Joe Outreach

May Outreach Activities

In May Karolina participated in two outreach events, talking about science to both adults and children alike! Pint of Science was held on the 11th of May in Massimo’s Bar in Galway. The first Pint of Science Festival to be held in person in two years was a sold-out event and over 50 people of all different backgrounds enjoyed Karol’s talk about antimicrobial resistance and how we can fight it using sugars, over a pint. 

The second event was the annual START Competition, held in NUI Galway on the 20th of May. An event geared towards primary school children in 4th, 5th and 6th class to mark the anniversary of the first documented randomised clinical trial in 1747, and learn more about all the different disciplines of science that make clinical trials possible. Karol along with her colleagues volunteered as part of Kitchen Chemistry to chat to students from three different schools and show them fun and safe experiments they can easily do in their kitchen. After lunch she also put on a show demonstrating how to make “elephant toothpaste” and the freezing power of liquid nitrogen with help from Darragh, Lamis and Hanka. 

Joe Awards, Outreach

Lindau Sciathon: “Anansi Webinars” (3rd Place)

A new platform for sharing details of online seminars, and a call to “open the doors of seminar rooms worldwide” was the proposal of Team Elmiger, a group which Joe joined to compete in the inaugural 48-hour Sciathon contest, taking place as part of the Lindau “Online Science Days 2020”.

Team Elmiger meeting over Zoom to work on their project

The team of scientists and economists from around the world wrote a report and made a video over the course of the weekend about the importance of connecting the world to inspiring research talks. In particular, they highlighted the value of harnessing the shift to online events, which has been a consequence of the Coronavirus crisis, to invite researchers from the developing world to attend seminars in leading universities. The team built a prototype website to demonstrate how this could be achieved, and set out a plan about how this could be developed in future to create a more open and connected world. The team was a collaboration between researchers in the developed and developing world, and a clear example of the strength of bringing diverse people together, which is key to the vision of the Lindau-Nobel Foundation.

A panel of international judges awarded Team Elmiger the 3rd Prize in the Category “Implementing the Lindau Guidelines“.

See the video below:

Anansi Webinars reportDownload REPORT (PDF)

Joe Conferences

Online Seminar Series

Joe is organising an Online Seminar Series in NUI Galway’s School of Chemistry. The programme for this series of lectures is given below, and many of the talks will be open to the public. Links will be shared on the School’s Events page in the days before the lecture. Seminars are hosted on Microsoft Teams group “NUI Galway Chemistry Seminar Series”. With most normal activities in research labs shut down for a period of months due to the Coronavirus Lockdown, and conferences canceled for the summer, these seminars offer us a chance to engage with exciting research from around the world.

The weekly seminars take place on Fridays at 12 noon (Irish time), unless otherwise specified. Contact Joe directly for more details.

PROGRAMME OF SPEAKERS (currently confirmed)

DateTimeSpeakerAffiliation
22 May12:00Chris HawesKeele University (UK)
29 May15:00*Grace Morgan*UCD Dublin (IE)
5 June12:00Syma KhalidUniversity of Southampton (UK)
12 June12:00Kurt HoogewijsNUI Galway (IE)
19 June12:00Carmen GalanUniversity of Bristol (UK)
26 June16:00*Keary Engle*Scripps Institute (USA)
3 July12:00Jelena StojadinovicMembrasenz (CH)
10 July12:00Jean-Louis ReymondUniversity of Berne (CH)
17 July12:00Nathalie WeickgenanntAngewandte Chemie
Joe Outreach

Karolina and Joe at Young Scientist Exhibition stand

Kitchen Chemistry at BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition 2020

Karolina and Joe joined the team from Kitchen Chemistry, who spent a day representing NUI Galway’s College of Science at the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition. It was a long but engaging day of demonstrating simple chemistry experiments to members of the public of all ages, from primary school children up. In particular it was a chance to talk to the many secondary school students who attend this annual event about studying science, and particularly chemistry, at university level.

There were some very high-quality projects on display at the competition, presented by students who had a good understanding of how to carry out a well-designed scientific project. The future is bright.

Joe Conferences, Outreach

Dillon Symposium Public Session videos

The Public Session of the Dillon Centenary Symposium is available to view on YouTube. This includes the Dillon Threesis Challenge (young researchers talking about their work for 3 minutes with zero jargon), a chemistry-inspired ballet and historical talk about Prof Dillon.

Selected lectures from the Scientific Session are available as a playlist here.

Not all lectures were broadcast. Consult the programme to see who is currently speaking. The “Public Session” from 17.00 GMT was broadcast.

Update 20/12/2019: More edited videos of the threesis and ballet, filmed from various angles are now available as a playlist here.

Joe Outreach

Walk for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland

Joe raised funds for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland by taking part in their annual Head2Head walk around Dublin Bay. Our research aims to develop diagnostic tools that could speed up diagnosis of P. aeruginosa infections, a widespread problem for people with CF – it seemed only right to try to raise some funds for organisations supporting people with the disease. Thanks to everyone who donated!

Joe in Sandymount starting his walk. The destination is at the end of the headland just next to his left ear!
Joe Outreach

CÚRAM Poetry Slam

In June 2019, CÚRAM SFI Research Centre for Medical Devices invited its researchers to write some poetry in a workshop with Todd Robinson and recite these poems in public at ‘The Dark Horse’ pub in Athlone. This is the work of Team ‘Drug Delivery 1′ and comprises Liam Fitzgerald, Neville Murphy, Marita Dangol, Joseph Byrne, Miriam O’ Duill and Antonio Monterru.

This was a strange departure from normal scientific communication, and I think we learned a lot about how to use language (but I’m not sure the examples in the video were necessarily the best examples of that!)