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Swansea Geography students receive Employability Awards The following BA and BSc Geography students received employability awards and benefitted from great placements this summer:
Clare Warwick and Megan Pickard– Discovery placement in Zambia with the Swansea-Siavonga parternship
Alice Palmer – worked at the Canal and River trust (British Waterways)
Hollie Sansom – Fairtrade office with Bridgend County Council
Aidan DAuncy – Swansea City Council planning department
Alice Carter - Lovell Johns commercial mapping department
Stephan Ellis – National Trust countryside Ranger
Emma Dulson – EDF Energys Environment, Regulation and Oversite (ERO) Department
Tom Lloyd – John Lewis
Michael Mustoe - 8 week internship for an off-shore environmental consultancy firm working as a hydrographic processor
Amy Hulley – Neilson water sports Kenya |
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New York Field Course After a bumpy start, the plane was hit by lightning on take-off from Heathrow and the human geography students landed in a blizzard at Newark Airport. By lunchtime on the first day in New York City, however, the sun had come out and there were no further mishaps! During the week the students explored how landscapes of all kinds reflect the social and cultural power of individuals, groups, and nations – looking at skyscrapers, memory sites like the 9/11 Memorial, and public spaces like Central Park. They traced the evolution of gentrification by looking at how diverse neighbourhoods like the Meatpacking District on Manhattan and Williamsburg in Brooklyn have been transformed, first, through colonisation by artists and small businesses and, later, by established businesses seeking to cash in on an area’s ‘cutting edge’ reputation. In one day the students explored a fraction of the city’s cultural diversity - travelling from Harlem (arguably the African American ‘capital’ of the USA) to the shrinking neighbourhood of Little Italy and on to the ever-expanding Chinatown. Students’ group projects took them far and wide across the city, and they made full use of the evenings in the city that never sleeps to take in sports events, theatre and even a bit of shopping!
Geography students also enjoyed fieldcourses to Mallorca and Vancouver over Easter 2013. |
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In April 2013 the Swansea University Maths student society SUMSoc organized a meal out for students and staff, which was a wonderful evening for everyone. Also, for those students about to graduate, it was a lovely way of rounding off their time at Swansea University.
The final-year students took the opportunity to present the staff with a delightful, specially-made card, thanking them for the great time they had had. The staff were really touched to receive this, and to read the four pages of comments from dozens of students, enthusing about the support they received and their enjoyment of the different aspects of the course and of Swansea itself.
They were deeply grateful for this show of appreciation. They really enjoyed teaching them, and look forward to hearing of all their great successes in their careers. |
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Amy Jones, a first-year Human Geography PhD student at Swansea University, has won an accolade at Wales’s largest social science conference. At the 2013 Annual Conference of WISERD (Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods), held at the University of South Wales on 25–26 June, Amy’s research on the Wales Coast Path – entitled ‘Walking Wales’ – won the joint Learned Society of Wales–ESRC Doctoral Training Centre prize for the Best PhD Student Poster. The posters were judged by Fellows of the Learned Society and the certificate and prize presented by Dr Lynn Williams, Chief Executive, The Learned Society of Wales. Amy’s research is co-funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Countryside Council for Wales, and the College of Science, and is supervised by Professor David B. Clarke and Dr Sergei Shubin of the Department of Geography. |
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Swansea Science café talk by Professor Rory Wilson, Department of Biosciences, featuring a penguin on a treadmill.
It is well known that sperm whales dive to over a mile underwater, presumed to be foraging in the black depths where we cannot see, or even follow them. But most animals cannot be seen most of the time so is it illusionary to think that we have a good understanding of even the most visible of animals? Perhaps not! A relatively new approach to understanding wild animals uses sophisticated tags to record what animals get up to wherever they might be. Self-writing, animal-attached diaries provide us with extraordinary chronicles of animal activities ranging from 'helter-skelter sharks' through 'depressed elephants' to 'spinning albatross'. Rory Wilson, who has been tagging animals for over 30 years explains it all.
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The Centre for NanoHealth hosted a day of activities to showcase its expertise and capabilities in July. Students from Dylan Thomas Community School took part in a series of fun scientific experiments and activities such as jumping on corn flour and making ice cream with liquid Nitrogen, before viewing the CNH poster display area.
The day was followed by an evening of business networking when the centre hosted over 40 people from companies and industry leaders to view the facilities and the poster display area highlighting the latest research at CNH including Regenerative Medicine (Stem cells, Cartilage repair, Tissue scaffolds, Wound healing), Genotoxicology and Disease diagnosis, Rheology, Biosensors, Microneedles and Microfluidics.
Aaran Lewis won the best poster prize, which was voted & donated by ‘Learn About China’, on the “Investigation of Biochemical Fingerprints for Diagnosis of Lung Cancer”.
Visitors were also able to enjoy a tour of the centre and view the state-of-the-art equipment and facilities. One company said “I thought it was a great success and the display of posters most impressive.” |
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Centre for Sustainable Aquatic Research (CSAR), Swansea University
Tuesday 15 October 2013, 16.30-19.30
The EnAlgae Project is carrying out research to assess the viability of an algae-to-energy market in North West Europe (NWE). Swansea University is the lead partner of this pioneering project and on 15 October, it will open the doors to its algal research facilities. The facilities are housed within the University’s Centre for Sustainable Aquatic Research where work is also being carried out on a number of other aquatic projects.
The event will include:
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An introduction to Swansea University’s CSAR facilities
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An update on EnAlgae’s research at the halfway point of the project
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Tours of the microalgae production facilities
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An opportunity to network over drinks and canapés
This event is FREE of charge but booking is required. Please email l.c.stowe@swansea.ac.uk to reserve your place. |
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Further increase in numbers taking the Further Maths A-level in Wales This year’s Further Mathematics A-level results are again a cause for celebration in Wales with a 9.4% increase. The proportion of Mathematics students who sat Further Mathematics A-level reached 11.2%, which is the highest result ever in Further Mathematics. Since the Further Mathematics Support Programme was launched in Wales in 2010 the percentage has risen steadily every year. The number of students studying Further Mathematics in Wales has increased by more than 70%.
The pilot Further Maths Support Programme (FMSP) Wales started in October 2010 and covered Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea and Pembrokeshire. The South West Wales FMSP team is based in Swansea University Mathematics Department where many of their events take places throughout the academic year.
The Programme offers tuition and access to online resources to support the teaching of Further Mathematics. One of the key elements of the Programme is a variety of revision and study events held face-to-face and online. 97% of students attended Further Pure and Applied face-to-face Revision sessions in 2012/13 would recommend it to other students. Students’ comments include: “Great help to all students”, “Enjoyable atmosphere”, “…very useful for revision and even learning new things”, “Excellent preparation”.
From April 2013 Rhondda Cynon Taff, Anglesey and other parts of North Wales are included in the project.
All state-funded secondary schools and colleges in Wales are invited to register with the Programme here and express their interest in tuition assistance by contacting the Programme Coordinator Sofya Lyakhova on 01792 602793. |
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New research by Swansea University is helping to understand the importance of sensitive coastal habitats, in Wales and the UK, for supporting our fisheries.
The research, which uses novel stereo video technology, has been assessing the fish communities and their age ranges in different habitats around Wales. Specific focus has been on trying to understand the value of seagrass meadows, kelp forests and horse mussel beds for supporting juvenile fish, particularly those species of commercial importance.
The research was carried out by members of the Seagrass Ecosystem Research Group, at the College of Science, Swansea University and was conducted in collaboration with SEACAMS, the Countryside Council for Wales, the Pen Llyn a’r Sarnau SAC, and the National Trust. It has resulted in the creation of a publically available short film accessible on the internet. The film is available at the Seagrass website. |
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The BBC has launched it's User Experience Research Partnership, a long-term collaboration project between BBC Research and Development (BBC R&D) and leading universities in the fields of User Experience and Human Computer Interaction research.
Swansea University's Department of Computer Science is one of the academic partners, all of whom have committed to support the initiative for at least four years.
Through large-scale pilots and prototypes, the partnership will explore the potential of new forms of content and interaction in a multi-platform world, alongside new ways of producing media that will help make content more accessible to all audiences. The research outcomes will be shared with the industry to encourage wider audience-focused innovation, help define open standards and support the creative industries in producing engaging content in the future. |
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Leverhulme Research Fellowship for Physics Professor Professor Gert Aarts (Department of Physics) has been awarded a two year Leverhulme Research Fellowship.
In his work, Prof Aarts investigates the behaviour of quarks and gluons under the extreme conditions of high temperature and/or density, by combining analytical approaches with high-performance computing techniques. This work is driven by the discovery of the so-called quark-gluon plasma at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven (New York, USA) and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, as well as by the intellectual challenge to understand one of the four forces in Nature, the strong force, described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), at its most fundamental level.
To kick off his Fellowship, Prof Aarts will spent the month of September at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, where he will be hosted by the Lattice QCD Group, headed by Rajiv Gavai and Sourendu Gupta. Prof Aarts says: "This Fellowship offers an excellent opportunity to make progress in research and I am very pleased to have received it. The Lattice Group at Tata provides a stimulating environment for discussion and collaboration and I am looking forward to the excitement that the Institute and Mumbai have to offer." |
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Spring and summer 2013 has been a busy period for Geographers from the Swansea Tephra Group. Early results of the ERC-funded Tephra constraints on Rapid Climate Events (TRACE) project were presented by Dr Peter Abbott, Dr Anna Bourne, Eliza Cook and Adam Griggs at the Integrating ice core, marine and terrestrial records (INTIMATE) workshop held at Blair Castle, Blair Atholl, Scotland. Professor Siwan Davies also presented the group's work in June at the NERC Response of Humans to Abrupt Environmental Transitions (RESET) wrap-up meeting at the British Museum, London. Some of these results are soon to be published in Journal of Quaternary Science, Climate of the Past and Quaternary Science Reviews. Team members continue their search for microscopic ash layers within marine cores and have sampled new records stored at the University of East Anglia, University of Bordeaux and the University of Bergen. In August, whilst sampling ice-cores at the University of Copenhagen, the team were joined in the freezers by a film crew from Cwmni Telesgop, producing a science documentary for S4C on the group's research on volcanic ash and rapid climate change. |
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