebrate 125 years of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Queen Mary. At an event held on campus, coordinated by Kok Ho Huen (Computer Engineering, 1998) who works as Laboratory Manager in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, five past and present heads of the department and alumni from the last 75 years gathered to mark the milestone. David Watson, who started his degree in Electrical Engineering in 1936, was the most senior alumnus.

To conclude the year’s celebrations, the 2014 Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Research Showcase took place on Thursday 3 April in the Octagon in the Queens’ Building.This gave interested people an opportunity to find out about the latest research within the School, to meet staff and research students and to connect with partners from industry. The event included talks from each of the Research Group heads, highlighting some of their recent research achievements, posters from research students, tours of research groups, and highlights of the impact of some of their research. The showcase was followed by an evening talk from Professor Andy Hopper, Head of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, a fitting end to the 125th Year celebrations.

Electrical Engineering was first taught at East London College in October 1888, and in 2008 the Electronic Engineering Department joined forces with the Computer Science Department to create a single School. Today, the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science is home to nearly 100 academic staff, more than 100 postdoctoral researchers and 200 research students, as well as 750 undergraduates and 120 Masters students on UK-based programmes and a further 2,500 on three degrees in Beijing.

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We took a look at some recent highlights in research and development in the department.

Professor Yang Hao and the meta-material of the futureImagine a material that is unimaginably thin, transparent, is an excellent conductor, can function as a battery, and is so flexible you can bend and crumple it thousands of times without changing its properties. Sounds like something from a science fiction film, but it is now a reality. It’s graphene, a single atom-thick layer of graphite, and it is being hailed as the meta-material of the future. The potential commercial applications are enormous: semiconductors for ultra-fast computing, flexible (rollable and foldable) touchscreens, longer lasting batteries for electronic devices…the potential is endless and very exciting – so much so that, in 2010, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from the University of Manchester for ground-breaking experiments in the field of graphene.

Professor Yang Hao, an expert in wireless sensor technology from the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, will be at the forefront of graphene research as a member of the board of the new Cambridge Graphene Centre. He is working to find ways in which to use graphene to tailor antennas, an essential device that allows electronic objects to communicate with one another using radio communications.

Professor Hao was recently elected as Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE), in recognition of his contribution to Antennas and Propagation for Body-Centric Wireless Communications. He was also awarded the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, which rewards outstanding scientists and is jointly funded by the charitable Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

Where did they go next?We will avoid all clichés about Big Brother watching you, but it is still surprising to learn that there are an estimated 422,000 CCTV cameras in London, approximately one for every 14 people. It’s hard to imagine that there is ever a moment where our movements are not being tracked. But of course there are, and of course there are vast swathes of the country where cameras are not nearly so ubiquitous. For police trying to solve crimes or find missing individuals, the blind spots between cameras can be the difference between success and failure.

Now, a game-changing new model developed at Queen Mary’s Centre for Intelligent Sensing could fill those gaps, and offer a useful security tool in tracking people in large, busy venues such as airport terminals and shopping centres. The team analysed CCTV footage from Gatwick Airport and used it to develop and refine the model. The tool combines behavioural models and floor plans to predict a person’s movements when they are out of sight. Analysing existing footage, a person’s possible movements can be predicted, and a number of possible trajectories suggested.

Professor Andrea Cavallaro, Director of the Centre for Intelligent Sensing, explained, “Linking distant and disjointed camera views to follow individuals in a large CCTV network, for example in a train station or in a sports venue, enhances the ability to monitor wide areas to tackle crime.”

Queen Mary shares £60 million boost for science innovation Many a game-changing idea has been born out of university research…and who knows how many have died a quiet death without ever making it out of the laboratory? When a scientist generates a unique concept, they may lack the technical skills to develop it, or the business acumen to turn raw research into a saleable proposition. But now Queen Mary has been awarded funding of over £750,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), to help to translate research ideas into commercial success.

125 years oldEE established in 1888Merged with CS in 2008 100 academic staff200 research students750 undergraduates 120 masters students2,000 on three degrees in Beijing

years old

Electronic Engineering established in

Merged with Computer Science in

100 academic staff

200 research students

750 undergraduates

120 Masters students

2,000 students on three degrees in Beijing

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Queen Mary is ideally placed to become an academic partner to existing companies in Tech City, and to develop research which can be spun out into new corporate endeavours. With its location between Tech City, Canary Wharf and the massive developments at the Stratford Olympic Park, not to mention its diverse student body and staff, Queen Mary is set to be part of the Tech City future.

Queen Mary’s multi-disciplinary research centre qMedia, works closely with Tech City UK, and organisations including the Barbican Centre, the BBC and Orange Labs are all involved in the EPSRC/AHRC-funded £10 million Centre for Doctoral Training programme in Media and Arts Technology. The Centre provides four-year PhD training to produce postgraduates, who combine world-class technical and creative skills and who have a unique vision of how digital technology transforms creative possibilities and social economies.

Tech City, Shoreditch

The Impact Acceleration Accounts will help to take promising ideas through development, and may also offer funding for scientists to be seconded into business environments to learn new skills. Some of the funding has already helped with the development of Chatterbox Analytics, a company which has created tools to track and analyse the enormous amounts of data generated through social media. This was born out of research done in the Cognitive Science Research Group.

Wired into Tech CityThe area around Old Street Station is, to be honest, one of the least prepossessing in London. You emerge from the station to find yourself on a huge roundabout, surrounded by uninspiring modern buildings, with the roar of traffic drowning out your conversation. Nevertheless, this is the home of buzzing, life-changing ideas – the area has one of the greatest concentrations of technology and innovation companies in the world. It was initially known as Silicon Roundabout, but the name may have seemed a little too downbeat and sarcastic for some, so it is now formally known as Tech City UK, set up by the government to encourage growth and development in the area.

In 2008, there were around 15 media and high-tech companies near Old Street. Estimates now are as high as 5,000. There’s no doubt that digital is where it’s at – last year, Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, observed that the web is already a platform for more than eight per cent of UK GDP. A quarter of UK sales take place online, more than twice as many as Germany, our nearest competitor in Europe.

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In April 2012, Ben Hammersley, editor of Wired magazine and the Prime Minister’s Ambassador to Tech City, came to speak to the Mile End Group at Queen Mary. He described it as, “a project where all of east London comes together to find and use its newfound talents and its unique civilisation, combining that with the global economy to make life better for everybody”. It is a philosophy entirely in keeping with Queen Mary’s belief in public engagement.

MiniBar, the premier social and networking event for digital stakeholders, held an event at Queen Mary on 31 May 2013. Among the speakers were Dr Andrew McPherson from the Centre for Digital Music, and Evan Morgan, a PhD student, who discussed his work on an eye movement mood conductor.

“…a project where all of east London comes together to find and use its newfound talents and its unique civilisation, combining that with the global economy to make life better for everybody”

. . .. . .29

Ramunas Audzevicius is a Lithuanian lawyer who is currently engaged in the ULIP LLM. The programme was developed for students who are able to study full-time, as well as for practitioners who study part-time to develop their professional skills. The LLM was recently awarded the 2013 Franco-British Lawyers’ Society (FBLS) Prize.

Ramunas qualified as a lawyer in Lithuania, graduating from the Faculty of Law at Vilnius University. In addition, he gained an LLM from the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, an MA in EU Law from King’s College London and an MA in Taxation from the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.

What made you choose the LLM course at ULIP?The reputation of Queen Mary and the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS) in international dispute settlement studies, the top-level professors, a perfect syllabus and

a schedule tailored for a practicing lawyer. All of this was necessary to refresh my knowledge, and to prepare for a future research degree.

Do you intend to practise law in the UK, France or elsewhere?I work in the field of international arbitration and litigation, and Vilnius will remain my base. I am a partner at Motieka & Audzevicius, a Baltic dispute resolution boutique, where I lead the international dispute resolution practice of the firm. I work full-time and study part-time. I love studying in Paris and I enjoy everything from the excellent food to the outstanding architecture.

How has the multinational aspect of the course directed your study?I have tailored my studies to concentrate on International Dispute Resolution and Economic Law. I am interested in focusing on the multinational aspect in all my chosen

Much as Marshall McLuhan predicted in the early 1960s, we now live in a global village – electronic communication and increased travel opportunities have vastly widened the field of opportunity. A university at the forefront of research and teaching can now draw on the finest teachers and students from around the world, and thus Queen Mary’s highly successful network of international partnerships continues to grow. But how do students and staff experience these partnerships? We spoke to a postgraduate student at the University of London in Paris (ULIP), engaged in Queen Mary’s LLM programme, and a lecturer on the Telecommunications Engineering with Management degree, run as a joint programme with the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT).

International partnerships Queen Mary in the wider world

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subjects, as much of my work involves the application of the laws of different countries. Having a clear understanding of the main principles of foreign legal systems allows me to see the bigger picture and make the right decisions in complex cases. I can also borrow ideas from one jurisdiction and adopt them in another, which would be impossible without knowledge of International Law. Any further thoughts about the Institute and the relationship with Queen Mary and CCLS?I think the Paris-based LLM is invaluable, and I found all aspects of my first year excellent. I am sure that this programme and the ongoing cooperation between the Institute and Queen Mary will attract more practicing lawyers from the Continent, especially from Central and Eastern Europe.

In 2004 Queen Mary teamed up with Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) to offer jointly-run degree programmes in telecommunications systems and networks. Students graduate with two degrees – one from BUPT and one from Queen Mary. Teaching takes place in Beijing but is done entirely in English and is split 50/50 between the universities, with Queen Mary’s lecturers travelling to and from Beijing to give lectures. One such lecturer is Teaching Fellow Dr Michael Chai who spoke to us about teaching students almost 5,000 miles apart.

How much time do you spend at BUPT and how much at Queen Mary?The Joint Programme (JP) is broken down into four blocks per module. Each block is five days (Monday to Friday). I teach the equivalent of one and a half modules in Beijing and half a module at Queen Mary. I travel to Beijing twice a year to teach (for approximately four weeks at a time) plus another week for the final year project viva. In addition, I also travel to BUPT to conduct research activities and supervise final project students.

Do you teach the same course in both locations?Last year, I taught on two modules on the JP (Telecoms Systems and Internet Protocols) and taught on another module at Queen Mary (Telecoms Systems). Telecoms Systems was taught in both locations but the content of this course is slightly different in each location due to the different nature of the students. This year, I will be teaching a new module in Beijing and the content will be different in both locations.

Do you see big differences between the students and the process of learning? Yes, there are differences between students on the JP and at Queen Mary. In my modules, I have noted that most JP students perform better in mathematic-related topics. In terms of the student learning process, I have noticed that the majority of JP students prefer a more organised system, in that they prefer orderly lectures with a set routine as opposed to a more interactive style.

Anything else that is notable about the programme at BUPT?I would like to say that the JP really brings out the strengths of two distinct educational cultures – the mathematical and scientific rigour in China and the creative problem-solving and transferable skills in the UK. Many of the good students on the JP are capable of conducting international research. In October, Dr Yue Chen, Director of the Joint Programme, and I attended the 2012 International IoT (Internet of Things) Conference with four students from the JP. This was organised by the International IoT Committee to present their innovative smart grid testbed. These students were the only undergraduate team to present a live demo and poster session at the conference and their work received much respect from other participants worldwide. We also have JP students publishing technical papers at highly ranked conferences and in prestigious journals. JP students graduate with a set of skills that are not only invaluable in China, but also around the world. Many continue their postgraduate studies in highly ranked universities such as Stanford University or Cambridge, or work in large international companies like Sony Mobile.

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Ramunas Audzevicius Dr Michael Chai


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From bench to bedside

“Rodents don’t vomit,” Professor Charles Knowles tells us, “and at a neurochemical level, there are many receptors that are present in humans and not in rodents and vice versa.” He is explaining the focus on human tissue work at the new National Centre for Bowel Research and Surgical Innovation (NCBRSI). There is an ethical element too: the NCBRSI supports the Medical Research Council’s initiative to “replace, refine and reduce” the use of animal testing in research.

Nevertheless, it was a humble rat which led Professor Knowles and his team to an extraordinary and potentially far-reaching discovery. They had had some success recording nerve activity in rat colons, and Professor Knowles suggested to his colleague that as the human appendix was much the same size, they might try the recording technique on that instead. With some trial and error, they managed to make the first recording. With this success, the team is now able to record nerve activity from most parts of the human gut, which is invaluable in the development and testing of drugs for abdominal pain. “Abdominal pain is one of the most common symptoms that patients present with, from Irritable Bowel Syndrome to pelvic pain in women,” Professor Knowles explains. “So the opportunity to create and test targeted drugs for that pain is amazing.”

astonishing innovations in the treatment of bowel disease


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He says, “Most people think that the appendix is a useless and dangerous organ. But this is the second time it has been the source of a great medical breakthrough at The London Hospital. The first appendectomy in England was performed here by Sir Frederick Treves in 1888. He then famously operated on Edward VII and saved his life two days before his coronation.”

The team’s appendix success is an example of the astonishing leaps of intuition and persistence that makes great research. But how do those translate into innovative treatments that improve the lives of patients? This has long been a problem in medical research in general, but in bowel disease research specifically. There is an informal “league table” of medical funding, and diseases of the gastrointestinal tract rank second from bottom. It is extremely difficult to get funding for this research, even though an estimated one in three deaths worldwide is related to diseases of the GI tract. So too, according to research by the Health Technology Assessment Programme, studies in surgical techniques only account for a tiny percentage of spend in medical research. On top of that, funding for medical research in the UK is a drop in the ocean in comparison to the US: total funding for research by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and Medical Research Council (MRC) is approximately £1.5 billion per annum, while the National Institute of Health (NIH) budget in the US is around $30.9 billion (£20.12 billion) per annum, with hundreds of millions of dollars more coming from philanthropic endeavours. So while it seems obvious that research into bowel disease and new surgical techniques has great value, there are enormous barriers.

However, in 2007, Professor of Surgery (and now President of the Royal College of Surgeons) Norman Williams (Medicine, 1970), had a vision. He wanted to create a centre where there was a bench-to-bedside approach, where successful research could be put through the necessary trials and then be implemented in a clinical setting quickly. He wanted to remove the barriers to translation, and get new techniques in to operating theatres and wards as fast as possible. Professor Williams was instrumental in launching the charity Bowel & Cancer Research, whose aim is to raise money for research and who were key in amassing the initial funds for the proposed Centre. The charity is now resident in the Centre, and an integral part of it.

partnered by the NIHR, the Unit is home to Enteric, a Healthcare Technology Cooperative focused on gastrointestinal disease. They are working on a wide variety of non-drug-based treatments, for example ways to improve the lives of patients living with stoma bags and appliances, and safe and effective tools for surgery and imaging.

Does the Centre’s presence in the East End have an impact on the work they do? “Of course,” Professor Knowles says, “As with any community, there are health problems that are specific to the ethnic community in the area.” Among the large Bangladeshi population, hepatitis is prevalent, as well as inflammatory bowel disease and a high incidence of colorectal cancer, particularly among young Bangladeshis. Amongst younger people, especially hard-to-reach adolescent groups, there are many who are obese, with all the attendant health problems. The Centre has a highly developed patient and public involvement scheme (PPI), where people are educated on the work being done and are encouraged to be involved in donating tissue during surgery, or participating in clinical trials. Bowel & Cancer Care hosted an event in December 2012 which was the first step in recruiting local and interested people to be involved in a variety of ways, either by contributing to questionnaires via phone, post or email, or through a much higher level of involvement in trial design and document review.

Professor Knowles speaks with pride about The Queen’s visit to open the Centre in March 2013. “The Queen and Prince Philip stayed much longer than they were scheduled,” he says. “They asked many well-informed questions and looked at equipment and through microscopes.” This is unsurprising. The work the Centre is doing is fascinating and the potential implications of the research are enormous.

“You might like to mention,” says Professor Knowles in closing, “that I now consider myself to be an East Ender.” He has lived in Whitechapel, close to the hospital, since he came to study Medicine at The London Hospital Medical College in 1989 and even boxed at a local club. He and his team are a great example of a deep commitment to the community in which they live and work.

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“The Queen and Prince Philip stayed much longer than they were scheduled. They asked many well-informed questions and looked at equipment and through microscopes”

In accordance with Professor Williams’ vision, the work does not stop in the laboratory. The Centre also houses a clinical trials hub, The Interventional Effectiveness Unit, whose function it is to test new treatments developed in the lab, as well as other drugs and medical devices developed elsewhere. Using contacts at Barts Health NHS Trust and beyond, they are able to set up robust trials to see surgical techniques, appliances and drugs to the next stage.

The third element of the Centre is the Surgical Innovation Unit, the team working on technology and device development, another much-neglected area of research. Funded and

“As with any community, there are health problems that are specific to the ethnic community in the area”


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No matter how splendid an idea may be, there are always complications. In 2008, it fell to Charles Knowles to help turn Professor Williams’ vision into reality. While there were some funds in place, additional funding had to be raised (and came from the Wolfson Foundation and the Barts and The London Charity). A venue had to be sourced, close to The London Hospital, which afforded the Centre a degree of autonomy, but allowed them to have the administrative and scientific support of the Blizard Institute. Professor Knowles had to shape and refine a 10-year business plan. The right people needed to be identified and encouraged to work under the auspices of the new Centre. However, once all these things were in place, and the Centre found its home in the Abernethy Building in Whitechapel, work could begin. The centrepiece of the NCBSRI is the Human Tissue Laboratory. As Professor Knowles explained, researching GI disease using only animals does not give you the whole picture. “In fact,” he observes, “there have been several ‘miracle’ drugs which performed brilliantly when tested on rodents and failed in expensive human trials.” However, they have had a great deal of success working on human tissue. “Every operation is an opportunity”, he says, “and we do encourage patients who are having surgery to give their consent for tissues to be used in the lab.” There are three major areas of research currently underway in the human tissue laboratory, as well as some additional studies. The work on sensory functions of the gut mentioned above is one, led by Dr David Bulmer. Professor Gareth Sanger, previously based at GlaxoSmithKline, works in the field of gastrointestinal neuropharmacology. He is focused on the changes in bowel motility and constipation due to age, gender and degenerative neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s. Following on from the Centre’s success in recording bowel nerve function, Dr Sanger’s team recently recorded the peristaltic reflex in a section of human bowel for the first time. This has potentially far-reaching implications in the development of drugs for these conditions. Professor Sanger recently received a highly commended award from the NC3Rs organisation for innovative research leading to reduction in animal use. Finally, Professor Ashley Blackshaw, from the University of Adelaide, is looking at treatments for obesity. It was fascinating to learn that the success of gastric bypass operations for obese patients is not due to the fact that there is a physical limit to the food they can eat, but because of hormonal changes that occur as a result of that surgery. For example, patients who have gastric bypass surgery are instantly cured of Type 2 diabetes, and they experience reduced satiety (feeling full and satisfied). This is due to changes in some of the hundreds of thousands of nutrient receptors in the gut. “We are currently mapping these receptors,” Professor Knowles explains, “from the top to the bottom. When we can identify which receptors are affected by the surgery, we may be able to develop drugs that do the work of surgery.” With the current obesity epidemic, a pill or nutritional supplement which cures diabetes and obesity would clearly place the team that made the discovery in the territory of a Nobel Prize. The team is also involved in additional research into bowel cancer and inflammatory bowel conditions.

The in-house charity – really involved fundraisingThe NCBRSI was conceived as a “bench to bedside” facility, where research moves from an initial idea through lab testing, clinical trials and application on the wards and in theatre. However, there is a further crucial element in this process – the money. The majority of funds for the Centre were raised by Bowel & Cancer Research, a charity founded by Professor Norman Williams, whose offices are located within the Centre. Deborah Gilbert, Chief Executive of Bowel & Cancer Research, says, “The charity has a natural fit with the work being done from the National Centre, and continues to fund proof-of-principle studies and PhD studentships which are linked with the Centre. It makes sense that Bowel & Cancer should be located within it.”

The Centre is impressive and the work it does is ground-breaking. When the charity approaches potential funders, they can describe what the Centre does in vivid terms, and, as Deborah says, “It gives us a fantastic opportunity to bring supporters, who are in the main lay people, in to see the science being done.”

Bowel & Cancer Research is also very much instrumental in developing the Patient and Public Involvement Scheme (PPI) and Deborah explains that there are already around 70 local people active in the group. They are consulted by members of the Centre on aspects of their research. “We would like to develop the group further over coming years to hundreds of people and are currently looking for funding to employ a part-time Development Officer for the project,” she says.

If you would like to know more about the work of Bowel & Cancer Research, there is a wealth of information on their website (including a fabulous page of bottom jokes). If you would like to support their work, there are a plethora of ideas for fundraising and ways to get involved.

For more information, visit www.bowelcancerresearch.org/national-centre

The list of the speakers at the Mile End Group over the last decade is a who’s who of politics, journalism and culture. Sir John Major, Sir Kevin Tebbit, Alan Rusbridger, Professor Sir Peter Hall, Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, Lord Mandelson, Ed Balls, Oliver Letwin…all of these luminaries climbed on to the District Line (or at the very least, got into a car), and took the surprisingly short route east to the Mile End campus of Queen Mary. While engaging these prominent speakers was a feat in itself, even more impressive was the act of bringing them to the East End, and showing them that far from being a foreign country, it is an accessible, vibrant part of the capital.

Gradually, the Mile End Group has become a place where influential people wanted to be seen. It is the ideal forum for leading political figures to speak to a knowledgeable and challenging audience. Alastair Campbell launched the fourth volume of his diaries there in 2012 (and heckled Tessa Jowell from the stage for arriving late). Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, took the stage in early 2013 to discuss proposed reforms to the criminal justice system.

On 28 October 2013, the Mile End Group celebrated a double anniversary: ten years of political revelations and debate, and their 100th event, featuring a speaker of unprecedented importance in modern politics – former Prime Minister Tony Blair. In conversation with the Independent on Sunday’s John Rentoul, Mr Blair spoke about the need for governments to recognise the changing world and adapt their style of government to suit a more discerning and demanding electorate. He spoke openly about the difficulties of intervention in international conflicts, and quipped that, “You take power at your most popular and least capable.

years of the Mile End Group and MEG100Powerful political influence in the East End1 0

In ten years, the Mile End Group has grown from a group of argumentative students to a political forum which attracts speakers as influential as Tony Blair, and commands national interest in its events. The 100-plus events the group has hosted in this decade tell a fascinating story of modern political practice.

In 2003, a group of vocal doctoral History students decided to create a forum where they could present the findings of their research. They envisaged something dynamic and informal, focusing on the worlds of Westminster and Whitehall, past and present, and they were inspired and encouraged by Peter Hennessy, Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary, now Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield. Among those founder members was Dr Jon Davis (History with Politics, 1996; MA British Contemporary History, 1999; PhD, 2007), who went on to become its Director.

As time went on, the Mile End Group began to invite influential speakers with inside knowledge of the workings of government. Mile End Group events were no longer relaxed gatherings – they were fascinating seminars where leading political figures could be candid and often surprisingly revelatory. In 2011, for example, Denis Healy, then 93, came to talk about his time as Chancellor. The very next night, Douglas Hurd was on hand to talk about his time in the Thatcher government.

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You leave it at your most capable and least popular”. The event was standing-room only, and Mr Blair answered questions from students, academics, top ranking civil servants and cabinet ministers. The level of debate and the calibre of attendees was testament to the growing influence of the Mile End Group. As Jon Davis said after the event, “Bring on MEG200!”

Mile End Group Assistants – a CV set apart“Fetching Lord Adonis from Mile End Tube Station”. It’s a slightly unusual addition to a CV, but certainly one that would spark a conversation in an interview. Jack Brown, a History PhD student, can add it to his, along with “writing the profile of Clement Attlee on the Number 10 Downing Street website.”

Jack is currently the Communications Coordinator for the Mile End Group and is responsible for press liaison. He is also working on his PhD which focuses on the history of Docklands and Canary Wharf. Jack spent last year as a Mile End Group Assistant (MEGA), while completing his Master’s in Modern Contemporary British History. It was this rollercoaster year which has helped Jack to spice up his CV.

He is not alone. Another ex-Mile End Group Assistant, Martin Stolliday (2008-09), was involved in some high-profile events too: “We organised Mile End Group events in the House of Lords, and at Queen Mary with figures such as Martin Rees, Melvyn Bragg and John Rentoul”, he says. Martin now works in Media Monitoring for the Labour Party, and he credits the Mile End Group with giving him the skills he needed to secure and succeed in his current position. “Working in an office, answering enquiries, hosting material on websites, running events were all skills that I gained working for

the MEG. Meeting major political movers and shakers was great preparation for my current job, as was having a comprehensive knowledge of the British media.” Mile End Group Assistants are drawn from students doing their Master’s in Modern Contemporary British History. There is a stringent application and interview process, and three are chosen each year. They each receive a scholarship supported by Hewlett Packard (HP) which covers their fees and gives them a living allowance. HP has been involved in the Mile End Group since 2004, and has contributed almost £1 million in that time. Dr Jon Davis describes this contribution as: “Something unique for a UK humanities unit and a world-renowned blue chip IT firm.”

Charlene Brennan, who was a Mile End Group Assistant in 2009-10, went on to work at HP for the UK Government Relations team and found that the skills she picked up from her time as a MEGA, such as networking and high quality research, put her at an advantage. She recalls meeting Lord Healy at a MEG event: “He shook my hand warmly and proceeded to regale me with some fascinating stories from his time in government. Having spent years reading of such huge political figures who have contributed to shaping the political landscape, it was amazing to speak with him and get that insight first hand. That was a very memorable experience!”

And do the Mile End Group Assistants leave the university without a backward glance? Definitely not, it seems: all the staff in the office started out as Mile End Group Assistants. Martin attends events whenever work permits, and Charlene is proud to say: “I have attended every event since completing my MA.”

“We organised Mile End Group events in the House of Lords, and at Queen Mary with figures such as Martin Rees, Melvyn Bragg and John Rentoul”Martin Stolliday, Mile End Group Assistant (2008-09)

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Arts training in the spotlight

When times are hard, finding work of any kind is difficult, but work in the arts for an inexperienced young person may seem almost impossible. Phakama, an arts organisation based in the Arts Research Centre in the Department of Drama, set up the year-long Spotlight training programme in 2013. Spotlight offered free training in the creative and cultural industries for 18-24 year olds not in employment, education or training.

In 2014, the programme moves to a whole new level – thanks to the generosity of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the CC Skills Creative Employment Programme, it has become a paid 28-week Creative Producer Internship. We spoke to Katharine Rosser, Project Manager of the programme.

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How did the first year of Spotlight training go?It was the first year of a three-year pilot project funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and we have learned a great deal since the launch in November 2012. We were excited by the group’s progress and their potential over the year. The group learned about budgeting, fundraising, design, communications, lighting, sound, film and other skills such as CV writing and interview techniques. The twice-weekly sessions included visits from a diverse range of arts organisations who came to talk about their work and the different roles available within the industry. They were a very varied group with a plethora of interests and skills. We aimed to tailor the programme accordingly in order to better meet the needs of each individual and make it a more successful, enriching programme for all the trainees.

From January 2014, the programme became a paid internship. That’s a dramatic and exciting development. We are hugely excited to have turned the Spotlight model into a paid Creative Producer Internship. Many young people want to be involved in the arts but haven’t necessarily considered a career behind the scenes. At Phakama, we want to equip the next generation of artists and producers with the practical and social skills needed to access the industry with knowledge and confidence. The internship is intensive – 30 hours a week – a combination of extensive, high quality training and work placements with a wide range of partner organisations. Our consortium of partners include Rich Mix, Graeae Theatre Company, Magic Me, Iniva, Theatre Centre, Morley College, Newham Archives, Hawthorn Green Care Home, Oval House, East London Dance, Apples and Snakes, Emergency Exit Arts and Campaign for Drawing. Each of these organisations will host one of the interns. Best of all, the interns earn as they gain skills, experience and contacts in their chosen industry.

They will also be producing and maintaining their own blogs, documenting and reflecting upon their experiences, which will provide the structure for their Gold Arts Award accreditation. The Creative Producer Internship will culminate in July with a public three-day festival, created and produced by the interns.

What areas are the interns involved in?They’ll get hands-on training in communications, design, budgeting, fundraising, lighting, sound, event production and front of house. The internship also covers training in areas such as disability awareness, ethical leadership, CV writing, interview and presentation skills. The training is delivered by a combination of organisations and top industry professionals such as Phakama, The Backstage Centre, Graeae Theatre Company, Oval House, Crescent Lodge Design Agency and Julia Rowntree, a fundraising expert.

What kind of candidates did you look for?We looked for people who were passionate and committed to a career in the arts, but who didn’t necessarily have the experience and qualifications that many employers look for. They had to be 18-24 years old, registered as unemployed with the Jobcentre Plus, and they had to have been claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment Support Allowance or Income Support for six months or more.

Tell us a little about the people who were successful.There are 13 of them, and they have a wide range of experience and interests, including graphic design, video editing, creative writing, screenplay, directing, film and game design.

And their training will culminate with their own arts festival?Yes. Last year’s Spotlight Summer Festival was a great success and we hope to build on it in 2014. In 2013, we saw a range of inspiring, emerging arts – all produced by members and partners of the Spotlight training programme, which were then commissioned and re-staged for an outdoor festival in Newham.

‘thEATre’ was an original piece created for the Spotlight Festival, an experimental piece of video-drama scrutinising the act of eating. We took the audience on a journey to question consumerism as a way of life and the entangled relationship between food, art and media. ‘Beauty Is…’, the other main production, used the work of emerging artists to examine peoples’ perceptions of beauty, and how they change based on age and collected experience. There were also a range of Spotlight Festival pop-ups, which featured work by Jolanta Pilinkaite, Lora Krasteva, Cedoux Kadima, Ellis Lewis-Dragstra and Ben Victor.

Meet the 2014 interns and keep up-to-date with their news and events at www.projectphakama.org/spotlight


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Local charities – short on funding and staff. Students – with post-degree employability on their minds, desperate to gain experience and make their CVs stand out from the rest. Now if only there was a way to help them help each other… It seems there is, and QProjects, a pilot scheme run by Queen Mary’s Careers and and Enterprise Centre and funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) has had remarkable success. Since its launch in January 2012, 300 Queen Mary students have been placed in projects at 40 London-based charities. 83 per cent of those charities are located in the East End, close to the university. The scheme recently won the 2014 Guardian University Award for Best Employability Initiative.

The aim of QProjects is to give students an opportunity to take their skills into the real world and develop new ones, while filling real resource gaps in the charity they support, where they spend three months.

The Careers and Enterprise Centre liaises with charities and identifies possible openings for students. They then advertise roles to students, shortlist candidates and coordinate a rigorous graduate-level interview. The student receives thorough feedback and support during the application and interview process, as well as a one-to-one skills debrief at the end of their placement, allowing them to reflect on their experiences and update their CV.

From the charities’ perspective, it’s also a win-win. The HEIF funding covers the students’ travel expenses, so the placements don’t cost the charity anything. And students often bring new knowledge and talent to a charity. Some of the contributions students have made have included designing and building websites, setting up social media campaigns, event planning, government policy research, analysing raw data, helping with pro-bono legal cases and leading health workshops in local hospitals.

Rachel Roberts, Director of The Phoenix Education Trust, StudentVoice, said: “StudentVoice is an organisation looked

after by a small charity called The Phoenix Education Trust. We are a small team with big dreams. We have been working with QProjects since 2012 and have hosted over 30 Project Leaders to support us with our work, and every single one of them has made a valuable and positive contribution to our organisation...QProjects is by far the best careers service initiative I have ever come across. I very much hope that it will continue to be able to support students and the local community in this way. I also hope that other universities will follow suit.”

QProjects is already showing evidence that it is improving the employability of the students who participate. A recent survey of 2013 graduates who participated in QProjects found that 91.8 per cent of them were in graduate-level jobs or further study six months after graduating. This is 18 per cent higher than the university’s average. 2013 English graduate, Alex Huxtable completed a QProject as a Communications Project Leader during his final year and is now working as a Client Services Executive for a youth marketing firm. He said: “I think it is fair to say that without QProjects I wouldn’t be where I am now. It gave me so much more than just having a degree.”

For more information, please contact Lindsey Shirah, QProjects Coordinator, at [email protected] and visit www.careers.qmul.ac.uk/recruiters/internships/qprojects

Experience and skills, a charitable exchange

Queen Mary, its students, alumni and the communityA symbiotic relationship


How can one small community organisation bring out big change? It may not always be possible, but there is definitely strength in numbers and a nationwide alliance is working to help those smaller groups enhance their clout. Citizens UK brings together churches, mosques and synagogues; schools, colleges and universities; unions, think-tanks and housing associations; GP surgeries, charities and migrant groups; to work together for the common good. London Citizens have used community organising to bring together diverse communities in the East End, pioneer the living wage and deliver affordable housing in Mile End.

Second year BA Geography student, Nik Haukohl, undertook the Citizens UK Leadership and Community Organising programme. The training is free and open to all students, and consists of six hours of learning and the opportunity to practise the skills learned in class. Nik tells us: “The programme offers a very good introduction in to topics of power and leadership. It delivers an insight on how negotiations and debates between two parties work and on how agreements are made and action is taken. After my first session on the programme I was given the opportunity to attend a meeting with Barclays in Canary Wharf, to discuss student work opportunities and internships. We met with two members of staff at Barclays and we were able to gain an insight in to what the issues are surrounding work opportunities and what needs to be done. This meeting was part of building a partnership with the bank which could be vital for London Citizens, and hopefully for students from Queen Mary too. I am very grateful for being given the opportunity to put into action what I had learned only a day before. London Citizens is now continuing to build a relationship with Barclays.”

On 19 June 2013, Citizens UK held a summit of national leaders from Britain’s major civil society institutions at Queen Mary, to launch a strategy to influence the future of democracy and strengthen communities through community organising. Faith, education and third sector leaders discussed how their respective national networks could work together to address shared concerns, and create a new wave of social action for the future. To find out more, visit www.citizensuk.org

‘Grow It’ funding was music to their earsAshley Smith (Environmental Science with Business Management, 2013) and Jack Stookes (from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama) applied to the Queen Mary Enterprise Prize Fund competition and won £5,000 to grow STAG Music, their live music, event production and sound and lighting hire company. The company has gone from strength to strength, and won a 2012 National Student Enterprise Award.

Ashley says: “Since winning our Grow It award we have seen a rise in bookings. So far this year, we have secured £41,000 of new bookings, which is considerably more than our first year of operation. We have worked with many new clients, including the Barclay’s Bank Christmas Party, events at London’s top hotels such as Claridge’s and Grosvenor House, and with Britvic for the launch of a new drink, the J2O Glitterbomb. With an increase of bookings we are able to support more up-and-coming musicians and give them the performance platforms that they deserve. To date we have worked with 95 young musicians and have provided them with opportunities throughout the country.”

Ashley felt that the award gave them a cash injection which was invaluable. It is hard to get a business loan as a young start-up, and as students, they would not necessarily have had the potential to secure a loan.

STAG Music has three core team members, and they have had to learn every aspect of running a business, from sales, artist booking and management, web development, marketing, accounting, strategy and networking. They are currently running the company alongside other paid jobs, allowing them to reinvest their profits into growing the business.

Over the next year, they aim to secure at least £100,000 worth of bookings and grow the audio and lighting sectors to keep up with demand.

Would they recommend other students to apply to the ‘Try It and Grow It’ Enterprise Awards? “Yes, I would thoroughly recommend the Grow It programme to other students. It has proved invaluable to our business, allowing us to develop and expand STAG at an incredibly quick rate. We have been able to realise our initial dreams and goals with the company, and are continuing to expand as a result of the programme’s support.”

stag-music.com

facebook.com/stagmusic

twitter.com/stag_musicuk

Organising in the community

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1952Ian Ferguson (QMC, Geography), at the age of 83, is fulfilling some wishes he generated during his Geography degree days under Dr Crowe and Alice Mutton. Last year, he finally got to walk on the Burren, the iconic limestone bloc in Ireland, and sailed the full length of the Norwegian fjords. He remains in good health and has more travel plans in mind.

1957Reverend Canon (James) Howard Bateson (QMC, Geology), although officially retired, is still very active in parish church work, particularly in the West Bingham Deanery and also more widely in the Diocese. He has been a Member of the Society of Ordained Scientists since the late 1980s.

Valmai Holt (QMC, French) and her husband Major Holt have recently been awarded the WW1 Centenary Medal for their contribution to ‘Remembrance Tourism’ and dissemination of knowledge of the First World War. The award was one of only six medals presented by the Conseil General de le Somme in Amiens, France, in January 2014.

1960Professor John Hedley-Whyte (Barts, Medicine) is honoured that The John Hedley-Whyte Professorship in Anaesthesia and Neuroscience has been established at Harvard University with funds donated by his trainees. Married for 50 years, John and Tessa, Professor of Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital, lived in the 1950s in College Hall. Both continue to work full-time on the Harvard Faculty.

1961Dr Rodney Pell (Barts, Medicine) attended The Royal London Hospital, Barts and Guys before becoming a senior Orthopaedic Surgeon, then an international injury litigation Expert Witness. Since retirement, he was elected Associate of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, and now advises on issues relating to Historic Vessels of National significance.

Peter Roeder (QMC, English Language and Literature) spent an academic year at Queen Mary, then at the Sorbonne before returning to Germany, where he taught French and Spanish philology and linguistics at Erlangen University’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. Since retiring, he has been spending most of his time travelling in France and Spain. On a recent visit to campus, Peter was delighted to find his late teacher’s, Jacob Isaacs’ work in the Library’s archive, whose presentation of social criticism in English novels of the 19th and 20th centuries had deeply impressed him.

1962Alexander (Sandy) Holt-Wilson OBE (Barts, Medicine) received an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list last year, for Ophthalmology services to people in Ethiopia. On retiring, Sandy, who worked in Gondar for five months, has set up a charity, Gondar Ethiopia Eye Surgery, which trains nurses to be Cataract Surgeons, and caters for blind children in the region.

1963Dr Michael Hersant MBE (The London, Medicine) was made an MBE in the 2013 Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to the community in Penzance, Cornwall.

1965Dr Graham Keeler (QMC, Physics; PhD 1969), following a 40 year career as a Physics Lecturer at Salford University, has published his first science fiction novel, Stowaway to the Stars. As well as being an avid science fiction reader, he has always been fascinated by astrophysics and space travel, and applied to be a British candidate for the first American Spacelab mission. He has written, co-authored and edited seven books on various aspects of microcomputers and the development of physics software simulations.

1966Jerry Gilmore (Barts, Medicine) worked as a Consultant General Surgeon at Barts and was President of the Rugby Club from 1976-91. On resigning from the NHS, he worked full-time in a private practice until 2010. He is now Director of 108 Medical Chambers, and lives in London and Hampshire. He was very happy to witness the success of Barts and The London RFC in winning two very exciting UH Cup Finals in succession (2012 and 2013), and he is also happy because after 42 years of fees, his ninth and youngest child leaves school this year!

1969 Dame Colette Bowe (QMC, Economics; PhD, 1978), Chair of Ofcom, was appointed a DBE in the New Year’s Honours list for services to media and communications. She began her career at the Department of Trade and Industry in 1975, subsequently moving to the Independent Broadcasting Authority and to a range of City bodies before becoming founding chair of Ofcom’s Consumer Panel. Dame Colette was Queen Mary’s Chair of College Council from 2004-09.

Dhansukh Taylor (QMC, Electrical Engineering) was appointed General Manager for Harmonic Inc. India, based in Delhi, in June 2013.

Alumni newsFor extended versions and further alumni news, please visit www.qmul.ac.uk/alumni/news

We are always pleased to hear from our former students. Please keep in touch and tell us your news. You can submit your update by email to [email protected]

For a list of members of the alumni community who have recently passed away, please visit www.qmul.ac.uk/alumni/news/alumniremembered


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Dr Graham Whitfield (QMC, PhD Organic Chemistry) has been in medical practice in the speciality of Orthopaedic Surgery for 33 years. After graduating, he moved to the USA and became Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Temple University in Philadelphia, before enrolling at a medical school in New York City. Following his residency training in the speciality of Orthopaedic Surgery, he moved to Florida and entered private practice.

1972Philip Page (QMC, Geography; MPhil Geography, 1974) resigned from Natural England in 2007 to start his own business and is very pleased to be his own boss. He is running a B&B with his wife and is a Trustee of the Dartmoor Preservation Association.

1973Robin Callender Smith (QMC, Law; LLM Computer Communications Law, 2010) has worked as a barrister for over 35 years, specialising in media law. He has served three-year periods as an elected member of the Bar Council and Gray’s Inn Barristers’ Committee. He has two part-time judicial appointments: Information Rights Judge and Immigration Judge, and is Chairman of the Independent Appeals Body for PhonepayPlus; as well as Vice President of London Youth, London’s largest youth charity.

Dr Katherine Venables (Barts, Medicine) edited the book Current Topics in Occupational Epidemiology (OUP, 21013), which provides topic specific chapters on contemporary issues and emerging themes in the field, discussing ‘new’ occupational diseases such as pneumonia in welders, as well as ‘older’ diseases including morbidity and mortality among miners. Leading international experts in the field cover issues such as the ageing workforce; return to work after illness and the migration of workers, as well the extension of epidemiology to surveillance systems, systematic reviews, and economic analyses.

1974Professor Michael Harmer CBE (Barts, Medicine) was Chair of Anaesthetics in Cardiff, before being appointed Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Wales and Medical Director of NHS Wales until 2008. He has recently retired as Chair of the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee and is Chair of the National Clinical Forum advising on the restructuring of the health service in Wales. Professor Harmer was appointed a CBE for services to health care, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2013.

1975Professor Andrew Proctor (QMC, Biology and Chemistry) was recognised as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2006. He was elected to the American Oil Chemists Governing Board in 2007 and was promoted to University Professor in 2013.

1978Michael Irwin (QMC, Electronic Engineering), after graduating in 1978, was recruited by a software consulting firm. He spent three years working for the Royal Navy before moving to Germany to work for ESA. Up until 1993, Michael worked in

several other countries in Europe before moving to the United States, where he now lives, working as a software developer, business analyst and DBA for an internet marketing and sales company in Philadelphia.

Professor David Newman OBE (QMC, Geography), Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Politics and Government at the Ben Gurion University in Israel, was made an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in June 2013. He received the honour for services to higher education and the humanities and for promoting academic links between the UK and Israel.

1979Anne Smith (née Wiggins) (QMC, Environmental Biology and Zoology) worked in research in the field of Human Genetics in universities in the UK and USA for over 20 years. In 2002 she changed careers and is now Director of Touchstone Coaching, a company she set up to develop leadership and communication skills. Anne works one-to-one with clients for both business and personal coaching and combines the tools of coaching, NLP, ENLP and Intuition Development in workshops to create high performancing teams and quality leaders.

1983David Frusher (Westfield, Environmental Science) had a brief dalliance in City recruitment post-Westfield. He bought a furniture manufacturing business which he ran for 20 years - he still owns it but now farms, plants and manages forestry which he says is “very hands on!”

1984Professor Mark Caulfield (The London, Medicine), Director of the William Harvey Research Institute at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, has been named as Chief Scientist for Genomics England. The not-for-profit company, which is based at Queen Mary’s Charterhouse Square campus, was launched by the Department of Health to drive forward the introduction of high-tech DNA mapping. The genomes of 100,000 patients or infections in patients will be sequenced over the next five years to improve understanding, leading to better and earlier diagnosis and personalised care. The project will initially prioritise the sequencing of lung and paediatric cancer, rare diseases and infectious diseases.

1967Sir Marcus Setchell CVO FRCS (Barts, Medicine), Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist and head of the medical team who delivered the Royal baby, Prince George Alexander Louis, on 22 July 2013, was named most influential Londoner in the Evening Standard’s ‘The Power 1000’ list of 2013, because of his

impact on tourism and the future of the monarchy. He was also made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in the New Year’s Honours list in January 2014.


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1985Professor Barry Wright (Barts, Medicine) currently works in York as a child psychiatrist, and also leads the National Deaf Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. He runs the mental health curriculum at Hull York Medical School. In common with most Barts people he still has plenty of extra-curricular things going on. He is happily married with Barts nurse Julia; they have four grown-up children who are doing very different and interesting things with their lives.

1986 Dan Ameyo (QMC, LLM Law), in February 2014, was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors at Mumias Sugar Company, the largest sugar manufacturing plant in East Africa. He also serves as the Chairman of Equatorial Commercial Bank Limited.

Rosalind Brown (née Pereira) (QMC, Computer Systems and Micro-electronics), after working for Rolls-Royce for around five years and marrying Duncan Brown (also a QMC graduate) in 1990, left the company to have their first child. She later restarted work as a teaching assistant at their children’s school. In 2013 she started her own business (RealITy) and is currently teaching computing in four primary schools in line with the new government computing curriculum, using many of the skills she acquired during her degree.

1987David Blatner (QMC, Associate) came to Queen Mary as a Study Abroad student, on a one year programme from Pomona College in Claremont, California. He later wrote The Joy of Pi about the lore and lure of the number pi. His newest book is Spectrums: Our Mind-Boggling Universe from Infinitesimal to Infinity. David now lives near Seattle in Washington and hopes to return to London for a holiday before too long. He recalls that he enjoyed his time at Queen Mary and that he would like to get in touch with old friends.

Duncan Brown (QMC, Computer Systems and Micro-electronics) after graduating, worked at British Aerospace’s Military Aircraft Division in Warton. Following that, he joined Rolls-Royce as a software engineer and is now the Rolls-Royce Engineering Fellow in Safety Critical Software. Throughout his career he has used the knowledge he gained during his degree extensively.

Graham Vingoe (QMC, Geography) got married in 1999 and has two kids, two dogs and a cat. He has been living in North Devon since 2002 and works for the local College, Petroc, as a bid writer with special expertise in European funding streams such as the Lifelong Learning Programme.

1988Aashik Shah (QMC, Computer Science) lives in Edgware, Middlesex and is married with two beautiful children. Since leaving Queen Mary, he has been working in the financial services industry implementing IT solutions for the Treasury and capital markets business.

1990Richard Learwood (Economics) is a recent appointee to College Council. He stood for Students’ Union President in 1990, which he won by the highest margin and with the highest voter turnout in memory, a fact of which he is justifiably proud. Having joined the Procter & Gamble graduate programme, some 20 years later he is now Global Director of Brand Strategy and Innovation for PGT Healthcare.

1992Bridgid Nzekwu (European Studies) featured in The Sunday Times Magazine. The TV presenter and news reporter published a diary chronicling her “year of stress, fear, dark humour and defiance” after recently discovering a malignant tumour and undergoing treatment at The Royal Marsden Hospital. Bridgid had previously undergone cancer treatment in the late 1980s during the first two years of her degree at Queen Mary.

1993Vincent Danjean (Telecommunications) writes “A big hello to all of you who I share memories with. How time flies! I have two wonderful daughters and a loving wife. Send me your news. Vince.”

1974Professor Tejinder Virdee (QMC, Physics) received an Honorary degree at the summer graduation ceremonies in July 2013. Professor Virdee, who was made a Doctor of Science (honoris causa), is Professor of Physics at Imperial College and has worked at the European particle physics laboratory

CERN since 1979. Notably one of the key scientists behind the discovery of the Higgs boson, Professor Virdee is best known as one of the two founding fathers of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector and who provided pioneering ideas and led the teams that designed, constructed and commissioned CMS, over the course of nearly 20 years. CMS, together with ATLAS, jointly lead the search for new fundamental particles. The CMS experiment now comprises over 3,000 scientists and engineers from over 180 institutes in around 40 countries.


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1994Gwynn Bassan (Geography), after working in various schools as Head of Geography, Head of Humanities and Assistant Head, moved to The Rochester Grammar School in 2008 where he progressed from Deputy Head to Head of School and was later appointed as Principal of The Rochester Grammar School Thinking School Trust. Still a passionate geographer, he continues to teach and enjoys travelling the world at every opportunity - for research purposes! A keen sportsman, Gwynn has run five London Marathons and raised over £7,000 for charities over the years.

Abdullah Mohammad (Law), after qualifying from Queen Mary, went on to teaching in a number of secondary schools. He then pursued a legal career as a solicitor and practiced Employment Law in private practice, law centres and local authorities. Abdullah is now Headteacher of Alif Academy, an independent faith school in Newham.

1995Professor Jerry Brotton (PhD English), a leading expert on the history of maps and Professor of Renaissance Studies in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary, unveiled a 3D reproduction of the surface of the Mappa Mundi, the world’s oldest surviving medieval map, at the Hay Festival in Herefordshire in June 2013. The map’s surface is now on permanent display alongside the 700 year old original in Hereford Cathedral.

Dr Sarah Waters (PhD English Literature), whose award-winning novels span Tipping the Velvet (1998) to the most recently published The Little Stranger in 2009, was made an Honorary Fellow in December 2012. Dr Waters commented: “I am absolutely thrilled to be receiving an Honorary Fellowship from Queen Mary. I have many happy memories of my time at Queen Mary, and the academic work I did there was very much the starting-point of my career as a novelist. This award therefore feels very special to me. It’s a huge treat and honour.”

Professor Ferranti Wong (PhD Dentistry), Professor of Paediatric Dentistry at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, was part of a research study which has challenged the common perception that children fear a trip to the dentist. The research, which featured on dentistry.co.uk, shows that even anxious children can cope well with their feelings about visiting dentists if they are informed honestly about what is likely to happen and that parents and dentists should be encouraged to be open with children, about what “going to the dentist” involves.

Nicolas Hajdu (Geography) is COO of a content marketing agency he co-founded in 2008 that specialises in video for brands such as Marks and Spencer, British Airways and HSBC. Now 60 staff and hiring! See www.adjustyourset.tv for more details.

1996Puneet Walia (Mathematics) is the Managing Director of Snap Fitness UK and is married to Virahn (née Chowdhry) (Engineering with Business Studies, 2001). Puneet would like to hear from people who remember him. email: [email protected]

2004Emilie Jones (English and European Law) was named Assistant/Associate Solicitor at The British Legal Awards in November last year. Emilie is an Associate in the European corporate team at Covington and Burlington LLP. The British Legal Awards aim to recognise the important contribution the legal business community makes, not just to the UK economy but also to the wider community. 2006Radha Bedi (English), following her degree at Queen Mary, completed an MA in Television News and Current Affairs Journalism at City University. She has since been working as a journalist on TV programmes such as the BBC’s Panorama and Channel 4’s Dispatches. Her most recent documentary, India: A dangerous place to be a woman was aired on BBC3 in June 2013. The programme followed her on a visit to India, her ancestral home, where she investigated what life is like for women and young girls living there.

Hannah Keeble (née Walker) (Modern and Contemporary History) is now a teacher of History in a secondary school and sixth form in South Essex. She lives with her husband, Chris, and son, Oliver, in Maldon. “I still meet up with friends from my course at Queen Mary and we enjoy reminiscing.”

Shelley Rowley (Zoology), two years after leaving Queen Mary, has set up the Conserve me Foundation, an environmental charity, which won an award in the Community category at The PEA (People & Environment Achievement) Awards in November last year. The Conserve me Foundation aims to advance young people’s understanding of science, biodiversity and wildlife conservation and works with primary and secondary schools to design and deliver interactive educational science projects. Students at Queen Mary have been working as volunteers for the charity since it started in 2008.

1996Ben Marshall (Associate) having started off with a career in law, pursued his passion for music by working as a promoter before joining the Sydney Opera House in 2010 as Contemporary Music Producer. Over the years, Ben has helped to expand the year-round contemporary music programme - which featured acts such as the Fleet Foxes, Erykah Badu and Nick Cave & The Bad

Seeds - as well as the annual music festival, Vivid Live. Ben is now Head of Contemporary Music and is responsible for programming Music at the House, which showcases national and international jazz, world, rock, pop and electronic artists.


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2007Dr Charles Drazin (PhD Film Studies), Senior Lecturer in Film Studies in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film at Queen Mary, wrote an essay for The Jewish Chronicle in which he explored the “crude, racist stereotyping” of Fagin, one of Dickens’ most popular villains. Dr Drazin spoke about ‘The Jewish Villain’ at a lecture series in May 2013 organised by the Leo Baeck Institute in cooperation with the Weiner Library.

Vicky Naylor (Law), in conjunction with the Luton Law Centre, organised the Luton Legal Walk last May. The fundraiser was held to raise money for free legal advice centres in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire and was one of 17 similar walks held around the country. Vicky is Co-ordinator for the Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre which provides free legal advice to members of the public, as well as Queen Mary students and staff, and aims to give students practical experience whilst they undertake their degrees.

2008Professor Julia Hörnle (PhD Law), Professor in Internet Law at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary, participated in a four-part series for Radio 4’s Law in Action programme, which regularly talks to leading legal figures both in the UK and abroad. Professor Hörnle discussed internet companies’ terms of service during the programme, which was broadcast on Radio 4, last summer.

2010Dr Adrian Martineau (PhD Medicine), Reader in Respiratory Infection and Immunity in the Blizard Institute at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, has led a team of researchers who have found that the immune response to the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (TB) varies between patients of different ethnic origin, raising important implications for the development of tests to diagnose and monitor treatment for the disease.

Silvano Domenico Orsi, Jr. (Law) was recently published by one of the leading journals in the United States on International Arbitration, “The Arbitration Brief”, a publication produced by the Washington College of Law and its Center for International Commercial Arbitration. Silvano completed an LLM at Boston University and is an in-house lawyer and assists Sr. Counsel at a boutique law firm.

Dr Tom Sebrell (PhD History) appeared on US cable network C-Span’s broadcast of the 1863 Person of the Year Symposium. He was among five historians nominating their ‘Person of the Year’ for 1863 in the style of Time magazine’s annual award. Dr Sebrell chose Lord John Russell, who served as British Foreign Secretary in Lord Palmerston’s government during the American Civil War. An audience of 200 then voted for a winner, selecting General Ulysses S Grant. Dr Sebrell also served as an Honorary Postdoctoral Associate at Queen Mary from October 2010 to June 2013.

2011Angelo Chetcuti (Computer and Communication Law) is currently Press and Political Officer for the European Commission in Malta. His role revolves around his academic and research interests in political analysis and reporting.

2012Sam Amrani (Law) is Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of the start-up Tag Mobile Company (TAMOCO), established in October 2012, which is pioneering the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) and contactless technology. NFC enables users to transfer information, including data and payments, between devices or to a touch point using a simple wave or tap. The company has been endorsed by 10 Downing Street and were included in Lord Young’s report on enterprise, as an example of a successful start-up business. TAMOCO is now working with Winkworth Knightsbridge, Chelsea & Belgravia estate agents to use NFC to simplify the process of buying a home. Visit www.tamo.co

Camilla Barker FRSA (English and European Laws) received a Fulbright Scholarship, enabling her to study for an LLM at Harvard Law School in 2012-13. Whilst at Queen Mary, Camilla edited the QM Law Journal and played women’s football. At Harvard, Camilla worked pro bono representing “Death Row” clients in Louisiana, was Editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal and the Harvard International Law Journal, and taught international law. Currently, she is a research student (DPhil in Law) at the University of Oxford and is working with the UN and ICRC on strengthening humanitarian assistance. In February 2014, Camilla was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts.

Sotez Chowdhury (MA Community Organising) began working as an associate community organiser at Shoreditch Citizens, part of Citizens UK, where he developed people to work collectively to address social problems, helped to build an alliance of 30 civil institutions and trained over 1,500 leaders who won over £10 million pounds in campaigns. Sotez is now the new Tower Hamlets organiser and will be returning to Queen Mary to train students as leaders, as part of this university-sponsored role.

2007Dr Lily (Huan) Wang (PhD Biological Sciences) was recipient of the 2012 Chinese UK Alumnus Award. This prestigious award, which is part of the British Business Awards, is given to a Chinese national who has studied in the UK and can best demonstrate the positive influence that British education

and culture has had on their chosen occupation. Lily won this award for the outstanding effort she put into both her studies and work; she is currently working for Centaurus BioPharma in Beijing where she is managing projects to develop drugs for fighting cancer and Type 2 diabetes.


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Tanya Dimitrova (Environmental Science) after completing her studies at Queen Mary, was awarded a scholarship by the US government to undertake a two-year MSc in Energy and Resources at the University of California, Berkeley. She concurrently decided to pursue a career as a freelance environmental journalist - drawing upon her experience of having written for QMessenger, whilst a student at Queen Mary. She is now writing for Mongabay, a popular site for environmental news, and recently won a prize for one of her articles.

John Goodyear (PhD German), following his doctoral degree at Queen Mary, now runs the Academy of English in Oldenburg, Germany. Together with his radio broadcasting in Oldenburg, John is also Senior Editor of Global China Insights, a publication of the Confucius Institute in Groningen, The Netherlands. In his free time, John acts as the Secretary of the Oldenburg branch of the Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft (Anglo-German Association).

Alastair Haigh (Biology with Psychology), has been involved in research conducted by Dr Michael Proulx, formerly Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology in the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences. Participants tested The vOICE, a device that trains the brain to turn sounds into images and which could be used as an alternative to invasive treatment for blind and partially-sighted people. Alastair is now studying for a Master’s degree in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam. He commented that he has very much enjoyed engaging with the public about science and promoting the research currently being undertaken at Queen Mary.

Ruth Hennessy (LLM Intellectual Property Law) was recently appointed as Research Assistant for the Independent Code Review by the British Copyright Council. Ruth will work with Walter Merricks CBE, the Independent Code Reviewer, on the Call for Evidence which launched in January 2014 and will be published in May. Previously, Ruth had been working in the field of IP Strategy.

Dr Eva Ondrejova (LLM Laws) has been awarded the ‘Talented Young Lawyer of the Year’ award by the Czech Bar Association in 2013. Eva is barrister trainee at the law offices of AK JU, as well as a PhD student in the Law Faculty of Charles University in Prague. She also writes blogs on the protection of personal rights, child custody, paternity and maintenance of the Czech family law.

Tristan Pett (Environmental Science) has completed an MSc in Conservation and Biodiversity with Distinction at the University of Exeter, during which he enjoyed two field trips to Africa: one to Kenya to study the conservation efforts in the country, and another to South Africa for his project which focused on the feeding behavior of giraffes. Tristan says his degree at Queen Mary provided him with knowledge of many different disciplines, as well as how to write academically and how to conduct research. Tristan is now studying for a PhD at the University of Kent where he is researching the relationship between urban nature and human-wellbeing.

Anika Bahra (Global Change: Environment, Economy and Development) is currently working in development in India as the Documentation and Communications Manager at SEWA Bharat (Self-Employed Women’s Association), a trade union for poor, self-employed women workers. Anika is capturing SEWA’s success stories, innovative development models and helping to give visibility to hard-working women in rural and urban India through factual writing, emotive photography and videos. Anika began her journey in India with an internship in the Energy and Environment Unit of the United Nations Development Programme in Delhi. Anika intends to continue broadening her horizons; her next step will be pursuing a multidisciplinary Master’s degree. Read more about SEWA at www.sewa.org

2013Maria D’Amico (Biomedical Sciences), since graduation, has been working in various departments at Queen Mary and as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer. Maria has gone from being the first cartoonist for the student newspaper, QMessenger, to illustrating the fantastic cover of the 2015 Undergraduate Prospectus. To see a selection of her work, visit www.mariadamico.com

Dr Muhammad Saad Shaikh (MSc Oral Biology), who passed his degree with Distinction, currently works as an Assistant Professor at the Fatima Jinnah Dental College in Pakistan.

Submit your news by email to [email protected] with ‘Alumni update’ in the subject line

2013Dr Zhen Bob Chew (MSc Internet Computing 2005; PhD Electronic Engineering) recently received his PhD in Electronic Engineering, which has taken him from Mile End to Canary Wharf. He is now working for KPMG LLP (UK) as a technology analyst within their Tax & Pensions function, where he is developing new technologies to expand the business. His father, Dr Su Lip Chew (Mechanical Engineering 1978) and his sisters, Yun Zhi Chew (MSC Mathematics and Statistics 2008) and Yun Han Chew (MSc International Finance 2011), are all former students of Queen Mary. The family returned to Queen Mary to attend Bob’s graduation ceremony last December.

48

THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND

FRIENDS OF QUEEN MARY

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

25 June - 3 July 2014Alumni receptions in East AsiaJoin the Principal, Professor Simon Gaskell, for a series of alumni receptions in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. A special celebratory event to mark 10 years of the Joint Programme between BUPT and Queen Mary will be held in Beijing.

21 October 2014William Harvey Day and BATLAA AGMAnnual showcase of cutting-edge research at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry and our partner NHS Trusts. The BATLAA AGM will be held over lunch.

12 November 2014School of Biological and Chemical Sciences Careers ForumAn opportunity for alumni of the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences to network with one another, current staff and research students. We are looking for speakers for this event, if you are interested in participating, please email [email protected]

Friday 27 - Saturday 28 February 2015London Hospital Dental Club Annual Clinical MeetingAlumni and former staff, as well as current staff and students, are invited to this annual event for dental alumni. Your President, Tim Fry (q BDS, 1988) looks forward to welcoming you.

Date TBCHistory Reunion for alumni from 1962-71Jeremy Coke-Smyth (History, 1966) is rounding up members of the alumni community for a History reunion (date TBC). If you studied History at Queen Mary or Westfield between 1962 and 1971 and would like to be kept informed of arrangements, please email us with your current contact details at [email protected].

For our full event listings and further information, visit www.qmul.ac.uk/alumni/events or email [email protected]. If you require help organising a reunion, contact [email protected]

Ensure that you are invited to events and reunions by keeping us informed of

your current contact details. Complete and return your update form or visit

www.qmul.ac.uk/alumni to update your details

Do you receive our Alumni e-Newslettter?Keep in regular contact with news and developments at the university by signing up to receive the Alumni e-Newsletter. All we need is your current email address. Email [email protected]

Order The Making of Queen Mary University of London, an illustrated history of the university, for just £10 excluding p+p (RRP £15). All proceeds will go to the Queen Mary University of London Foundation to support student opportunities and scholarships. Telephone +44 (0)20 7882 7790 and quote QMA14 when ordering.

International and UK Alumni Ambassadors Many alumni volunteer their time by assisting with recruitment fairs for prospective students, providing careers advice to current students, giving lectures and talks, or attending professional networking events. If you are interested in getting involved, please email us at [email protected]

Get involved with Careers supportOur colleagues in the Queen Mary Careers and Enterprise Centre are looking for alumni volunteers to support current students with careers events and workshops, mentoring, work experience placements, internships and graduate employment opportunities. To discuss the ways in which you can get involved, please email [email protected]

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