Forthcoming sessions will be held on 11 September; 9 October; 13 November. More details on these to follow.
12 June
Dr Laura Abbott - Senior Lecturer in Midwifery School of Health and Social Work, University of Hertfordshire "The experiences of pregnant women in English prisons" Approximately 600 women a year are thought to be pregnant in prison in the UK although accurate figures are not kept. Until now, there has been very little research which looks specifically at women’s experiences of pregnancy in prison. I spent time observing three English prisons and interviewed women and staff. I found that women experienced frustration which impacted upon their emotional wellbeing. Being unable to access basic comfort and adequate nutrition was commonly expressed by women. A threat of violence was often perceived and women were frightened about the potential harm to their unborn. The fear of separation from their baby was an underlying stress and 50% of women separated soon after birth. The woman’s experience of being pregnant in prison suggests a deep-rooted psychological pain which appears to punctuate all aspects of her incarceration.
8 May
Dr Alex Bateman, Head of Protein Sequence Resources at the European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge - “The Origami of Proteins and DNA” How proteins fold is one of the greatest challenges in biology. We’ll explore how computing science is coming very close to cracking the problem. We’ll also have some origami challenges on hand for you to impress your friends with! Alex studied in Cambridge for his PhD in the structural studies department at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology before moving to the Sanger Centre where he started to develop data resources for molecular biology, as well as take part on the analysis of the draft human genome sequence. He is a scientific stamp collector who loves to create collections of molecules. He’s particularly interested in proteins, their sequences, structures and functions and how they have evolved. These collections of information such as Pfam, Rfam and UniProt are available freely to all on the Internet and are used by hundreds of thousands of scientists. Alex also has a love of origami and has invented many designs including for DNA and proteins.
10 April
Dr Maria Dimitriadi, Senior Lecturer in Molecular Genetics - “What can a roundworm tell us about a human disease?”
13 March
Jeff Lewis - "The structure of subjective experience: An initial exploration": What kind of world fo you live in? Come along and explore some ideas based on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and find out how we make sense of our world. Make sure you bring a pen/pencil. You will have an exercise or two to do!
13 February
Theo Spencer - "A winning formula": Battling the laws of physics in the competitive world of motor sport, UH has one of the oldest Formula Student teams across the UK. Hear the challenges from all disciplines; from engineers to drivers. https://racing.herts.ac.uk/about/
9 January
Ray Wilkinson - "Using the third dimension: Taking photographs from the air." Flying in small aircraft gives the opportunity to see the towns, villages and countryside around us. Using paragliders and light aircraft, Ray photographs the south east of England and combines both his passions in so d
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