Rhianna Rowland 
Victoria Hill is a 2nd year PhD student at the University of Sheffield in Tim Craggs lab – she is also one of your fantastic student reps! We had a Q&A with Victoria to get to know her a little better. See below for Victoria’s interview covering a range of topics from her hobbies to her PhD research and her experience of starting a PhD in the middle of a global pandemic, which many of you will be able to relate to!!
Read moreGet to know… your WRDTP student reps – Victoria Hill
Lewis Hancock is a PhD student at the University of Sheffield who undertook a 3-month PIPS within the Simcyp division of Certara. Certara develops biosimulation and technology-enabled services to transform drug discovery and development, working across all therapeutic areas, including immuno-oncology, rare disease, CNS, respiratory disease, gene therapy, and global health, providing translational solutions from discovery to patient access. To find out more about Lewis’ PIPS experience check out our latest PIPS case study.
Remote conferences and seminars bypass the logistical, financial and environmental burdens of travelling. They can also encourage a greater diversity of participants, readily bringing together expertise and perspective from various career stages and backgrounds. However, virtual meetings are not without their drawbacks, especially when it comes to accessibility. Indeed, many of these problems have been highlighted as people turn away from the face-to-face format in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps with the current momentum of online platforms, now is the ideal time to address these issues and improve the accessibility of our online meetings for now and in the future. Here, we highlight some accessibility barriers that are often overlooked in online meetings and offer advice to organisers and presenters on how to mitigate these.
Read moreVirtual conferences: how to make your research more accessible.
Hi, my name is Rhianna and I’m a 4th year PhD student at the University of York. I work at YSBL focussing on human lysosomal enzymes which breakdown various glycoconjugates within our bodies. Inherited deficiencies in these enzymes leads to range of metabolic diseases called lysosomal storage disorders. My project aims to structurally characterise these enzymes and aid in the development of chemical probes, inhibitors and chaperones for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Coming from a Masters year in analytical chemistry, this project has been a real challenge. Working with membrane-associated proteins, delving into insect-baculoviral expression systems and the dark art of protein crystallography has all been new to me, but I chose this project because I felt it would allow me to explore protein chemistry/structural biology with real-life applications in human health and disease.
Why did you join the DTP Communications team?
I enjoy scientific writing and saw this as a great opportunity to improve my writing skills whilst further engaging with the White Rose DTP and its students. I hope to learn more about the exceptional research conducted by White Rose students and to share/showcase this with other students in the DTP through blogs and the use of social media. I also see this is a chance to share non-scientific content which I hope students (including myself!) will find helpful in coping with PhD life and maintaining a healthy wellbeing.
Read moreGet to know … your WRDTP Comms Team: Rhianna Rowland