SIXTH ANNUAL RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM HELD

The Graduate School recently held its sixth annual Research Symposium at Keele Hall, bringing together doctoral researchers and research staff from across the University and providing an opportunity to showcase the innovative research taking place at the University.

This event saw more than 40 research presentations, 39 entrants for the research poster competition and approximately 260 attendees.  Dr Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the Historic Royal Palaces, was invited as guest speaker, alongside the keynote speaker, former Keele PhD student Dr Vicky Weise. Both speakers proved to be captivating and inspirational, and the introduction of this feature proved to be an integral part of this year's event.

The Symposium saw a high standard of entries for the poster competition, with first prize going to Amy Judd (EPSAM) who presented her poster on nanomaterials for the advancement of infection control. The four runners up were Helen Doherty (EPSAM), John Butcher (EPSAM), Tim Ferriday (EPSAM) and Hannah Moore (ISTM), who will go on to represent the University at the Vitae regional final at Nottingham Trent University in July.

PIONEER ALUMNI RETURN TO KEELE

Seventy alumni from the early 1960s and their partners and guests visited Keele last weekend for the 2010 Pioneers Reunion. Among them were visitors from as far afield as Nigeria, Canada and Australia.

They enjoyed a range of activities including a visit to the refurbished Earth and Space Observatory. Keele's green campus received attention with talks and tours about environmental improvements, the regeneration of the lakes, extensions to the arboretum, the new woodland walks and plans for the further refurbishment of the boathouse, the watercourses and surrounding woodlands.

The Vice-Chancellor gave a warm welcome and an engaging speech, Kari Rittoo, President-elect of the Students' Union, raised a toast from the alumni of tomorrow to the alumni of today and Sheilah Da Silva (pictured above right) spoke for the Pioneers and responded with a toast to the University.

KEELE CHEFS AT STAFFORDSHIRE MASTERCHEF AND CHEF OF TOMORROW COMPETITION

Keele Hall chefs took on challengers from across the county at the Staffordshire Masterchef & Staffordshire Chef of Tomorrow 2010 awards this week.

At the awards dinner held at the Moat House in Acton Trussell, James Tudor was awarded first prize for Best Hygiene Practise throughout the competition. He has won this award on two previous occasions while competing in the Staffordshire Chef of Tomorrow Competition.

Last year's Staffordshire Masterchef winner, Keele Hall head chef Allan Jones (pictured above left), was this year awarded second place, with a challenging three-course menu including seabass, duck breast and chocolate fondant.

Luke Staton (pictured above right) took part for the second time in the Staffordshire Chef of Tomorrow having won the title last year and was awarded third place.

AWARD-WINNING POET READS AT KEELE

Whitbread Award winning poet Michael Symmons Roberts read a selection of his verse to an attentive audience in the Charles Strasser Theatre this week.

The Cheshire-based poet read from his award-winning collection Corpus which deals with issues concerning the human body and the human genome project as well as pieces from earlier collections, such as Burning Babylon based on his experiences growing up near the cruise missile base at Greenham Common.

During the second half of his set he read from his latest collection The Half Healed and from as yet unpublished work inspired by the Psalms. His reading demonstrated to an appreciative audience the extraordinary range of his imagination - one pair of poems juxtaposes a man in a fox suit with a fox disguised as a human being - and the richness of his prize-winning verse.

PHD WINS PRIZE FROM SPANISH FOUNDATION

Dr Maria del Carmen Boado-Penas, lecturer in Economics at Keele Management School, has been awarded a prize for her PhD "Instruments for improving the equity, transparency and sustainability of pay-as-you-go pension systems".

The prize was awarded by the Foundation of Spanish Savings Banks (FUNCAS) and consists of the publication of Dr Boado-Penas's PhD plus 3000 euros.

Dr Boado-Penas joined Keele Management School in September 2009 to help launch the School's new Single Honours Actuarial Science degree programme.

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS' ANNUAL MEETING

Dr Peter Adey and Dr Paul Simpson (Physical and Geographical Sciences/RI Law, Politics and Justice) recently gave papers at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in Washington D.C.

Paul Simpson presented the paper: 'The spatiality of performance: materiality, affect, and the embodied experience of street performing' in a session on Embodied Methodologies, while Peter Adey presented a co-authored piece titled 'Event and Anticipation: Emergency Preparedness and the Space-Times of Decision'.

During the conference Peter's new book: Aerial Life: mobilities, spaces, affects, published by Wiley-Blackwell, was also launched.

Before flying home, Peter was then invited to speak at the opening of the Mobilities and Policy Research Centre at Drexel University, Philadelphia. As one of three plenary speakers invited to the inauguration of the centre opened by Prof. John Urry, Peter gave the paper 'Mobility, Security, Life' to an audience of academics, policy makers and the public.

PROJECT GREEN GRADUATE ENJOYS BRIGHT FUTURE

Keele graduate James Beardmore, who took part in the University's Project Green initiative, has secured a permanent contract with his placement company as a technical officer.
James, who completed his chemistry PhD at Keele in 2009, carried out a seven-week placement with the British Ceramic Confederation (BCC) through Project Green, which offers unemployed graduates the chance to gain new skills in environmental management and get paid at the same time. 

The BCC were so impressed with James's work that they extended his placement for a further eight weeks, made possible with a 50 per cent subsidy from Project Green. He has now been offered a permanent contract.

Dr Laura Cohen, chief executive of the BCC, said: "We have been encouraging our members to use Project Green interns as this is a way of offering practical help to businesses on environmental issues during a critical time for the economy."

Dr Zoe Robinson (School of Physical and Geographical Sciences) and Dr Sherilyn MacGregor (SPIRE) have been awarded £4,950 from the Higher Education Academy Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) theme for a project entitled 'Making the transition to interdisciplinarity: Effective strategies for early student support'.  This project will investigate effective strategies for supporting students making the transition into highly interdisciplinary degree programmes, particularly in the area of sustainability education, through a study of the experiences of students as they progress through undergraduate sustainability courses at other institutions and through the new BSc Environment and Sustainability programme at Keele.

(RE)READING JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

The British Association for Victorian Studies has awarded David Amigoni and Amber Regis (Research Institute for Humanities) a grant of £150 for their forthcoming conference, (Re)Reading John Addington Symonds. This event will reconsider Symonds's significance as a nineteenth-century cultural critic, bringing together academics and postgraduate researchers from a broad range of disciplines.

PROJECT EXAMINES LINK BETWEEN HISTORY AND CREATIVE WRITING

Alannah Tomkins, senior lecturer in History, has been awarded £2,634 by the History Subject Centre for her project 'Creative writing options within level-III History assessment'.  Working with Keele's James Sheard and Joe Stretch, published authors who teach creative writing within the English programme, she will develop innovative assessments in History.  Students taking her level-III modules from 2011 will be able to write short stories or other pieces relating to the history of medicine.  Alannah said: "History has had a vexed relationship with fiction since the rise of the postmodern 'challenge' and the recognition that history writing contains fictive elements.  This project will demonstrate the ways in which scholarly history may be amplified by contact with fiction, rather than diminished."

FROM THE ARCHIVES

14 May 1986

The first history of the village and estate of Keele is published by the University. 'The History of Keele' is edited by Christopher Harrison and contributors are Robin Studd, Angus McInnes, Keith Goodway, Francis Doherty and Stanley Beaver.