Digital Futures at the University of Manchester held their first PhD network event on 19th July 2023. The primary goal of this network is to bring PhD's together from various disciplines and faculties, encouraging the exchange of ideas and perspectives, ultimately leading to innovative and collaborative research breakthroughs. The event proved to be an exciting opportunity for PhDs to present their research, learn from others, and explore the wider opportunities that the Digital Futures platform can offer.
The event commenced with registration and a delicious lunch, allowing attendees to initiate discussions ahead of Professor Chris Taylor, the Director of Digital Futures opening the event with an inspiring introduction, emphasising the importance of interdisciplinary collaborations in tackling complex societal challenges.
Kicking off the presentations was Meichen Wang, who shared her research on "The Effect of Demand Side Management on Flexibility Service of Distribution Networks." Following this, Yifan Xu engaged the audience with her research on "Explanation through Dialogue for Reasoning Systems." Neelotpal Dutta then delivered a fantastic presentation on Geometric-Computing for Multi-axis Manufacturing. View Neelotpal's presentation here.
The diverse range of research continued with Meznah Aloqalaa then presenting research findings from "An Investigation into the Reproducibility of Research Objects,".
The presentations continued with Zhihao Jiang's intriguing work on "Wearable multi-sensor system for Occupational Health Management." Trang Dinh brought demonstrated insights on "Are enemies of your enemies your friends? On the modelling and impact of negative edges in graph convolutional networks for node classification." Lastly, Erick Guzman shared his "Explainable Text Classification Framework for Detecting Indicators of Forced Labour.
It was then time for a coffee break and networking session, where the PhDs had the opportunity to engage in discussions, exchange ideas, and form connections across disciplines. We ended with a "World Cafe Workshop Section", enabling participants to delve deeper into specific topics of interest through group discussions. This interactive session facilitated conversations, allowing researchers to explore potential synergies and discuss ways to enhance opportunities for collaboration.
Thank you again to everyone who attended and we hope to welcome you back to the next PhD network event shortly. Click the links below to sign up to our PhD network to keep up to date with all the latest events and opportunities.
For those who missed this event, there will be further upcoming opportunities and events within the PhD network. Those who are interested in participating in future events or presenting their research are encouraged to reach out to lucy.forth@manchester.ac.uk to be a part of this exciting interdisciplinary journey.