They grow up so fast – graduation edition

Today marked another milestone for some of the lab members and another day of immense pride and paternal type feelings for myself!

First up Dr Iorio received her PhD. Valentina is my first student to complete the emotional rollercoaster that is a PhD, and it was fantastic to be able to share this final step with her family. I’ve posted lots of things about Vale and her journey, you can check some of those out here, here and here.

Valentina also brought me a hard copy of her thesis which now sits next to mine on my bookshelf. There is something extra special about seeing the thoroughly impressive body of work in “proper” book form that really cements the magnitude of the undertaking and underscores the effort that has gone in to getting to this stage.

The red cover is also lots cooler than my boring black one!

Also graduating in the same ceremony were the MRes students from last year. This included Conro and Liam, who are now continuing in the Hamill lab doing PhDs. I really like our MRes program, if gives the students a solid taste of a variety of lab projects and sets them up well for continuing their academic journey (which is why I keep on recruiting PhD students from the courses). Liam and Conro have each written their own blog posts that tell of their MRes experiences here (Liam) and here (Conro). They are competing for most hits of their link so pick a team…

Quite depressingly, the University spelt Conro incorrectly on his certificate so, according to Liam, his degree doesn’t count as it refers to somebody

else! I think we will let you off “Conor”

Also celebrating today were the other recent PhD and MRes graduates from the previous year. Including Holly Smith who did some nice work with my team for her third project.

Holly also wins in all the best photo comps (click the link above, you’ll see what I mean)!

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And finally, I too am celebrating a milestone; I was promoted to Senior Lecturer yesterday. These steps up the ladder aren’t really down to me, they are absolutely dependent on the hard work of my team generating the outputs needed for the University to value my contribution. I have been lucky to have a group of excellent students and staff working with me that have allowed our research to move forward and days like today are a fantastic time to acknowledge that.