Departmental news

Dr James Poskett, Associate Professor in the History of Science and Technology, has been awarded a British Academy / Wolfson Fellowship.

The British Academy / Wolfson Fellowships support early career researchers “who show outstanding talent in both research and public engagement and will communicate their research to a global audience.”

As part of the fellowship, Dr Poskett will be working on a research project titled, “The Scientific Revolution as Global History, 1200–1800”.

We are very pleased to announce this year’s winners of the Student Mentor Awards, an annual celebration of our students’ mentoring achievements.

The aim of the Undergraduate Mentor Scheme run within the Department of Economics, is to provide support to first-year students so they have a smooth transition into the Department and university life. It is also a great opportunity for our second and third-year students to enhance their skills and CV in their role as mentors.

The Student Mentor Awards winners are selected from three categories. Two of them, Best Overall Mentor and Best Mentor Team, nominated by student mentees who sent in examples of how they have benefited from having a mentor, and the Department Choice Award selected by the Department's Pastoral Team.

What is valued most by first-year students is having informal advice on a range of topics like module selection, clarifying module assessments, and help with practical issues, all done in ‘a casual, friendly atmosphere’ where students feel comfortable asking questions, making them feel welcome and supported.

We congratulate the following Student Mentor Awards winners:

Best Overall Mentor

• Chris Mucicka (Year 3 BSc Economics, Politics and International Studies)
• Sasha Gill (Year 3 BSc Economics)
• Pavitra Parsana (Year 2 BSc Economics)
• Laura Piontek (Year 2 BSc Economics, Politics and International Studies)

Best Mentor Team

• Sarim Poonawala (Year 3 BSc Economics) and Aashna Mishra (Year 2 BSc Economics)
• Andrea Sequeira (Year 2 BSc Economics) and Nishant Ramesh (Year 2 BSc Economics)

The Department of Economics Choice Award

• Milena Ermolenko (Year 3 BSc Economics, Politics and International Studies)
• Kehan Yan (Year 2 BSc Economics)
• Daira Povez Gamboa (Year 3 BSc Economics)

The winners attended a celebratory lunch on 3 May 2023 and received their prize vouchers.

Here is what the winners said about receiving their awards:

Daira Povez Gamboa

“Mentoring is about giving back: making an impact on your mentees and celebrating their achievements are the best rewards!”

Milena Ermolenko

“Being a mentee and receiving invaluable advice from EPAIS mentors in my first year, fuelled my desire to give back and become a mentor this year. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience as a mentor. Chris and I had a wonderful group of EPAIS students, who were always keen to learn more about their degree and ask questions about university life. Our frequent meetings were full of useful insights and engaging conversations. I recommend everyone in their second or final year to consider becoming a mentor. It is an enriching experience that facilitates teamwork, collaboration, and excellent time management skills.”

Parsana Pavitra

“Becoming a student mentor came with lots of opportunities to learn and grow as a person, build new relationships, and develop several transferable skills. Overall, it was an amazing experience.”

Kehan Yan

“I’m thrilled and grateful to have received the award! It signifies that my efforts have been recognised by the department and that I am acknowledged by my mentees for succeeding in helping them, even if it was in the slightest way. Although the mentor scheme is designed to assist the mentees, I have also benefited from the experience considerably. For example, my mentees often seek my guidance on academic matters such as studying tips. Whenever I provide advice, I am prompted to reflect on what I did in my first year and identify areas where I can improve, which I can then apply in both my current and next year of study.”

Would you like to become an Undergraduate Student Mentor in 2023/24?

If you are interested in becoming a Mentor, recruitment for mentors takes place in the Summer Term for the following academic year.

Please submit your online application on the UG Mentor Scheme Application webpage by 1 July 2023.

On Tuesday 25th April, the Outreach Team at WMG, University of Warwick hosted an Engineering Industry Day.

The Team welcomed 200, year 9 and 10, students who were identified by their teachers as students, from groups under-represented in engineering and STEM careers, with an interest and a potential to do well in those subjects.

The students came from schools across the region including Eden Girls School Coventry; WMG Academy for Young Engineers in Coventry and Solihull; Colmers School and Sixth Form College; Nicholas Chamberlaine School; Lyndon School; Harris Church of England Academy; Barr’s Hill School and Community College; and KEVI Northfield School for Girls.

The group was welcomed by Professor David Greenwood, the CEO of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and Director for Industrial Engagement at WMG, before being taken on a tour of the STEM facilities on campus.

Along with their teachers, they met academics and students, and heard about the research being carried out by the High Value Manufacturing Catapult; WMG and the School of Engineering. WMG Technical Services and the apprentices demonstrated their skills, and the Student Project teams - Warwick Racing and Warwick Mobile Robotics - showcased their work and shared their experience of studying engineering.

Participants also met with local companies including Jaguar Land Rover; Tata Motors; Aston Martin; National Grid ESO; Balfour Beatty; Wates; Willmott Dixon; National Grid; Tarmac and 3P Innovation, who provided them with advice and guidance about the skills and knowledge required to become an engineer.

They also received information about a range of support available from the Degree Apprenticeship Team; Student Funding; the Warwick Scholars Access Programme; the Sutton Trust Pathways to Engineering; the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Educational Programme and the Engineering Development Trust Programme.

WMG’s Outreach Project Officer, Marie Diebolt, who organised the event, explained: “With these types of events, and across our outreach activities, we work with our partners to close the engineering skills gap and inspire young people to pursue careers in STEM. We purposely timed the event to coincide with students selecting their GCSE subjects to enable them to make an informed choice and inspire them to consider a range of careers in engineering.”

Professor David Greenwood added: “We know that the UK manufacturing sector has a big skills gap – which WMG is keen to fill. Events like these help to shine a spotlight on the exciting career prospects in manufacturing – thanks to advances in digitalisation, automation and sustainability. The opportunity to speak to potential future engineers was a privilege, and the event was a great success.”

Find out more about WMG’s Outreach programme here: Public engagement and Outreach (warwick.ac.uk)

We are happy to share the news that Dr Alex Dixon has been promoted to the position of Assistant Professor, effective from 1 May 2023. Alex joined our department as a Teaching Fellow in September 2021, while still completing his PhD research. Despite juggling both roles, he has made significant contributions to the department's activities. Many congratulations to Alex for his accomplishments in completing his PhD research and for earning this well-deserved promotion.

The Computational Surface Science Group is celebrating a number of notable successesLink opens in a new window, from an exciting EPSRC-funded computing consortium, co-led by Reinhard Maurer, to great fellowship news.

Dr Hannes Houck, EUTOPIA-SIF Fellow, receives ECR Award for best talk at the 14th Advanced Polymers via Macromolecular Engineering Conference (APME2023). Read moreLink opens in a new window

As the famous Graham-Buffet quote says “price is what you pay; value is what you get" and every business success or failure is driven by the match or mismatch of the two. We will discuss a simple question in pricing algorithms: how to adjust prices over time to learn a buyer's valuation while minimizing revenue loss. This is a nice puzzle with a surprising solution. We will discuss the Kleinberg-Leighton algorithm and how to generalize it to multi-dimensional settings. There, we will do a detour to convex geometry and the theory of intrinsic volumes. We will also discuss how to measure the length of a potato.

Free attendance

There will be a reception after the lecture

Main contact point: K.G.Latuszynski@warwick.ac.uk

Featuring Warwick's Laura Schwartz and Somak Biswas, this new podcast series comes out of the 'Writing Labour History in Brexit Britain' network:

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/people/staff_index/lauraschwartz/labourhistorybrexitbritain/

WMG, at the University of Warwick, has announced a new two year research partnership focusing on sustainable high-performance sealing materials.

Researchers at WMG’s Link opens in a new windowInternational Institute for Nanocomposites Manufacturing (IINM), led by Dr Chaoying Wan, will be working with experts at James Walker to develop the next generation of sealing compounds which will be compliant with future per- and poly- fluoroAlkyl substances (PFAS) regulations.

In February 2023, the European Chemicals Agency announced a proposal for the European Economic Area that will effectively lead to a ban on all PFAS materials, due to their persistence in the environment.

This research project will use high quantity techniques to develop and identify novel elastomer compounds that comply with proposed PFAS regulations, for use in critical industrial applications drawing on WMG’s expertise in elastomer and polymer technology.

The new technologies developed will have a high impact on a wide range of industries from transportation, oil/gas, semiconductor to hydrogen storage and wind turbines.

Conventional high performance sealing compounds rely on PFAS, as these materials are resistant to extremes of temperature and aggressive chemicals. PFAS are essential to the semi-conductor, aerospace, petrochemical, defence and nuclear industries for example, and there are currently no suitable replacement materials available. Alternative sealing materials are urgently needed to substitute PFAS.

Dr Mike Eason, Technical and Quality Director at James Walker commented: "Industrial dependence on PFAS elastomers is a global issue with supply chain impact already seen. I am delighted that we will work with Dr Wan and her team to identify and develop materials which will help industry be compliant with the proposed regulations. This partnership will accelerate James Walker’s development of seal materials for critical industry. WMG has small scale, advanced, mixing capability, with knowhow regarding nanofillers and polymer science that will allow James Walker to rapidly design, manufacture and screen bench-scale test formulations.

“I believe the combination of James Walker’s history and expertise in critical industrial sealing together with WMG’s state of the art capabilities will enable rapid development and commercialisation of materials. James Walker is committed to developing solutions to the PFAS regulations faced by global industry."

Dr Chaoying WanLink opens in a new window, Reader of Functional Polymers and Nanocomposites at WMG, University of Warwick explains: "Collaborating with James Walker to develop alternatives for PFAS seals is an important and exciting opportunity. Our elastomer research facility is supported by High Value Manufacturing Catapult CentreLink opens in a new window (HVMC), equipped with the latest technology, including a rubber process analyser (RPA) with wide temperature range - it is the only one in the UK, and one of only a few in the world with the capability to simulate dynamic elastomer performance at very low temperature.

“This function is extremely useful to compare differences in formulation design for applications such as high pressure or low temperature sealing. I am very much looking forward to working with the James Walker team on the development of new material options for high performance sealing applications and advancing our knowledge of polymer formulation and performance."

Find out more about WMG’s Nanocomposites research here: Nanocomposites (warwick.ac.uk)

For the second year running, PhD student Stephen Brown (Pike Group) has been recognised by the British Crystallography Association for great scientific communication. Read moreLink opens in a new window