23 Nov 2011
I am a final year PhD student at the University of Warwick. From 28 August - 1 September 2011, I attended and gave a presentation at the 242nd ACS National Meeting and Exposition in Denver, Colorado.
This was an excellent opportunity for me to not only gain valuable experience at giving talks but also allowed me to get my research known within the chemistry community. Throughout the conference I attended many other talks given by fellow Ph D students and world-renowned academics alike. These lectures spanned various disciplines and so I learned a great deal of organic synthesis, as well as less familiar areas such as polymer and biological chemistry. As well as an excellent selection of lectures there were several poster sessions to attend and these were equally insightful into other researchers work.
A number of social events were organised for the evenings where we met other students from around the world. This was a unique opportunity to meet other Ph D students from around the world and discuss research and postgraduate life in different countries.
I would like to thank my supervisors Prof Michael Shipman and Dr David Porter for allowing me to attend the conference and SCI for awarding me the Messel Travel Bursary - I greatly appreciate it! Furthermore I am thankful to the organisers for selecting my abstract for presentation. The conference was designed in a way to incorporate networking opportunities alongside chemistry discussions. This provided ample possibilities to meet academics informally while in a great location. I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and have met many new friends and contacts within the organic chemistry network. Finally I would recommend all Ph D students enquire about presenting their work at this type of conference, as it is both scientifically and socially worthwhile to postgraduate research students.
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