Postgraduate Conference and Careers Event

Every year the University of St Andrews holds a conference for biology postgraduates to present their work. This year, I presented my work on foraging preferences and decision making in rufous hummingbirds, and my efforts were rewarded with the first prize for best talk!

I was also involved in organising a new feature for this conference – a careers event aimed at PhD students and postdocs. The event, which was initiated and coordinated by the Biology Equality and Diversity Committee, showed attendees the career paths available to them, including research policy, teaching, and science consulting. The feedback from the event has been extremely positive, and its success indicated that it could now be a regular feature at the conference.

Holding my presentation prize with pride

Explorathon 2016

St Andrews was one of the Scottish cities involved in celebrating European Researchers’ Night as part of Explorathon 2016. Explorathon consisted of a collection of engaging and exciting science-based events to spark interest among members of the public. As part of the evening of events, I participated in the XX Factor where six female researchers presented not only the topic of their research, but also the steps taken towards their career. The event aimed to inspire young boys and girls and to show them the diverse backgrounds that researchers can have.

You can read more about the involvement of the Healy lab in Explorathon 2016 on our website.

Fieldwork 2016 – Canada

Another field season completed! Members of the Healy lab returned to our fieldsite in Alberta to work on wild rufous hummingbirds with our collaborator Professor Andy Hurly. Both of my supervisors, Sue and Dave, joined us for the first leg of the season. The hummingbirds migrate from Mexico and arrive in late May, when our field season begins, and over the course of the next two months we work daily with territorial male hummingbirds. As with most years, we were joined by several undergraduate students who conducted their final year projects on the hummingbirds under our supervision. On top of our data, the fieldsite is a great spot for some nature snaps.

Female moose with a calf

Black bear

Female rufous hummingbird

BBSRC Professional Internship for PhD Students

As a BBSRC funded PhD student, one of the requirements of my PhD is that I have to undertake a three month internship at some point between the end of my first and start of my fourth year.I chose to carry out my internship at Sense About Science, a charity dedicated to defending evidence even in the face of adversity. The charity, based in London, runs numerous campaigns which I wholeheartedly support, such as ‘Ask For Evidence’, which encourages members of the public to stop taking things at face value and instead hold, largely companies, responsible for the claims they make. Another noteworthy campaign is AllTrials, aiming to get all clinical trials registered and their results reported.

My role as an intern involved a lot of dabbling in many of the different campaigns,  website maintenance, liaising with scientists, assisting with public events, and writing articles for the general public. As some perks of the job I was able to attend certain events such as the final day of Royal Society Pairing Scheme, the awarding of the John Maddox Prize, and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology  event on Research Impact and Parliament.