25 Jul 2014
Hamung Patel was awarded an AJ Bank Travel Bursary earlier this year which enabled him to attend The Nutrition Society Summer Meeting 2014. Here he shares his experience of being at the meeting.
'I am currently in the final year of my four year PhD at King's College London in diabetes and nutritional sciences. I attended The Nutrition Society Summer Meeting 2014 at the, University of Glasgow on 14-17 July. By attending the meeting I was able to speak to key scientists all in one room to answer questions and obtain feedback on some of my results. I was also able to present my work to PhD students in other fields and gain a better understanding of the relationship between food structure, digestion and nutrient release.
'During the conference there were plenty of opportunities to talk to other scientists during the poster sessions and communicate my ideas about my current and future work in vitro in vivo and in silico models. The lengthy networking sessions allowed for talking to oral presenters as enough time was available to have useful discussions. During these lengthy networking sessions, I was able to talk to many other PhD students with the possibility of collaborations in other labs and specifically speak to a group in Southampton, who work on similar projects to mine. This group helped me tremendously in explaining my results and provided useful contact addresses of those who were not able to attend the meeting.
'Attending this meeting was extremely important for my future career prospects because it allowed me to gain valuable contacts in my field of research. In addition, it allowed me to talk to principle investigators about future grant applications for potential post-doc opportunities once I have completed my PhD. However I also meet a few industrial members (Nestle, Unilever) and learned more about job opportunities available outside of academia.
'The travel bursary offered to me by the SCI enabled me to attend this conference and present my new work and obtain valuable feedback.'
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