Academics Unplugged
Academics Unplugged is an opportunity for researchers to introduce their work to staff and students from across the College. These short talks provide the opportunity for University staff and students to engage directly with cutting-edge researchers.
There are over a thousand researchers working across the King’s Buildings campus. And yet, much of the time, the rest of us are unaware of their work, how it relates to other research, or how it may meet the challenges in contemporary society.
The format of the talks
The talks take place between 1.10pm and 1.50pm, several times each semester on the King’s Buildings campus. Each takes the form of a twenty-minute presentation, followed by the opportunity for the audience to discuss the subject further with the speaker. Links to further information on the speakers’ areas of interest will be provided through this webpage, so that you can delve into the subjects in more detail.
Upcoming talks
| Date | Title and detail | Venue | Links | |
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October 2018 - details to be confirmed |
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Previous talks
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29th March 2018 |
Catching Cosmic Cataclysms: the new field of gravitational wave astronomy Dr Jonathan Gair - School of Mathematics |
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22nd March 2018 |
Seeing speech: ultrasound imaging for child speech therapy Dr Korin Richmond |
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15th Feb 2018 |
Optical Imaging: From Glass to Humans Professor Mark Bradley (Professor of High-Throughput Chemical Biology) |
Bradley Research Group |
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25th Jan 2018 |
TIBA: Why all the hype? Professor Francisca Mutapi Professor (Global Health Infection and Immunity) Deputy Director TIBA partnership |
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30th Nov 2017
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The Leidenfrost Engine: from lifetime drops to powering life on Mars Professor Khellil Sefiane Chair of Thermophysical Engineering, School of Engineering |
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9th Nov 2017
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The Great Dying: What happened 250 million years ago? Professor Rachel Wood Professor of Carbonate Geoscience, School of GeoSciences |
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| 30th March 2017 |
Asteroid and comet impacts: why microbes don't care, but you should Prof Charles Cockell |
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| 2nd March 2017 |
The Edinburgh Genome Foundry: Bringing robots to life and vice versa Hille Tekotte |
Edinburgh Genome Foundry | |
| 2nd February 2017 |
Synthetic speech: the nice (giving a voice to people who can't speak) and the not-so-nice (hacking your bank account). Prof Simon King (Informatics / PPLS) Director of the Centre for Speech Technology Research |
Centre for Speech Technology Research | |
| 26th January 2017 |
The Greening Arctic: how the changing tundra is influencing the planet Dr Isla Myers-Smith Chancellor's Fellow, School of GeoSciences |
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1st December 2016 |
Urban Gold Mining: using chemistry to recover resources Professor Jason Love Professor of Molecular Inorganic Chemistry |
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3rd November 2016 |
Liquid Crystal Lasers: from displays to anti-counterfeiting and biomedical imaging Dr Philip Hands Chancellor's Fellow, School of Engineering |
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17th March 2016 |
Major transitions in evolution: how did a dinosaur change into a bird? Dr Steve Brusatte Chancellor’s Fellow, School of GeoSciences |
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25th February 2016 |
Multiphase fluid mechanics = Math + Phy + Eng + Bio + Chem + Big Data: an interdisciplinary melting pot Dr Prashant Valluri Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering |
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28th January 2016 |
Antimicrobial resistance: how can physicists help? Dr Rosalind Allen Royal Society University Research Fellow and Reader, School of Physics & Astronomy |
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3rd December 2015 |
Modelling Chemical Reactions (is chemistry really just a branch of mathematics?) Dr Carole Morrison Reader, School of Chemistry |
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19th November 2015 |
Informatics Challenges in Biology: from big data to big models Dr Guido Sanguinetti Reader, School of Informatics |
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5th November 2015 |
The Edinburgh Genome Foundry: making synthetic chromosomes from the ground up Dr Patrick Yizhi Cai Chancellor’s Fellow, School of Biological Sciences |
Future events
Further talks will be planned in due course; details will be posted on this page when available. For further information about this event series, please contact the College Engagement Team (s.dunbar@ed.ac.uk and peter.reid@ed.ac.uk).