Professor Ian Paterson: "Delighted"
The Student Welcome and Reboot in October played an important function in supporting postgraduate students during these Covid-restricted times.
After discussing the positive changes made in response to the annual student survey, Vivien Lechner and David Izuogu, who represent students on the Postgraduate Education Committee, took students through a flow chart of how to raise issues, and described support services such as the Student Advice Service, Disability Resource Centre and University Counselling Service.
Postgrads Vivien Lechner and David Izuogu, who hosted the Student Welcome and Reboot
Fabio Albertani of the Graduate Social and Networking Committee then spoke of the Committee’s plans to hold virtual events, and put a call out for ideas from current students.
The RIG chairs then presented the awards for September’s Showcase Week, at which third-year postgrads gave two-minute online presentations of their research, followed by two minutes of questions. “Although shorter than they’ve had in the past, this was great practice for networking scenarios,” said Graduate Education Manager Dr Aruna Reddy, “and also a good opportunity to hone their oral presentation skills.” A full list of the awards for the presentations and posters (submitted by second-year postgrads) can be seen on the Postgraduate web pages.
Head of Department Dr James Keeler then presented Professor Ian Paterson with the Outstanding Supervisor award, an idea proposed by postgrads and run for the first time this year.
For the award, postgrads had been asked to nominate supervisors they judged to be outstanding, not only academically, but also in other ways. “We’ve had lots of nominations, more than we expected, and we hope it can be a recurring feature of the Department,” said Aruna.
“The award recognises and encourages our amazing supervisors, but we also will circulate the reasons for the nominations, to help supervisors see what students’ value, and to improve the supervision and learning experience,” said David Izuogu.
The nominations were judged by James Keeler, Nick Bampos and the Postgraduate Education Committee. James said: “Professor Ian Paterson was nominated very strongly for this award, and when we think of so many who have been through his lab, who have been so well supported and have demonstrated their appreciation, we believe he’s an extremely worthy winner of this first award.”
“This is a wonderful surprise to be honoured in this way for enjoying supervising my graduate students and sharing the journey of discovery with them -- although I generally expect them to be firmly in the driving seat,” said Professor Paterson. “On my retirement next year, I will have had the pleasure of supervising 94 PhD students over the course of my career at Cambridge. As a bookend to this, I am very much looking forward to a memorable 67/94 symposium and group reunion when socialising in person becomes possible again.”