16 Aug 2017

Former film set designer to showcase work at Masters Show

A woman who once designed stunt sets for Sylvester Stallone will showcase her CGI film at this year’s University of Dundee Masters Show. Andrea McSwan had a successful career in TV and film but had always found animation fascinating. She hoped her career in Art Direction would help her on the MSc Animation & VFX at Dundee. Andrea graduated from the Wimbledon School of Art in London with a degree in Theatre Design in 1990. This led to a BAFTA Postgraduate scholarship to train in set design at the National Film and Television School. It was during this time that she found herself signed up to wor...

14 Aug 2017

Cancer survivor channels experience into animation

A University of Dundee student who battled cancer has used his experiences during treatment to come up with a novel way to help cancer specialist nurses. Medical Art student Ryan Berardi, from New Jersey has created a 3D animation for nurses to use if chemotherapy is unintentionally wrongly administered. This project is part of Ryan’s exhibit at this year’s Masters Show, which takes place at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design from Friday, 18th August. Ryan’s animation focuses on a patient’s anatomy, but also involves surgical tools and equipment. It could be us...

11 Aug 2017

Book Prize winner returns to Dundee

US author Jessica Thummel, winner of last year’s Dundee International Book Prize, will return to the city next week to celebrate the launch of her debut novel. Jessica’s winning entry, The Cure For Lonely, earned her £5000, a publishing deal with Freight Books and a week’s protected writing time in Scotland as part of the prize. As well as writing and exploring Dundee during her time in Scotland, Jessica will appear at Edinburgh International Book Festival to promote her book, which was published last month to critical acclaim. The Cure For Lonely is the coming-of-age story of Sam...

11 Aug 2017

Double dose of Dee Con for Dundee

Thousands of costumed characters will provide a colourful welcome to this year’s new University of Dundee students when Dee Con, the city’s largest ‘geek-off’ returns next month. Superheroes, video game stars and anime characters will bring a splash of colour to the city next month when Dee Con will be held as part of the new THIS Festival in the West Ward Works, a former comic printing factory, on Saturday, 9th September. The new intake of almost 3,000 students from around the world will be arriving in Dundee in the week leading up to the event. Dee Con has traditionally been hel...

10 Aug 2017

Solar flares dazzle at Mills Observatory

Solar experts from the University of Dundee joined citizen scientists to observe the mysteries of our Sun at Mills Observatory this week. Members of the public were invited to experience a solar storm in virtual reality and view spectacular images of the Sun captured by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of the Wednesday Wonders series held by the University in collaboration with Leisure and Culture Dundee. Experts such as Dr Alexander Russell, a lecturer in Applied Mathematics at the University, were on hand to answer any questions the budding astronomers had about the 4.5-billion-year-old star. He sai...