e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e afternoon thank you so much for coming um that I have to do one very boring thing before we get started properly and let you know where the fire exits are in case we need them there’s no fire alarm planned today so if an alarm goes off we assume that it’s real and you go out the way that you came in so either side and there will be people in hi is for you to follow um if that’s needed but fingers crossed um so to get started properly I’m going to welcome Professor hert Arts to the stage who is um Deputy PBC for pgr who is going to start our proceedings this [Music] afternoon thank you good afternoon everyone it’s my pleasure to open this uh this afternoon event as you know the month of May now since for a few years has been dedicated to to pgr research and we had many many activities throughout the month which I hope you have participated with uh yesterday and the day before there were activities in the three faculties with their own uh internal uh presentations and today everyone comes together here for this uh whole day of talks and presentations so in the morning we’ve seen many great posters and later today the winners of the poster competition will be uh welcomed on stage stage as well um but we start with this this afternoon with the 3mt uh competition so this is a competition which started in 2008 in in Queensland and has been running in Swansea since 2014 so this is actually the 10th 10th year of this uh of this competition um and it’s really to encourage pgr students to present their work in in three minutes and bring across you know what makes their research special what is it that drives you to do the research and and what are the outcomes and since it’s an University wide event um of course what is very important is not to talk to your peers or maybe even to people in your faculty but really across the whole university so and we all hope to learn a lot from the people in the front here who would talk for for three minutes uh minutes each um so this the 3mt in the UK is overseen by something called Vite and um and there are various stages in this competition so the winner of uh this competition will go forward to now I have to say make sure I don’t make any mistake we’ll go forward to the quarterfinals in July and then there’s a UK Final in September and in fact in 2018 the Swansea winner Lara broom was the first Swansea University winner to get through the national uh quarterfinals and the semi-final um and she then gave her talk in the UK Final in 2018 to an audience of around 400 people so if you want to be Laura you have to you know put your best foot forward um on top of that the winner of of today’s competition will also present at swans University’s uh research and Innovation Awards which is later in the in the month or maybe I don’t know exact day ex actually in June maybe um so there are some some interesting things happening if if you if you win here um so how is it judge there’s a panel of three judges um I won’t tell you where they sit but they actually sit exactly over there um and it’s um the three three pgr uh involved leads or academics from each faculty so it’s uh maricio PI from science and engineering Gideon kelder from uh Humanities and social sciences and yam Nigam from Health Medicine and Life Sciences so they will be judging the uh your your presentations and then after a short coffee break we’ll come back to present the awards to the to the winners um so it’s it’s as I said it’s my pleasure to welcome everyone here the speakers and and the audience and I hope we have a insightful uh afternoon so I’m handing back to Theresa now who will will lead the the event okay thanks very much her so my name is Theresa fips um I work in the postgraduate research office um doing lots of things to support the development of our pgrs including um running this three minute thesis competition I’ll just tell you a tiny bit about how it’s going to work today and then we can crack on and hear the presentations um so as you might guess from the title each student has exactly three to communicate their research to you they can have one slide to accompany that but the slides not allowed to have any animations or they’re not allowed to have any props either um so it’s really just them their words and the images um on their slide you’ll see a timer on the screen which will count down from 3 minutes over towards that side um and then there will be a a beep at the end um and for our presenters there are two of our colleagues in the audience who will have a 20 second warning sign that they will hold up for you um one on each side so you can keep an eye on them if if you want to um this year as in previous years we’ve had qualifying rounds for this competition we had one on each campus um and we had another set of judges for those so we had Simeon Smith from um C Swansea employability Academy Thomas Watson from Rise um and Estelle har from the postgraduate research office so all colleagues who have kind kind of different expertise um about how we communicate either about ourselves and our skills and what we offer to the world or about research um and those judges were fantastic in giving our um participants lots of really useful feedback which they’ve been able to put into their presentations for the final um and then as her has already said today we have um our our three judges as well who um will be judging according to the rules that are kind of used worldwide for this competition um so they have two categories um which they’ll be scoring against so one is comprehension and content so it’s kind of what the presenters are saying um and then engagement and communication so that’s a bit more how they’re saying it to you um and they will be giving a score out of seven for each of those categories um and then that will be compiled and then we will eventually have a winner we’ve got 13 presenters today in our final and they’re from all of our three faculties um and what I’m personally really pleased about this year is we’ve got several people who are in the first year of their um doctoral program and even some people who only started in January and we start this process in January so they’ve really thrown themselves in at the deep end which I think is really admirable and hopefully also really useful and right from the start thinking about the kind of big picture of why they’re doing their research and um how you can share that with the world more broadly um so yeah we’ve got students across you know all different stages of of research so we’re going to hear from each person in turn I will invite each person up to the stage and introduce them to you you’ll see a slide that has their name the title of their talk and their faculty and then that will move on to the slide that they have designed to support their talk um and the the timing for the three minutes will start when each person starts talking so don’t you don’t have to Sprint to get on the stage or anything like that um and yeah as I said we’ll see the time out there so without further Ado um we’ll get started I’m sure you want to hear from our presenters so first um coming to the stage is Khloe Morgan from the faculty of medicine health and life sciences and Chloe is right in the final stages um of her PhD and if you were here last year you might recognize Chloe who took part in 3mt last year and had such a great time um that she came back for more which I think is such a great Testament hopefully for 3mt so Chloe when you’re ready over to you between Google Maps Apple Maps and satnavs most of us are able to navigate the world around us pretty easily in fact it’s never been easier just enter your destination and the way you go this might seem like quite a simple thing so we forget that getting lost can be quite frightening and leave you feeling scared and vulnerable so imagine for a second you’ve gone somewhere you don’t know you don’t have any non marks you can look out for maybe you don’t speak the local language so you can’t ask for help well this is what it can feel like when you’re an adult navigating Health Services with a c condition services for adults with so now giving heal Services can be an impossible task my research Expos the experiences for adults with osteogenesis in infecta a Rec condition that affects theology results in extremely fragile bones and many other complications such as scoliosis and fun its complex nature requires Specialist Care which is readily available for children than a network of Highly specialized Services throughout the UK these are not available fors I conducted a quality study consisting of and two one one in without those who have oect I found that people felt very supported during their time of Pediatric Services but F that their support was absent from Services they’ got lost abandoned and they have nowhere to turn when they have questions and as a result do not fully understand their condition or the treatment options that are out there for them my research also suggested that this lack of knowledge extends into the health services with participants expressing that their Healthcare professionals did not understand ensus imp perfector so if neither the individuals nor the healthcare professionals and have the necessary knowledge of the condition how do people get the care they need how do they access necessary treatments and how do they leave appointments with the referrals they need to progress through Health Services or if you prefer to progress to a new checkpoint on the map one solution is to educate individuals ensure they fully understand their condition its treatments and potential comorbidities enable them to become empowered Expo patients patients can play a central role in the management of chronic conditions their lived experience can be invaluable and when they are given the proper skills and confidence to manage their condition can reduce the burden on the NHS by ensuring complications and co-morbidities are treated early as they say prevention is better than cure in recognition of this the outcome of my research was the development of a patient guide for people with osteogenesis impacta which will provide people with more information about their condition his treatments and sign posting of where to go when they need help this will make them better equipped to manage their condition and advocate for themselves My Hope Is that this can act as a blueprint for other chronic conditions and out for more people to become expert patients enabling individuals to take more control over their journey through health services and hopefully reduce some of the burden on the NHS by Bridging the current gaps in service provision thank you [Music] timing to get us started as well um so next up we have Caitlyn Tanner Caitlyn is in the second year of a PhD in the also in the faculty of medicine health and life sciences I was born by Lally Prof family Le death and I was cocko implanted in 2016 this is me during the co pandemic in itu we in full PPE this made communication difficult did you know that in 2024 12 million adults within the UK are have variations of deess this is expected to rise to 14.5 in 2035 this is a significant portion of the population with deess and this is can this can this affect our nurses too yes so we have nurses coming into the profession with profound with any variations of deafness those who progress throughout their career with deafness and those with age related heing loss um cor correlating with cor correlating with related I’m really boud of this [Applause] um right I am in I’m interviewing uh def’s mild moderate severe and profound for we Face challenges with communication stethoscopes alarms emergency support funding and more unfortunately there is very limited research on the experiences of deposes their challenges successes and support why is this our problem imagine being in a hospital waiting endlessly to see a nurse the NHS faces retention faces Staffing shortages due to retention concerns and uptake issues we can it’s a struggle to keep staff and it’s a struggle to get more did you know that defers are more likely to leave if they do not receive um support or believe they may negatively impact on patient care this is alarming as we may lose highly qualified professional nurses with years of experience because of limited support let me tell you about what I brought to the Intensive Care Unit in my department I care for patients with breathing tubes down their throats and orally they often could not balize but I was able to lip bre and communicate with them and have bold conversations where staff would have to ask them to write what they wanted to say say on a board which meant that it was high patient effort f one word we bring a different skill set to the profession in different departments my research aims to provide guidance on support defos space and the creation of policies and death awareness if we are able to support and encourage people into nursing we can reduce socioeconomic disadvantages that they may face we Face disadvantages to education and Healthcare thank [Music] you thank you very much Caitlyn next up we have Sam rice from The Faculty of Science and Engineering who’s in the third year of a PhD there Sam over to you how can we live our life without steel it is all around us in the in the communities we live in in the objects we hold and in our hopes for a green future but how can that be when the UK steel making produces 2.4% of all UK Greenhouse emissions accelerating the unsustainable level of CO2 in the atmosphere the answer is in the research the steel works at Port Talbert and elsewhere around the world convert iron or or to Steel using a lot of fossil fuels a key process in this journey from or to Steel is centering centering converts lowcost powdered iron ore into a strong and reducible material known as iron or Center the process uses solid fossil fuel to reach temperatures of up to 1300° C to convert the powdered ore into Center emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases in the process but what are the options for reducing emissions the crops for biofuels absorb CO2 to grow and thus reducing the CO2 and there’s a short cycle between use and growth reducing the level net level of CO2 in the atmosphere the biofuel I tested incorporates Wast from growing olives thus not requiring any extra emissions in the growth of the crop the wastes are combined with Co creating a Hybrid fuel the fuel performed well in labu tests emitting the same amount of energy as its fossil as its fossil fuel compatriot to test how this Hybrid Works into make to make CER it was tested at Port Alber the center made with the biofuel with stod strength testing very well compared to the fossil fuel made CER in the blast furnace um CER is conver converted from solid solid oxide to liquid ion the faster this happens the less fuel needs to be used the less reduction needs to be used thus using less fossil fuels when tested the the hybrid made sensor matched the um the performance of the fossil made sensor the impact this could have is a potential 23% reduction in direct fossil fuel fossil fuel use within the centering process reducing CO2 emissions because the fuel is being sourced from and is going back into plants and trees now steel is always going to be vital to our way our way of life and however it is made to keep living the way we live it is critical that we continue to look at the alternatives to Fossil resources and focus on working with the environment and not against it to produce our future thank you thank you very much Sam uh we’re staying in science and engineering for our next talk from FR Hamlin who is doing an ngd in the third year um of her ngd over in science and engineering so I’m sure many of you who work at the University live in Swansea Port Talbert or any of the surrounding areas have possibly seen the steel Works glowing of an evening and even if you haven’t maybe you’ve seen the recent announ announcement in the news tataa steel was switching from a blast furnace basic oxygen furnace and trading it in for an electric AR furnace we’re swapping out the coke and coal and we’re trading in for electricity as a method of M ing well why is this important the Iron and Steel sector accounted for 9% of the global energy consumption contributing to 7% of the CO2 emissions annually in 2020 and across the UK as we’re trying to reach that goal of being Net Zero by 2050 it’s imperative that we tackle all 1.9 billion tons of CO2 entering the atmosphere annually directly at its source so we can think use things like carbon capture technology using methods of lower energy consump ition and recycling steel scrap if we take a look at Port talba it has the highest CO2 emissions across the whole of the UK and switching to an electric Arc furnace will means we’ll be able to reduce those emissions by 2/3 swapping out the 1,800 kg of like CO2 per ton of new steel for about 500 kg so where do I come into this well I want to take the electric Arc vanice and couple it with using a high proportion of scrap we’ve got plenty of scrap in the UK most of it is is being exported at the moment but if we had it kept in the UK we could increase the amount of scrap used in our steel melt so the electric Arc furnace users can use up to 100% recycled steel nothing new no new raw materials or extracting whereas the previous method uses between 10 to 25% and is more energy intensive so if we take a step back and I tell you a little bit about the like steel making process and compare it to baking both involve a complex series of steps they’re from like kneading the dough to extracting raw materials to having phase changes chemical Transformations where you’re taking that liquid cake batter in your transforming it into that soft fluffy cake that everyone seems to love and if tataa still want to keep making that same product with the same taste the same texture and add new ingredients then their method might have to change of baking so I’m simulating scrap steel by adding in Copper tin chrome nickel all of these different elements which are detrimental in high in high amounts so with a higher proportion of scrap we get a higher proportion of these residual elements so to tackle this I’ve got questions to answer I’m like can we still make the same grade of Steel with these elements involved can we still produce um the same mechanical properties like formability where you’re able to bend and shape the material without it cracking or deforming can we do this and if we can’t can we change the temperature in the fairness to negate this because it’s important to keep steel making in the UK and contribute towards that zero goal thank you thank you very much so now we’re all experts on steel making I think thanks to those two talks um moving to a different topic in a different faculty now we have Cedric burden from medicine health and Life Sciences um who’s in the first year of a PhD um over there so thank you s thank you good afternoon asthma it’s not fair that’s the call from the children who suffer from asthma sometimes it causes them to rise to overcome it but too often it’s something of fear something of Despair in their lives it returns to us to say how can we bring Justice how can we bring some hope to these children in the UK some 11% of adults suffer from asthma 22% of children in Wales suffer the suffocating effects of asthma and this can lead to you’ll see a global figure there of almost a half a million people dying from the effects of asthma and that is likely to be an underestimate because of the difficulties of describing asthma and unknown asthma what we are facing is a situation where our modern society and the way we do industry the way we do our lifestyle choices and we travel has added to the pollutants in the air we’ve added nitrous oxides we’ve added particulate matter that makes quite frankly breathing a dangerous sport for some of these youngsters their very life depends upon clean hair and how can we help them overcome issues in moment of crassness if you will forgive me I’m going to put aside thinking about the well-being and the good mental health of our youngsters and just talk a little bit about cost the cost of a child staying home one extra day a week because of asthma a parent having to stay home for care the hospital appointments the impact upon economic activity and judgments on inflation and fiscal judgments in the in the country these are significant issues fortunately in swans University a lot of excellent work has been done on linked Health Data bringing together GP records hospital records School environmental records to which we can go and I will be analyzing those to look at the size of these effects and then stepping into modeling so that we can predict for government and for the Health Service and education policy makers how can we build better communities how can we build better transport and in particular what about this putting into the hands of a youngster an app that just like a weather report predicting UV and rain will predict dangerous Asma events due to temperature their environment and everything that surrounds them if we can do that we can enable our children and we can recover perhaps a day a week of Education 20 % of education so that we can recover their exams thank you very much Cedric uh we are sticking in medicine health and Life Sciences next for our next talk from grace hollinrake who is also in the first year um of a PhD over to you Gra the first a th1 days of Life are a time when we grow develop and learn and nutrition during this time is important too babies make the change from milk only to starting solid foods this is called complimentary feeding and happens around six months old the World Health Organization has produced guidance to um suggest which foods and in what quantities for optimal nutrition during this time babies learn new tastes and textures and eating behaviors too which can track into adulthood but what if you don’t have the money to be able to provide the variety of foods and the optimal learning experience for your baby this is what I’m interested in three in 10 children are currently living in poverty in the UK with the highest rates seen in families with children under 5 years old these children can’t ask please sir I want some more they have no voice they’re forgotten in policy and we’re letting them go without adequate food this is because when household budgets are tight the most flexible area is the food budget you can’t cut down on your rent or energy bills so you have to cut down on food instead buying lower cost less fresh or maybe overall less food food and energy prices have increased wages and benefits have not we’re in a cost of living crisis food and insecurity is an unknown problem in the UK it’s a multi-dimensional problem it can impact the quality and quantity of food it can have a psychological impact of stress and anxiety and it can have a social impact of how people are accessing food food banks have become normal in the UK there are more food banks than McDonald’s outnumbering by more than a thousand and they’re seeing more families with children accessing them this is why my research is focusing on the impact of the cost of living crisis and household food insecurity on complimentary feeding there’s limited research particularly in the UK looking at this I’m inviting parents from across the UK to participate I will reach them by using an online questionnaire and online interviews I’ll then group my data by household food security status measured using a valid questionnaire to see if it does have an impact on baby’s diet feeding practices and also parent well-being my findings will highlight parents experiences of feeding their baby with limited government support and stretched finances and really to get their voices heard to influence policy to include babies and to increase financial support for food insecure households with babies thank you thank you very much Grace we’re whing through these today uh next up we are going back to science and engineering and we have Lydia bulock who’s in the third year of her PhD thank you very much l the goal of my PhD is to help the healthcare industry to produce diagnostic medical tests that are reliable accurate and get them out to patients faster so to do this I’ll talk about three things today number one is a lateral flow test number two something called a chemical fingerprint and number three a computer model so starting with lateral flow tests like this one here uh you may have taken one for covid but did you know you can take one to test for many other illnesses as well inside the test a chemical reaction happens which gives you your positive or your negative result now my research is sponsored by Sean health and ears who produce these tests commercially and other tests like them the aim overall is to study the proteins that go into these tests which are a key ingredient I forgot to mention and then I will develop a computer model in order to have a quality control process because if a bad batch of these proteins comes in and we will then risk a producing medical tests that aren’t up to the standard we can’t release them costing time money and resources so how can we tell if the proteins are good or not using something called a chemical fingerprint we obtain this from a technique called Rance spectroscopy which I’m using to study the proteins now the chemical fingerprint is unique to every substance just like how a human fingerprint is unique to every human now uh in this graph here I have measured the the chemical fingerprint of bovine serum albumin and from the Peaks here I can identify it as this protein and also tell that it’s in good condition to understand what the bad proteins look like I’ve done some experiments to break their chemical structure such as heating them shaking them um changing their pH and freezing them as well because the chemical fingerprint will change when the proteins get damaged so now that we’ve got all this good and bad protein data I have written a computer model that can tell me the difference between the good and bad proteins using machine learning and an algorithm a supervisor learning algorithm called random Forest I’ve shown this model good and bad protein data so that it can learn and therefore learn what the proteins look like and when I’ve shown it new proteins it’s able to really accurately predict which ones are good and which ones are bad so this can be put into the Quality Control process for seus health Anders in their production line stop production loss and waste this improves the sustainability of the company and by reducing waste also makes the test cheaper and more accessible to patients so this will help society and is in line with the UN goals for healthcare and sustainability thank [Applause] you thank you very much Lydia all this science that we didn’t know was behind those uh lateral flow tests that we’ve used uh next up we’re staying in science engineering um with Beth and Miles who was in the second year of an ND over to energy is expensive and it’s costing us too much money and we’re sacrificing too much for it we need solar energy to maintain our Liv Styles and to continue to develop both nationally and internationally the solar panels that we have at the moment are expensive they take the sand from our beaches and in order to make one kilogram of the base material is the same as running your washing machine 129 times these heavy devices have then shipped around the world encased in glass which cost not only money but increases the carbon emissions associated with the production of them what if we could ship ship the components as easily as shipping a few bottles of wine print them using Machinery designed for printing t-shirts and print them onto steel strong durable flexible on your left here is a perite structure just the arrangement is called perovskite you can put anything you want in there and it’s an absolutely magical material um depending on what you put in there changes the energy in the bonds just like two teams playing tug of war pulling against each other if the teams are bigger or they’re further away then it changes the energy going through that straining group and these bonds can absorb light just like wind pushing on a rope pushing it out of place almost breaking it deforming it and if you were to change that energy transform it like a crack as you pull that rope back into place then you can use it for important things the right set up can Harvest electricity from this material and we can use it to keep Hospital lights on to watch your favorite TV programs or even to keep that washing machine running the other magical thing about about this material is it can be dissolved in relatively low toxicity solvents and printed using processes that we’ve been using for decades we’ve got many hurdles those straining bonds can easily break and anyone that’s used a printer Ever Knows how Mercurial they can be this is where I come in I’m helping to strengthen those bonds or ensuring they reform if they do break testing different temperatures times speeds additives thicknesses and even seeing if the horoscope of the material actually makes a difference when you make it um getting that right balance and persuading lab breakthroughs to actually survive their first contact with reality is more of an art than a science in a lot of ways in only 15 years this material has gone from being barely functional to catching up to pre-existing Technologies we can repurpose factories and printing expertise reduce Reliance on large scale power grids and show the world how to do it it’s a very difficult material to work work with I’m not going to lie but as you can see on the left here it’s quite beautiful and I’m really excited to be helping it over the Finishing Line to being useful to everyone and I really hope that this is not the last time that you hear the word perovskite thank you very much bethan next up we have na OKO from The Faculty of humanities and social sciences na is in the first year of a PhD um in that faculty na Soros Soros ERS ERS speak up boldly speak up fearlessly these were the loud chants from Young Nigerians as the match through several cities in Nigeria how had this small conversation on Twitter after I viral video showing special anti robbery Squad SAS officers in Nigeria dragging out two men from a hotel and shooting one of them to death become such a big thing in the words of my 72-year-old mom it had never happened like this in Nigeria before where we have Christians Muslims from the north south east and west part of the city unite together for the same cause youths and celebrities usually aloof concerning the issues of governance but but here they were on the streets singing and chanting the same song and SAS Soros and SAS exactly after 9 days of this protest the notorious special anti- robbery Squad which had enjoyed impunity for the continued use of torture rape extortion debt and other ill treatments to extract information from suspects was finally disbanded by the government according to W shinka an 89-year-old Nigerian Nobel Prize winner in literature this youth brought fresh blood to tired veins it was indeed Bliss to be alive to watch them finally take their future in their hands my research would like to find out what was different this time how did media Technologies and platforms ate the course of the end SAS movement in Nigeria these questions need to be answered because I believe that for us youths in Nigeria social media has to be more than entertainment it is that very for the social change and development that we very much need mediatized activism recognizes the significant role that media plays in shaping public discuss mobilizing supporters and disseminating information about social and political courses so true mixed methodology approach involving content analysis critical discuss analysis and semi- structured interviews and focus group discussions I’ll be examining posts on Facebook on Twitter and on Instagram during this protest to see what kind of messages were shared and what languages were used in these messages to motivate the youth to act the youths to act differently this time around findings from my research would inform policy makers and activists about the effectiveness of using media platforms and social media for political movements and social movements in Nigeria raise public awareness about the impact of mediatized activism for social change Nigeria thank [Music] you thank you very much na uh next up we are back in science and engineering with Selena dofo who is in the second year of her PhD B trees are part of our everyday life I believe we all have have at least two devices that requires batteries for example cell phones computers among other items most of the B most of the batteries on those devices they are made of lithium but we do have a problem with this element first it’s how we get the lithium so the extraction of lithium is not necessarily in place and operative second lithium is not available in countries which are highly demanded for example England France and German they only have less than 3% of lithium has a world rinking and the biggest problem with lithium ion batteries is their disposal which is toxic it can contaminate water supplies and the ecosystem my research proposes that we replace the use of lithium for sodium in this situation sodium can be extracted from Salt legs sodium is an is an element which is non-toxic it is less flammable and is way more available in the world when comparing to lithium during the past years sodium iion batteries have attracted a scientific interest and one of the expected application it’s on electrical Vehicles batteries can mainly be composed by a positive side a negative side and we have the electrolytes which is what I manufacture at the lab electrolytes can be defined has a medium that conducts the movement between the positive and the negative side on a batteries the steps that I take during my research to manufacture a sodium onion electrolytes is basically mixing sodium with other elements such yes sorry mixing sodium with other elements and other elements and solvents I then place the solution in the oven to dry and finally the solution is heated at temperatures higher than 1,000° cium and based on the characterization I’ve done so far yes it has been proven that was able to manufacture a sodium ion electrolytes in conclusion batteries they do provide the backup power they do store energy from Renewables and they highly being used in cars among other applications the demand of batteries is increasing with time so it is important that the future manufacturers batteries researchers try their best to make them as much environment friendly as they can and besides that they will also be working towards a United Nation sustainable development goal thank you very much for [Applause] listening thank you very much Selena um we are staying in uh science and engineer heing again for our next presentation which is from olle friet who is in the first year of uh PhD in science and engineering to you ol solar panels are everywhere they’ve become the cheapest and cleanest form of energy in human history which has led to a production boom of over a th% in just the last decade uh you can spot them in fields uh along motorways and on rooftops but here’s a question what happens to these panels when they reach their end of life by 2050 we expect there will be $15 billion worth of recoverable materials from these old solar panels yet currently we don’t have an established method for recycling these my research aims to change that so let’s break down a solar panel uh typically it’ll consist of an aluminium frame and an electrical junction box these can be easily removed using hand tools such as and screwdrivers the rest of the panel I like to imagine as a sandwich with a plastic back sheet at the bottom silicon solar cells in the middle and a thick glass layer on top and this is all held together with a tough glue called Eva so what I’m really interested in is this top layer of glass because if we can recover this as a single piece we can reuse it in windows and new solar panels uh so the reason I’m focusing on the glass is because it’s the most valuable part of the panel it makes up about 80% of the weight of the total panel and is incredibly energy intensive to manufacture uh so to put it in a bit of perspective if we want to manufacture the number of panels needed for net zero this will uh account for about 11% of global CO2 emissions that’s the same as all Global road vehicles combined uh but we can reduce this number massively uh if we reuse recycled glass but the big thing preventing recycling is this Eva glue layer my research proposes using liquid nitrogen to cool the panels to around -200 de C different materials contract at different rates and the Eva glue contracts about 50 times more than the other layers this leads to a massive stress between the layers uh and potentially allows the separation of the glass in a single clean piece so I’ve began by simulating this computationally then I’ve tested it experimentally on small sections of solar panels and soon we hope to progress to recycling fullscale panels um so if successful we then hope to collaborate with industrial recyclers to develop a robust process uh which can handle the mountains of solar panel waste coming our way so when you head home tonight I want you all to take a moment to look out for the solar panels around you just imagine with effective recycling those solar panels could have a second life contributing even more to our Clean Energy Future by making solar panels truly sustainable we not only keep them out of landfill but we also Ensure the continued growth of affordable and renewable energy for everyone thank you thank you very much olle uh we have two presenters left uh first of those is Anna vova who is another one of our first year students in the first year of an ND in faculty of science and engineering and over to you it’s just paint but can you imagine a world without paint rusty cars corroded appliances degraded steel facades a layer of paint as thin as a fingernail is vital for the largest metal working Industries all this paint equals millions of tons of paint produced every year requiring an enormous amount of resources and money but the currency dearer than money carbon footprint extracting raw materials for paint production leaves a large environmental debt for future generations and while Metals recycled the paint is incinerated with no recovery From the Ashes wasting all the resources and greenhouse gas emissions spent on it but let me tell you that only one paint ingredient can be a game changer this baby not some polymer but titanium dioxide or tio2 you might have met it in sunscreens this pigment gives paint excellent resistance and opacity the paint is up to 20% ti2 and if acquired from raw materials this share uh this share accounts for6 0% of paint carbon footprint 60% you might have guessed it already if we recycle ti2 and reuse it in new paint will’ll cut the paint’s carbon footprint by half recycling other paint components can further reduce the environmental impact how can we recycle them that’s the core question of This research the first challenge is um the first challenge is overcoming the pain strong adhesion to metal so we are freezing the samples with liquid nitrogen to make the paint brittle and shake off a substrate we’re also testing the electrochemical delamination the leing of zinc from the underlay and other methods but our priority is finding which method has the least negative environmental impact once we isolate the paint we need to extract its components while one option is to burn off the paint to collect inorganic tio2 From the Ashes we are aiming at preserving the Organics and breaking polymers into monomers so extracting paint components for their reuse in new paint can help tackle climate change the UK has pledged to achieve the net zero emissions by 2050 and every sector must contribute so the next next time you think it’s just paintt remember its part in shaping our sustainable future thank you very much Anna and finally but definitely well last but not least that is the saying isn’t it but definitely not least uh is Simon Wright who is again in the first year of PhD in the faculty of medicine health and Life Sciences so Simon over to you when people join the armed forces it is a fact they are risking their lives for us but when they come home many don’t function that well last year a study in Swansea found that 43% of our veterans struggled with problematic gambling when this effect was examined and in many cases it was found To Be A coping mechanism uh or a symptom of PTSD therefore if we want to help that gambling we also need to help and address the PTSD underlying it unfortunately the nice guidelines endorse a therapy called CBT which is ineffective in the treatment of this particular problem not only that CBT is offered face Toof face or in groups and this presents a particular problem for military personnel because the feel in seeking help is a sign of weakness so we need a therapy that works and we need a way to get these guys in treatment and stop them not attending or dropping out from treatment apps are a wonderful solution to this because they can be used in the privacy of your own home and they can be adapted quickly to allow for new therapies to be designed and delivered which could help one such therapy is called acceptance and commitment therapy or also known as act and act has already been proven to be effective in the treatment of PTSD and gambling and act has been tested and has been proven to work with Veterans as well so this is where my work comes in because Act is never before been placed in an app so that is exactly what myself and my team have done so we see here a screenshot of act vet this is the app that’s already been produced and is out there uh ready to go I’m going to be testing the effectiveness of this app and if we get positive results we can not only help the veterans I’ve described but we hope many other people as well cheers thank you very much Simon and thank you so much to all of our presenters um I’m always in a of all of you and you know it might feel like it’s only three minutes but I think it’s such a a hard task to take this you know really detailed complex research project that they’re all doing and firstly distill it into three minutes and into this language that means that we can all understand um what they’re doing so it’s a a huge Challenge and um you know it’s been fascinating to hear about all the work that you’re all doing and all of the the ways and so many different ways that this impacts on us and on the world that we live in this isn’t just kind of theoretical research that lives in a un University but it’s about the real world as well and I think you’ve all communicated that really well so now our judges have the very difficult task of trying to pick um a winner from these fantastic presentations so they are going to have some time to reflect and deliberate and everyone else um gets to go and have a cup of tea and a some more Refreshments so that will be downstairs um you can make your way down there and then we’re going to reconvene up here um at just before 3:30 um to find out who’s the winner of this and also our poster competition and we’ve got some other Awards to to give out then um as well 3mt participants can you stay where you are just for a minute I won’t deprive you of a of a break but just for a couple of minutes um but yeah can you join me in thanking all of our participants again e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e hello everybody um it’s fantastic to see so many of you here today to celebrate the pgr showcase um my name is Joe wno and I’m the postgraduate research officer supporting scholarship schemes in the pgr um this event is really the highlight of the pgr calendar year um it’s where we learn a bit more about the incredible research that our fantastic students are undertaking as you’ve heard today there’s so many interesting things going on here um before I introduce her uh could I please just if you are lucky enough to win an award could I please ask you to enter stage La ch um and if you want to just Trot along to the middle there to receive your award have a little handshake and photograph that’ be [Laughter] fantastic and you can exit that side as well please unless you’re asked to stay back for a a little photograph as well um so I’d like to now introduce Professor her Arts please to tell us a bit more about these prestigious Awards thank you her thank you so it’s my pleasure to welcome everyone again so most of you some of you were here to listen to the 3mt talks and participant are sitting here and some of you are only attending for this award ceremony so welcome to you as well um we actually are handing out many many awards in this session and they’re on this table there so we have the three minute Caesar Awards the poster competition that was run in the morning and the James Kahan Awards and prizes which is also an annual prize so we’ve got uh many things to look look forward to um just just to say I really enjoyed both the poster session in the morning and the 3mt session uh just now I think it shows us an enormous amount of research going on in the university and what’s what were the two things that were striking to me and the first one was that there were a lot of problems that are present now which need to be addressed and this is quite different maybe from how it was when I did my PhD long time ago no is that um a lot of PhD projects were looking in the future like let’s do research that is relevant maybe in 20 years time or in 50 years time um but there were a lot of presentations uh just before the break which are about issues that are relevant now so it’s great that you’re working on it and hopefully make can make a contribution that that will really address those issues and the second one is as was already also noted by Theresa we had quite a lot of first first year participants first year students participating in the 3mt and uh there was an amazing amount of promise there but of course you now have to deliver on that promise and so you may come back in two years time and do another 3mt and report on the results that that you have achieved that would be amazing um so those were the few General words I wanted to say let me see if Teresa wants me to say something more um anyhow yeah so a few General things about winning an award so winning winning an award is uh is of course very special and you should not be silent about it you know we don’t win that many awards so celebrate the award celebrate with your friends and your family and and also um you know whenever you apply to the next stage of your career it’s worth mentioning if you win something to actually mention it because it’s something to be proud of it’s not something that just happened on a what happened to be a sunny day sunny afternoon today it’s something to really you know be proud of and treasure and so those are my general words and I’m handing back to Joe now thank you har and I’m handing over to Teresa musical presenters um so I going to um announce the the results from three minute thesis and the post competition so um I think you know most of you I think were here and saw our fantastic three minute thesis um presentations and as we heard at the start so the winner from today will go through to the UK competition so there’s a quarter final and eventually there’s a UK final that takes place um in September so 3mt is not just something we do here it’s actually you know it’s a UK wide but also a global competition so that is the the future for our our winner um but before we announce the winner I think we’d like to invite all of our um participants up onto the stage for a final time if you don’t mind um you are the main event of today so let’s give them all round of applause okay so uh the runner up today was Lydia bck [Applause] we do this 50 more times and the winner was olle friet and I’m sure none of us would want to be the judges who were having to decide between so many brilliant um presentations we’ve got certificates for all of you so um we’ll make sure you get those before you go home thank you so much everyone let’s give them a Big C again and then the next of our competitions today to announce is the poster competition which I’m sure you’ve seen downstairs we’ve got this room full of fantastic posters from all sorts of different subject areas and again such a a wonderful way to get an insight into all of the brilliant research that is going on here um by our pgrs we’ve done things slightly differently this year so we had our judges who were going around and scoring and talking to to all of the um presenters who’d made their posters and those posters actually kind of fed through to us from each of the faculty conferences that took place earlier this week and again I’m sure lots of you were at those faculty events so we were able to bring together the best posters from those faculty events to have this great kind of exhibition of uh multi-disciplinary research here today um as I said the posters were reviewed by judges and also lots of you voted for your favorite poster as well and we have um with by the magic of spreadsheets combined um those the voting and the judging to come up again with a a runner up and a winner um so our runnerup who I’m not sure if she’s still here but we’ll find out our runner up is Kelsey Allen are you here Kelsey yes got a long way down well done Kelsey and the winner if they’re here is ttha Lewis [Applause] well done and again huge well done to everyone that has made a poster taking part in a conference this week it needs all of you for these events to work and and I hope you found it a really enjoyable and useful experience that you can take forward out into the world to other conferences and other events so thank you everyone [Applause] thank you okay well done everybody it’s fantastic um we now have the uh James kalahan award and prizes um and to present these Awards can I please ask professor H us again do you want to do you want to say your your piece I say a few words yeah um okay so so these prizes have been long established at the University and they are made AA able to uh of course recognize research Excellence um and we have two two prizes here one is for current pgr students and one is for um this the CES uh award so this is for a Seas that’s completed and is both at the doctoral level and at the master level um and so in total we’ve got four prizes to hand out the Dr Caesar prize the master Caesar prize the research award and the research uh run runner up award brilliant thank you um and so the uh winner of the James Callahan doctoral thesis prize and I don’t think he’s serious out of the country I think it’s UL Egan school of law but I think that Michelle his supervisor or ah Ivon oh fantastic you just collect award on his behalf that be brilliant thank you brilliant thank you very much and the James Kahan Master CIS prize goes to Beth and here in geography is Beth and here she’s not here but we um then the James Kahan resarch award that goes to Ella Harford history Heritage and Classics good well done Ella thank you very much okay congratul thank you Ella brilliant welcome um and now the James Callahan research award runner up that goes to Alex dorson history Heritage and Classics again well done Alex come on come [Laughter] on brilliant and then there um there were also some entrance who were highly commended six in total um I’m not sure if any of them are here here actually but I will read your uh names please do come down if uh your name is read out Kieran Burgess David Williams Natalie shalava Faith goodliff claraa MCH and UD alawi we’ll catch up with them the names on the list now okay now we’re moving on to the next award which is the associate fell Fellowship of the higher education Academy and here to present the award is Chris Hall um he is the academic development manager for salt thank you very much before congratulating our associate fellows I’d like to give her some background of what they’ve done to achieve associate fellowship and why it’s important associate Fellowship of Advan G demonstrates a personal commitment to professionalism in learning and teaching in higher education and the pgr associate fellows have as part of the course explored classroom teaching assessment and feedback creating effective learning environments and student support amongst lots of other things and addition to this they’ve been observed by experienced teachers and reflected on what they’re already doing well and how they can develop their teaching and finally they’ve completed a reflexive account of who they are as teachers and how they meet the requirements of associate Fellowship their applications were then reviewed by experienced members of staff and the final decision to award associate Fellowship is made by a panel of experienced teachers from across the university who themselves are fellows and who hold fellowship at various categories and the award of associate Fellowship is a professional recognition of them as teachers and that recognition comes from Advanced H the awarding body and also their teaching colleagues across the university so that’s a very important thing award and a good first step in their careers as they progress so I’ll call them in no particular order absolutely uh the first is Holly [Applause] mford oh okay okay uh next up is John Rogers egology Well Done John Felicity mck history Heritage and Classics Felicity is she here uh Daisy uh Ola management Daisy oh fantastic and Freya Fu civil engineering [Applause] thank you very much brother okay now we have the um outstanding contribution to public engagement award and here who’s that for um well ran presented by ran chair of swans University public engagement Forum ran would like to say a few words about this award please thank you very much hello everyone uh I’m RI Morris as Joe said I’m the chair of the public engagement Forum at Swansea um and we’re delighted to present these Awards which celebrate pgrs who take their work beyond the limits of the university to share their knowledge and their passion with a broader audience uh not only is at a great test of research’s ability to communicate their specialist knowledge in a way that is engaging and meaningful for non-specialists it’s also one of the key ways in which we ensure the benefits of academic research are shared Beyond research communities it also provides an opportunity for Mutual benefit where the public or communities are able to share their experiences and needs and we can uh take that back to adapt the way that we perform the research um we have two prizes one a winner one a runner rep and we have several highly recomended for public engagement Awards fantastic okay so the runnerup first of all um the runnerup is cine Watson history Heritage and Classics Catherine here um Katherine Watson has made a significant impact by organizing and presenting at many events including a public lecture at swans Museum she also arranged trips to local Heritage sites and manages and engaging Instagram account the documents her PhD journey and making history accessible and interesting to the public so well done her thank you and then the winner and I look forward to saying this name all day because it’s so lovely it’s Chloe tulip for psychology ah she’s here uh hello has excelled in developing and delivering evidence-based sleep courses for Community groups across Swansea and Beyond using findings from her PhD research she crafted the course content created resources and actively participated in the delivery of the program uh through her presence as a person and a researcher Khloe has greatly contributed to breaking down barriers and sharing the exciting impact research can have on everybody’s lives well done clar and then there is um a highly commended for public engagement and that award well there’s there’s three winners here um who are highly commended and that is Flo Avery medicine is she here Daniel Brittain Material Science and Engineering and Jack hick Jones bio Sciences each of these commendable individuals has gone way above and beyond in sharing their research with the public demonstrating the importance and excitement of academic work beyond the confines of the University their efforts embody the true Spirit of public engagement making research accessible and impactful for everybody well done everybody and the next award outstanding contribution to a pgr culture culture and Community um and to present that award is Ian mot he is the dpbc research doctor thank you Ian well hello it’s a absolute honor and pleasure to be here this is a really uplifting thing to actually uh be asked to do so thank you for brightening up my week at least anyway um I think I’ll start maybe just by explaining a little bit about what research culture really is what it means how we Define it and the sort of gold standard at the moment the one that everybody uses um is is the Royal Society definition and I’ll use that but I’ll read it so I don’t mess it up the Royal Society have years everywhere okay so I don’t I don’t want to butcher it in public um so research culture encompasses the behaviors values expectations attitudes and norms of our research communities it influences researchers career paths and determines the way research is conducted and communicated so that’s pretty Broad and that really sets the scene for everything that we do and I think it’s really important to recognize the role that pgr has in that so postgraduate researchers really are the heart of our research communities I speak to a lot of grumpy professors in this role including myself I’m looking at one over there actually Hy Tris um and and I think it one of the things that I find is when I talk to those grumpy professors what they fiercely defensive of isn’t their own environment it’s you it’s it’s the pgr communities and their post-doctoral communities because that is what drives the culture and importantly that’s what drives the future culture um so I think the little changes that we can make at this level really do have a ripple throughout the University Unity that’s really important to know so these awards are here to to share and celebrate the people who make a meaningful and positive difference to pgs at Swansea and so people who are improving research culture the community and the overall experience and I think that’s important because that can be done by by staff and students alike uh including Professional Services I think it’s important to note uh that we’ve had uh a lot of recognition of profession Services contributions to this um invitations were invited across the university community and we’re absolutely thrilled to have received over 60 nominations from across all of the faculties and those Professional Services so that number and breadth gives you a real indication of how how much people care how passionate people are to to get in this right and the importance of postgraduate research across the university and the broader culture of our University um it’s actually I think it’s really difficult to award people for this because there are a huge number of deserving nominations and I’m really pleased that the pgr team have decided to Showcase all of the excellent contributions that have come through so the stories are shared as part of that were shared part of the nomination process can be found in your pgr showcase brochure and they will appear online shortly but there were some outstanding nominations from both the student and the staff categories so I think we’ll hear those now and we’ll celebrate them thank you Ian brilliant um so the uh student pgr uh the winner is Ella Harford is Ella here history Heritage and Classics um Ella was nominated for resurrecting the pgr society and developing a stronger feeling of community and social connection for pgr students new members join regularly and the society runs a range of events including socials and research activities such as a conference on disability in research impact and history in November 2023 without ell’s initiative and persistence the pgr society would not have been resurrected and she has done well to recruit a group of supportive students who now help her lead the society and organize events students now starting at Swansea as a pgl student can expect to be welcomed in a lively and diverse Community this was certainly not the case uh when Ella started a few years ago so well done Ella it’s fantastic and uh the staff award well that will go toon oh okay got you sorry um and another student um that is Marco F bioscience es Marco was nominated for his contribution to the research community in the development of maths and his efforts to go above and beyond in sharing his skills with other researchers particularly through his contribution to bioscience’s modeling sessions um his enthusiasm for a robust quantitative research science is infectious and has had a strong and positive impact on the research culture and community of biosci the staff and students so well done Marco um and then we go on to staff um so the uh first of the staff winners is James Courtney chemical engineering uh James was nominated by multiple students and colleagues for his efforts to enhance the research culture and Community within the department from setting up a journal Club a funding Club to organizing regular socials and even buying plants for the office since arriving James has been instrumental in changing the mood and working environment of esri postco the office culture had allit died but far lower numbers with far lower numbers of attendees and a lonely working atmosphere that James has put an extensive work into improving there both consciously and just by being and just by his friendly nature and cheeriness oh that’s so lovely well done James and the second of our lovely Professional Services staff members is Yan woo media Yan Wu was nominated by several colleagues and pgr students for her commitment to supporting pgrs across the media Department ensuring the pgrs are included in the research activities of the department she provides opportunities to gain research experience mentoring and training as well as being a supportive and inclusive examiner for multiple vivers viors her particular support for international PhD students was also highlighted by several nominators her mentorship has prepared me someone has quoted a saying to tackle complex challenges with confidence and creativity making lasting impact on my professional Journey that’s so lovely well done Yan R and that is it for the awards well done everybody who has won today everybody who’s entered um did you want to say a few words to close yeah than okay thanks uh thanks Joe and and thanks ran and thanks Ian so um this is the end of the afternoon um but I want to thank a lot of people were involved in this uh Prof lots of Professional Service staff in the pgr office and in The Faculty teams it’s a lot of work to run the pgr festival we’ve done it now for a number of years so they’re getting better and better at it Teresa should be nodding yes now um but it’s a it’s I think it’s a great event as as what what Ian mentioned research culture is extremely important in the in the university for everyone it affects every individual and pgr students are instrumental in that and um it was great to see so many people here and to be able to hand out so many uh heavy Awards as well that that’s a a great success so thanks everyone and um see you around and hopefully see you next year at the at the same event thank you
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