9 January 2013

Discovery Day 2013

What kangaroos can teach us about caring for premature babies, the UK's first zero-energy house and how to make water flow uphill - just some of the topics to be explored at the University of Dundee's 10th annual Discovery Day event later this week.

The University will mark the New Year by showcasing the exceptional research and teaching taking place within the institution. The day will also see the presentation of the Stephen Fry Award for Excellence in Public Engagement with Research to the academic, or academics, who have demonstrated the most innovative and effective approach in this field.

Discovery Day 2013 takes place at the Dalhousie Building on Friday, 11th January, and will see the eight most recently appointed Professors share the stage with six lecturers whose excellence was recognised in the University's annual teaching awards.

The short Discovery Day lectures challenge each presenter to captivate, inform and entertain their audience in just 15 minutes. They have a reputation for providing an entertaining and accessible glimpse into a range of challenging and often complex subjects. Their format has become a model for the sector, imitated by a number of other universities in the UK.

This year's lectures will officially be opened by Professor Pete Downes, Principal of the University, who said, "This is the perfect platform to allow our new professors and exceptional teachers to bring their work to the attention of a wide non-specialist audience. This allows us to bring the University community closer together whilst engaging with the general public.

"As well as welcoming new professors, we will be celebrating the work of some of our leading learning and teaching practitioners. It is essential that teaching is properly valued in our universities, and Discovery Day 2013 highlights new and innovative teaching methodologies and technology as well as being a fascinating window into the work and outstanding achievements of our researchers."

The Discovery Day 2013 lectures take place at the Dalhousie Building's Main Lecture Theatre from 9.30am-4.40pm on Friday, 11th January. Admission is free and all are welcome to attend. Visitors can attend as many, or as few, lectures, as they wish. Overflow theatres may be in use.

A full programme is available from www.dundee.ac.uk/discoverydays.

Free tickets for this lecture are available from www.dundee.ac.uk/tickets, or by phone on 01382 386660. Coffee will be served prior to the first session and breaks throughout the day. A wine reception will follow the conclusion of Discovery Day 2013.

Those unable to attend in person can follow the event on twitter by using the #discoveryday13 hashtag.

Notes to editors:

Discovery Day 2013 lectures are as follows:

Session 1 - 10.00 - 11.20am
Professor Stephen Decent - Mathematical Experiments
Mathematics underpins science and engineering. This presentation demonstrates experiments inspired by mathematics that have resulted in new mathematics being developed. This includes the break-up of liquid jets into droplets, crown formation resulting from an impact onto a liquid sheet, and instability in liquid coating.

Dr Jon Dowell & Adrian Husbands - Selecting Medical Students - bringing some science to the art.
Selecting medical students is important and controversial. Academic ability is not sufficient but measuring other attributes fairly is challenging. The Multiple Mini Interview format has promise and Dundee now has extensive experience to report. We are beginning to be able to bring some science to the art.

Professor Mary Renfrew - Kangaroo Care - Good for Babies too?
Simple changes in care during pregnancy, birth and the weeks after birth can make a real difference to women, babies and families. This talk will examine one such change - helping parents to hold their premature or sick baby close and skin-to-skin, known as kangaroo care - rather than keeping the baby in the incubator. Why is this not common practice in all neonatal units and for all parents and babies?

Session 2 - 11.40am - 12.50pm
Professor Annalu Waller - Whose voice is it anyway?
Communication is the essence of being human. So what happens if you can't speak? We can harness speech language technologies to give people a voice. But how do we go beyond communicating basic needs and wants? How can computers empower people to share jokes, their hopes and desires … their stories

Lynn Boyle and Christine Kingsley - The Joy of Teaching
Joy, creativity and enthusiasm for teaching will be celebrated in this presentation. The award winning lecturers will give an overview of the innovative practice which led to their teaching awards, emphasising the importance of supporting students by helping them to visualise their learning and learning goals.

Professor David Finkelstein - Tramping Typographers, Victorian Men on a Mission
This lecture draws on original archival records from Scottish print trade unions to brings to life the story of a global 'tramping system', a nineteenth-century 'knowledge exchange' and 'skills transfer' equivalent through which thousands of skilled print workers circulated across the British Isles and around the world.

Session 3 - 1.40 - 2.50pm
Professor Graeme Martin - Exposing some Myths of Management
Many senior managers and academics are well known for being dedicated followers of fashion when it comes to drawing on ideas and evidence to support decision-making, many of which, to quote one well known management academic, amount to "dangerous half truths and total nonsense". This session will explore some of these myths of management and ask why, to quote another management academic, "do smart people sometimes do dumb things"?

Neil Burford & Joseph Thurrott - The UK's First Zero-Energy House
In January, construction will start of the UK's first zero-energy, off-grid building at the University of Dundee Botanic Gardens. The project led by Neil Burford and Joseph Thurrott involves postgraduate students studying architecture, civil engineering and renewable energy. By bringing together research and teaching this award-winning project aims to educate a future generation of energy responsible designers

Professor Gunnar Hornig - How to (un)tangle a magnetic field
Magnetic fields in astrophysical plasmas often exhibit astonishing structures. For instance the magnetic field of the Sun has areas where the magnetic flux is interlinked or braided. We will explain how this comes about and why this is important for the way in which the Sun works.

Session 4 - 3.10 - 4.30pm
Professor Andrea Ross - Making tomorrow matter - turning the rhetoric of sustainability into reality
Sustainable development is now widely accepted as a political objective in the UK and elsewhere but there has been only limited progress in moving it from political rhetoric to reality. Professor Ross explores how law and legal tools can be used to accelerate progress towards sustainability and make tomorrow matter today.

Professor Geoffrey Gooch - Water never flows uphill - or does it?
Two thirds of the earth's surface is water, of that only 0.75% is available to us as freshwater. The challenge, however, is not lack of water but our inability to manage it efficiently and equitably. This presentation will describe water governance and show how to improve communication and cooperation around water.

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