PRISM Speakers - April 2019 Insights

Our second event of 2019 took place on April 11th to coincide with the expected release of the results from the Physical Sciences LGBT+ Climate Survey, conducted jointly by the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Astronomical Society. The event featured talks by Dr James Claverley (National Physics Laboratory) and PhD student Agnes Bacon (University of Exeter).

Agnes talked about her research into the application of graphene - sheets of carbon only one atom wide - in ground-breaking optical electronics technologies and textile fibres.

James spoke about his experiences as a gay Physicist and how more visible LGBTQ+ inclusion at his place of work had made a difference to him. As the release of the results from the Physical Sciences LGBT+ Climate Survey were delayed in the run up to the event, James could only provide us with an overview of the survey and its aims.

No feedback survey was conduced at this event. This was our last event at City Gate Hotel who, prior to this event, had allowed us to hire their quiet, accessible, private downstairs room at no cost (under the assumption that we would bring them in custom on otherwise quiet evenings). Changes to their booking arrangements meant that we could not secure the same room for this event and we found the upstairs room we were allocated to be unsuitable for Speakers events due to the level of background noise from the adjoining kitchen.

We are grateful to the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Metamaterials at the University of Exeter for funding Dr James Claverley's visit to Exeter.