In the recently published National Student Survey (NSS) 2018, Computer Science at Warwick ranked 4th of the 108 computing departments in the UK, with an overall student satisfaction rate of 94%. Among the Russell Group, an elite group of research-led universities in the UK, Computer Science at Warwick is ranked 1st for overall student satisfaction for the second consecutive year.

The NSS canvasses student satisfaction across all departments at all universities and remains the biggest survey of student satisfaction in the UK. Students are asked to respond on topics including teaching quality, learning opportunities, academic support, and organisation and management. Among the Russell Group, Computer Science at Warwick ranked first or second in almost all major categories.

Investment in new teaching and laboratory facilities is well underway, with Warwick’s new Mathematical Sciences Building soon to open and staff eagerly preparing for an exceptionally talented student intake for the 2018-19 academic year.

PhD students and staff are invited to a beginning of academic year event on 13 October, (the 2nd Saturday of term.)

Dominic Branford and Animesh Datta, working in collaboration with Haixing Miao (University of Birmingham), have published a paper on the fundamental quantum limits of optomechanical sensors in Physical Review Letters (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.110505). Being able to measure very weak forces is central to many applications, such as the direct detection of gravitational waves and monitoring subterranean movement of magma in volancially-active areas. The strength of a force can be inferred through its effect of displacing a mass: the displacement can be sensed by illuminating it with a laser and observing the reflected light, a case of optomechanical sensing. In this work, Dominic, Haixing and Animesh study the best precision attainable by optomechanical sensors when multi-coloured light is used.

We are pleased to announce Ezat Khoshdel has been appointed as an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the department. Ezat has been a long-standing collaborator with the department with multiple projects over 25 years. Ezat has recently retired from Unilever where he was the inventor of over 150 patents, the largest number of any Unilever employee. Ezat will be more than happy to discuss ideas and work across the department and add to our impact activities. Ezat can be contacted on E.Khoshdel@warwick.ac.uk and will next be in the department on October 11^th when he gives a lecture to our new Polymer MSc cohort.

On 13-14 September, the University of Warwick hosted the 5^th annual M4 Midlands Microbiology Conference organised jointly by Dr Freya Harrison, Dr Yin Chen and Profesor David Roper in SLS as well as Dr Meera Unnikrishnan, and Dr Chrystala Constantinidou, from WMS. The conference attracted over 140 participants from throughout the UK with outside speakers from the Pasteur and Karolinska Institutes, and featured a wide breath of microbiology from environmental phage biology to the influence on the bacteria cell wall in host physiology. Microbiology research at Warwick featured prominently at the conference including poster prize winner Carmina Micelli as well as the Antimicrobial Screening Facility which is a unique facility in the area supporting academic and industrial requirements. The conference was sponsored with generous support from the Microbiology Society, The Company of Biologists and Society for Applied Microbiology as well as a number of exhibiting companies.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya received an honorary degree for his contribution to advance the knowledge of technology and its widespread application throughout the world including India. The award was conferred on 8 September 2018.

At a ceremony at the Indian Institute of Information Technology at Allahabad, which is the largest of its kind in India, Professor Lord Bhattacharyya was conferred a D.Sc (honoris causa) in recognition of his contribution, and creation, of WMG with its world renowned application of cutting edge technology.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya is a long term and committed collaborator with India, with WMG working with many companies on research and development, as well as educating future engineers, technologists and managers.

Andrea Mondino has been awarded the Bartolozzi Prize by the Italian Union of Mathematics.

Andrea was awarded the prize for his article Sharp and rigid isoperimetric inequalities in metric-measure spaces with lower Ricci curvature bounds (with Fabio Cavalletti), published in Inventiones Mathematicae (2017).

International Networking for Health Education conference

Well done to Lucy Hammond, Alyson Quinn and Debbi Marais, who delivered a symposium on ‘Addressing challenges to enhancing the student experience for part-time professional learners in healthcare’ at the AdvanceHE 29^th International Networking for Healthcare Education conference in Cambridge last week, which was very well received.