WorldCUR-BCUR 2023 Closing Plenary

In Conversation: Reinvention and ICUR Alumni
Our Closing Plenary was opened by Professor Jo Angouri, Academic Director for Education and Internationalisation at Warwick. Jo introduceed our alumni panel, which was led by David Metcalfe, the first Editor and co-creator of Reinvention: an International Journal of Undergraduate Research, currently in its 17th year of publication. David spoke about his undergraduate research journey at Warwick and where it has led him in his current career. He then facilitated a conversation with three more recent alumni, Paulina Zelmanova, Yi Ting Loo, and Fernando Conde Nodal, who have all worked on Warwick’s International Conference of Undergraduate Research (currently celebrating its 10th anniversary) or ReinventionLink opens in a new window. The panel discussed the impact of participating in undergraduate research and its dissemination.
Professor Gwen van-der-Velden, Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor (Education), then reflect on the alumni panel and the WorldCUR-BCUR events more widely and Professor Jonathan Heron, Director of the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning, brought proceedings to a close.
The Closing Plenary took place in the Butterworth Hall, Warwick Arts Centre, from 4pm-5pm on Thursday 6th April.
David Metcalfe
David co-created Reinvention: an International Journal of Undergraduate Research with IATL staff in 2007 and served as its Founding Editor until October 2009. He holds first class honours degrees in biological sciences and law as well as a degree in medicine and has continued as an active researcher throughout his postgraduate career as a doctor. After working at St George’s Hospital in London and the University Hospital in Coventry, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Harvard Medical School, which was followed by an UCB Prize Fellowship to the University of Oxford. He completed his PhD at Oxford in 2019 and was elected Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons of England the following year. He is currently a Clinical Lecturer in Emergency Medicine at Oxford where his time is split between work as an emergency physician at the John Radcliffe Hospital and as a researcher aiming to improve the quality of care for patients with serious injuries. David is a member of the editorial boards of two specialty journals and continues to support undergraduate researchers both at Oxford and Warwick.

Yi Ting Loo
Yi Ting is a first-year PhD student at Warwick MathSys CDT (Mathematics of Real-World Systems Centre for Doctoral Training), where her research focuses on mathematical modelling in tissue morphogenesis and organ development. During her undergraduate here in Warwick, studying BSc Mathematics and Physics, she was actively participating in interdisciplinary undergraduate research and dissemination. She undertook a URSS project as a second-year student and presented her research in ICUR and BCUR. She was also the student director for ICUR 2021.

Polina Zelmanova
Polina was unable to attend due to unexpected circumstances.
Polina Zelmanova is an AHRC Midlands4Cities funded PhD student in Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. Her thesis is titled 'Sex in Contemporary Film and TV: Power and Pleasure after #MeToo'. She is interested in the representation and politics of sex and sexuality in popular culture, the #MeToo context, as well as broader frameworks of queer and feminist screen studies. Outside of her research, Polina has worked in film festival project management and as an audio-visual practitioner including for projects funded by IATL (Institute of Advanced Teaching and Learning) Warwick and Coventry City of Culture. Polina’s early research journey in academia went hand-in-hand with her role as first an Assistant Editor and then as Editor of Reinvention Journal, which she supported between the years of 2018-2021.

Fernando Conde Nodal
Fernando is a recent graduate in Chemistry from the University of Warwick. His involvement with undergraduate research conferences started at the annual International Conference of Undergraduate Research (ICUR), for which he worked as Session Chair and Student Director. At ICUR 2021, he also presented his own research project on arsenic-containing nanoparticles. Since then, he has undertaken interdisciplinary research projects in Austria, Portugal, and more recently in the Netherlands. In parallel to these endeavours, he has played a key role in WorldCUR-BCUR 2023, working with the Institute of Advanced Teaching and Learning as one of the event’s Student Directors.

Elle Pearson
We are very grateful to Elle who joined the Alumni Panel at late notice due to Polina’s absence. Elle is a final year medical student and current Editor of Reinvention at the University of Warwick. Elle previously worked as Assistant Editor at the journal for two years prior. She has held a variety of roles in research within healthcare including conducting research on health outcomes at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in hospitals and has worked with pharmaceutical companies on clinical trials. She aspires to work as a clinical academic in the future.