9 Sep 2013
Ayman Almerei received a Messel Bursary to attend the SCI Young Researchers in Agrisciences: Crop Production, Protection and Utilisation Conference held at the University of Reading on 2 July 2013.
Ayman, a third year PhD researcher in plant transformation is working on agrobacterium mediated transformation of anti-stress genes via immature embryos transformation in maize directed by Professor Mick Fuller. He reports on the event below.
Attending the conference was a great opportunity to widen my knowledge and to network with other researchers. I benefited enormously from attending this national conference and communicating the needs of my research to a wider community. This meeting, inspired by a group working in the field of biology, was of great benefit to my research.
This conference mainly consisted of three activities: oral presentation, poster plus flash presentation and posters. These activities enable every student whatever his/her stage to participate actively, and communicate his or her research to the scientific community. At the meeting I was able to discuss my research with others working in the same field and found this very helpful.
The conference enabled me to communicate my research to a wide audience. It also taught me what are the most important questions to ask, or what kind of questions I might expect to be asked by a member of the scientific community. I found the poster session was very useful and the oral presentations were really very interesting. My favourite topic was the networking session. Moreover it was good to meet other people from different universities in the UK and around the world.
I would like to thank SCI for giving me the opportunity to attend this conference. I would also like to suggest that members recommend their friends, individuals - perhaps people who sit on your committees or institute - who you think would like to actively participate in good events, to join SCI.
Through all of this, the SCI overall goal is to instil a spirit of partnership and collaboration. I believe that participating in conferences like this one will help students broaden their horizons and establish contacts with some of the leading workers in the field.
Stay tuned to the Agri-Food Hub web page to find out more!
Ayman Almerei
Plymouth University
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