What a week!

Announcing the early career researcher flash talk competition winners and more!

Thanks to everyone who participated in our annual flash talk competition on Wednesday, which saw 12 researchers from across UCD whittle down their years of research to a two-minute presentation. There were three prizes on offer - the judges’ prize, the audience choice winner and an award for most creative performance. 

And the winners were:

Judges’ prize: Nakisa Soltani (School of Biosystems and Food Engineering): Cycling Commuting: part commute, part adrenaline sport?

Audience choice: Sneha Unnikrishnan (School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science and Biorbic): From bark to barn: Fermenting wood waste into animal nutrition

Most creative performance: Ciara Lynch (School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science and Biorbic): Bioplastics from cheese waste?! Microscopic recycling factories at work

Congratulations to our winners and a huge thank you to host Shane McGuinness (School of Geography) and judges Pat Brodie (School of Information and Communication Studies), Aisling Moffat and Aisling Reilly (both School of Agriculture and Food Science).

Decarbonising buildings event

In other news, the week started out with a visit to the Museum of Literature for a lunchtime event on the policy, regulatory, and sustainability implications of decarbonising construction at scale. The presentations and panel discussion focused on areas including the whole life carbon analysis of Ireland’s residential sector; the role of modern methods of construction such as timber, 3D printing and low-carbon cement in reducing emissions, and the economic and policy trends that influence supply and demand. 

Sustainable communities theme meeting and tree walk

Elsewhere, there was a great turn-out for two other events held on Wednesday - the first of which was a sustainable communities theme meeting hosted by Christine Bonnin (School of Geography) and Karen Keaveney (School of Agriculture and Food Science). The pre-lunch networking event enabled researchers with an interest in this area to find out more about related work going on across UCD.

This was followed by a lunchtime tree walk, led by Brian Tobin (School of Agriculture and Food Science) and Sophia Meeres (Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy). With a focus on the architectural nature of trees, attendees learned more about a survey currently being carried out on the campus’s trees, the stresses trees experience in urban areas (and how they can potentially thrive in towns and cities if planted in the right place), and how long-term planning is vital for the country’s woodlands.

Geogames for social and environmental change

Finally, for this week’s coffee morning, we were joined yesterday by Ítalo Sousa De Sena from the School of Architecture, Planning And Environmental Policy. Ítalo presented his work on geogames, a subset of serious games, which leverage spatial mechanics and simulations to foster communication and comprehension of complex natural, urban, and social systems.