October 21, 2022, by Lisa Chin
Winners announced in our Postgraduate Showcase 2022
Using poster to communicate research
Our Postgraduate Showcase is an annual poster competition for our postgraduate research students to showcase their research to a wider audience. It is an excellent opportunity for them to share and highlight the importance and impact of their research work to a general audience.
Explaining what you do and why it matters
It can be difficult to make people understand your research, its significance and impact, especially when it comes to complex ideas and technical concepts. In academia, the academic prose is often riddled with technical jargon and complex syntax. When you get a ‘Huh?‘, you know that it is a sign of incomprehensible.
Piquing the interest of a wider audience
So how do you translate your often complex and technical research into a wider picture with broader relevance? This is where our Postgraduate Showcase comes in. This is where our postgraduate research students practise talking about their research in a clear, concise and compelling way to the general public. This is where they adopt a more simplistic, even journalistic style (often called as “lay language” in academia) to connect with a variety of audience and make their research more relatable. This is where they maneuver to master the art of effectively disseminating their science to the public.
Our Postgraduate Showcase
This year, the competition was held in-person on Wednesday 19 October 2022 at the Great Hall. 27 of our postgraduate research students from a range of disciplines presented their research using poster to a live audience.
They were judged by a diverse group of judges drawn from the University’s professional services, comprised of: Ms Kung Suan Lay, Director of Marketing at Student Recruitment and Marketing; Ms Surinder Kaur, Manager at the Governance Office; Mr Razak Md Nor, Head of the Project Management Office; Mr Sutharthan Mariyappan, Head of Professional Development; Mr Gavin Dang, Head of Digital at Corporate Marketing; and Ms Josephine Wong, Assistant Manager at the Student Registry.
“A great effort in making us, the lay people, understand about what you do and what your research is all about. We really admire your effort and enthusiasm,” said Ms Kaur in her capacity as the head judge. Overall, she commended the high quality of research undertaken by the postgraduate research students at the University and envisioned their growth as researchers.
In her closing remarks, Professor Sarah Metcalfe, Provost and CEO, appreciated the opportunity to gain insights into the innovative and transformative postgraduate research at the University and further left a very encouraging message. “It is very exciting to see the research that you are doing, the range of the research that is being undertaken, and the rigour of the research. It was fantastic to have the chance to listen and talk to some of you. I hope you found the process valuable, as a learning and training exercise. What have I done? What have I found out? And if you could synthesise that on a poster, that is a pretty good achievement,” said Professor Metcalfe.
Winner
Mohammad Zandie receiving the award from Professor Sarah Metcalfe.
We are pleased to announce that Mohammad Zandie from the Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering is the 2022 Winner of our Postgraduate Showcase.
Zandie won with his poster presentation titled Can diesel-biodiesel-gasoline mixtures control greenhouse gases and climate change?. His presentation elucidated his research on analysing the viability of using diesel-biodiesel-gasoline mixtures in engines as an alternative fuelling system. He developed a multi-component kinetic mechanism and calculated the physicochemical properties for the respective fuels, with both validated against experimental data. He conducted 2D and 3D simulations under different blending ratio and ambient conditions, and proved that diesel-biodiesel-gasoline ternary blending could effectively suppress emissions and improve the combustion characteristics compared to conventional fuels. His results authenticated the suitability of this transformative fuelling strategy to be considered as promising solution to prevent greenhouse gases and climate change.
1st Runner Up
Choo Kam Kitt receiving the award from Professor Sarah Metcalfe.
The 1st Runner Up is Choo Kam Kitt from the School of Psychology for his poster presentation titled Bilingual contexts associated with increased cognitive efficiency.
Kam Kitt delved into the cognitive effects of multilingualism, specifically demonstrating how bilingual contexts were able to adaptively enhance executive functioning – a term used to describe the complex cognitive processes that are the foundation for our behaviours, compared to monolingual contexts in a cognitive experiment. His presented work belongs to a successive chain of experiments using state-of-the-art methodologies like Eye Tracking and Electroencephalography (EEG) to triangulate the timing of the multilingual advantage in the cognitive processing pipeline. He envisioned that the outcome of his work could inform future clinical practitioners on the possibility of using language learning as a form of complementary intervention for patients with Executive Dysfunction disorders.
2nd Runner Up
Chung Shei Li receiving the award from Professor Sarah Metcalfe.
The 2nd Runner Up is Chung Shei Li from the Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering for her poster presentation titled Silencing the silent killer.
In her presentation, Shei Li highlighted the limitations of current pancreatic cancer treatment and described her research on providing a platform combining two different therapies, chemotherapy and gene therapy, as a more effective treatment. Her work involves study on synthesising a nano-sized drug carrier which is made up of silica and has hexagonal structured pores i.e. mesoporous silica nanoparticles, to carry both chemo-drug and siRNA (small interfering RNA) to synergistically kill the cancer cells. She envisioned the outcome of this study potentially provide a more efficient, less toxic, time-saving and effective treatment option for pancreatic cancer patients.
Showcasing the breadth and diversity of our research
We would like to once again congratulate the winner and runner ups on their achievement and applaud all the participations for their commendable effort.
This competition gave us an exciting glimpse of innovative and transformative research undertaken at the University. It was a privilege for us at the Graduate School to showcase the visionary research of our postgraduate research students.
Postgraduate Showcase 2022
Contact us
For any enquiries or more information, please contact graduateschool@nottingham.edu.my.
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