Future Events

Some dates for your calendars.

All events are at the Vat and Fiddle pub and start at 7.30 pm.

POSTPONED: PubhD #70: Wednesday, 25 March 2020

Christopher Booth (Archaeology/History) is a PhD student at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on the archaeology of apothecaries in the seventeenth- and early eighteenth- century North Atlantic, he is particularly interested in the ways this material culture can help us examine the intersection of retail and medicine in this period.
Ruth Tarlo (Social Policy) is a PhD student at the University of Nottingham. Her research examines the experiences of people with mild learning difficulties who are looking for work.
Dena Arya (Politics) is a PhD researcher at Nottingham Trent University, in the department of Politics and International Relations. Her research focuses on young people’s participation in environmental politics in the UK. She is particularly interested in how economic inequality impacts the radical solutions young people have to the environmental crisis.

POSTPONED: PubhD #71: Wednesday, 29 April 2020

Grace Feehan (Computer Science) is a first-year student at the University of Loughborough researching artificial intelligence. Her work utilises an interdisciplinary approach (from backgrounds in Psychology and Robotics) to study game theory problems such as the notorious Prisoner’s Dilemma. Her current project is building a multi-agent system within which different and novel strategies for the Dilemma can be simulated – including using machine learning, emotion and mood modelling, and more.
Adam Edwards (English Literature) is a third year PhD student from the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on the growing popularity of the Cyberpunk genre of Science Fiction. He is particularly interested in how it responds to rapidly developing digital technologies and how Cyberpunk can be used to critique how these technologies could exploit its users.
Jamie Smith (History) is a third-year PhD student at the University of Nottingham, researching medieval diplomacy. He focuses on relations between the English, Welsh and Scots in the tenth, eleventh, and early-twelfth centuries. He is interested in historic peacemaking methods, as well as what the medieval period can tell us about international relations in the twenty-first century.

POSTPONED: PubhD #72: Wednesday, 20 May 2020

Joe Peake (History) is a 2nd year PhD student at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on the concept of waste in late medieval England, from the devastation of an army ‘laying waste’ to a city, to the ‘waste lands’ that lay in and around rural settlements. Drawing on a wide range of evidence including court records, chronicles, petitions, parliamentary rolls, and more, his thesis examines the history of some of the things and actions labelled ‘waste’ as well as tracing the shifting meanings of the word, alongside its parallel terms in the Latin and Anglo-Norman languages.
Justyna Kuska (Biotechnology) is a fourth year PhD student at the University of Nottingham. Justyna’s research is focusing on Biocatalysis – utilising natural catalysts to produce chemicals and fuels. Her project explores biosynthesis of antidiabetic molecules but she will talk about the power of enzymes, their current applications in industry and the future of creating chemistry.
Emily Smith (Medical Physics) is an NHS medical imaging physicist and part-time MSc student. Currently working across Lincolnshire’s hospitals, her research aims to optimise CT imaging and reduce radiation doses for lung scan patients. Emily is interested in the inherent variation in human perception; she is seeking to reduce the discrepancies it causes in image analysis, using computer software to objectively measure what makes a ‘good quality’ medical image.

POSTPONED: PubhD #73: Wednesday, 22 July 2020

Maxine Spry (History) is a PhD candidate at Nottingham Trent University and is researching English Reformation History. Her research focuses on the presence of angelic belief within the Protestant martyrology, Actes and Monuments. By using angels as a unit of historical enquiry Maxine hopes to demonstrate that belief in angels was utilised by Protestant reformers, to comfort the English populace into accepting a new reformed religion whilst simultaneously warning of the dangers of the “old faith”, Catholicism.
Ben White (Classics/Archaeology) is a second-year PhD student at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on architectural spaces in the ancient city of Rome and specifically the structure known as a portico (a colonnade) which was the most frequent and characteristic building of the ancient Mediterranean. He is particularly interested in reconstructing daily life in urban spaces and using these insights into social interaction to shed light on broader cultural and political themes. Fundamentally, he wants to investigate what happened in the city of Rome day-to-day and how that was shaped and controlled by the built environment.
Robin Huson (Anthrozoology) is a PhD student at the University of Exeter. Anthrozoology is the study of human-animal interactions. Robin is researching how dog trainers and dogs communicate with each other during training interactions.

POSTPONED: PubhD #74: Wednesday, 19 August 2020

Sara Wong (Life Sciences) is a third year PhD student at the University of Nottingham. She is researching the use of a hormone called oxytocin for social behaviour deficits such as schizophrenia and autism.
Andrea Konta (Biomaterials Discovery) – more info to come.
Matt Thompson (Classics) is a PhD student at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on the monuments of Sparta from the 6th-4th centuries BCE, specifically attempting to rescue the Spartans from behind the veil of received opinion and prejudice which has existed since ancient times through to the modern day (the so-called Spartan mirage). Most of these attempts centre on the monuments constructed by the Spartans during this period and what they can tell us about the creation and preservation of an image.

POSTPONED: PubhD #75: Wednesday, 16 September 2020

POSTPONED: PubhD #76: Wednesday, 21 October 2020

POSTPONED: PubhD #77: Wednesday, 18 November 2020