Travelling to Cambridge to attend CEB research day 2017, PhD student Naziah Mohamad Latiff reports:
CARES has enabled bridging of research ideas between the prestigious Cambridge University and leading universities in Singapore; namely Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore (NUS). The Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CEB) research day 2017 has provided us a platform for sharing of our work to further enhance research exchange between the three universities. NTU PhD student, Naziah Mohamad Latiff, reports her experience at the conference.
CEB research day organised by the Department of CEB was held on 26 to 27 June 2017, comfortably situated at their new building on the West Cambridge site of Cambridge University. Even though it lasts over a short span of two days, the conference was well-packed with many exciting presentations by research staff and students. In addition to oral, flash and poster presentations, there was an interesting line up of invited speakers not only from the CEB department, but also from the Chemistry department as well as from the School of Engineering Physical Sciences of Heriot-Watt University. Given the broad spectrum of backgrounds from the speakers, presentations cover a diverse spread of topics ranging from drug delivery, microfluidics, microbial technology, batteries, supercapacitors, ionic transport, laser writing, light triggered chemistry, computational screening in materials discovery, synthesis of catalysts for sustainable energy, rheology and many more. Not forgetting our representatives from CARES, Dr. Guowu Zhan and PhD candidates Nicholas Jose and Manoel Y. Manuputty, had contributed to the conference actively through splendid oral and flash poster presentations.
By listening to the different presentations, I am inspired to strive towards excellence. This conference has also reignited my passion for research despite its challenges. More importantly, this exposure had left me rethinking about my own research i.e. how to be more critical, possibilities for expansion and/or collaborations, which I believe are valuable gems in a PhD learning journey.
As a side note, I am pleasantly surprised by the spontaneous participation from the audience during the question and answer (Q & A) sessions. This positive attitude is fairly uncommon among Singaporeans students and I hope that it can be inculcated through more collaborations and exposures together.
Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to CARES for sponsoring our attendance there and to the conference organisers for the insightful event. It has been a privilege to do my PhD with CARES and be part of the CEB research day 2017.
