27 Feb 2017
Emily James was awarded a Rideal Travel Bursary in November 2016 to attend the 8th biennial Australian Interface & Colloidal Symposium (ACIS) from 29 January to 2 February 2017 held in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia. Emily is a fourth year PhD student at the University of Leeds who gave an oral presentation entitled ‘Droplet Spreading Dynamics: Role of Interfacial Shear Rheology’. Here, she describes how her attendance has helped her present her research to a scientific audience for the first time.
‘This was my first oral presentation at a conference and I was able to show the scientific community the thorough study into how interfacial rheology can affect droplet spreading dynamics, which to my knowledge has not yet been investigated. As this is a novel study and the techniques of interfacial rheometry are relatively new the talk sparked off much interest. After my presentation, I had a great deal of opportunity to converse with other scientists about my work and was also able to discuss the application of interfacial rheology to other fields of interest. This really highlighted the huge field of colloidal science and has shown me there are many more avenues of research for my project.
‘The conference had seven themes and there were many interesting talks given by academics from around the world, I was surprised at the amount of overlap many of these talks had with the different aspects of my own work. Further discussions and networking with the attendees allowed me to begin the process of discussing future collaborations and research positions. Together, with the expanded vision of colloidal science I now feel there are many more exciting opportunities for me after I finish my PhD.
‘Attending the conference has been a very eye-opening and helpful experience. It allowed me to practice my communication skills, which will help me with my ever approaching viva. It not only opened up more possibilities of future research collaborations but also sparked interest in many other topics in my field of research. I am most thankful to those who have supported me throughout the PhD and conference attendance in particular my supervisors Dr David Harbottle, Dr Olivier Cayre and Dr Timothy Hunter. I would also like to thank the conference organisers for a great meeting and to the SCI/RSC Rideal Trust for giving me the financial needs to attend.’
Emily James
University of Leeds
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