Now you know what I did last summer....

Yes yes, I know, I haven't been in touch, I promised i'd write and I didn't, I didn't even call, thats partly down to my phone, it randomly turns off, usually when i'm trying to take a picture or send a message. But i'm back now, and are you in for an exciting tale...

I spent the summer looking after the Chilean Olympic Committee, dressed in a silly purple uniform at the London 2012 olympics, I was doing all sorts; watching tennis, running triathlon routes with athletes, drinking posh champagne at embassies and sewing.

Living the Dream

Anyone need a light?

Anyway, sumer has come and past, its back to work. Im starting my PhD tomorrow, i've got a library induction and registration, after which I get paid! Pretty nervous, haven't been a fresher in ages, but i'm sure ill make a few chums and join a few clubs.

I will be researching the use of solid state gas sensors over the next 4 years. For those of you that aren't hard core nanotechnology geeks, gas sensors are small devices that monitor the presence and concentration of various gases in the atmosphere. They are semiconductors that have a fixed current running through them. When the suspected gas react with the surface of the sensor and causes a change in the current. This change in the current indicates the concentration of the gas in the atmosphere.

This is a relatively young field of research, sensors have been developed to detect a number of gases for a number of reasons. Research at UCL is currently looking at using gas sensors for medical diagnosis and security detection. It is hoped that in about 10 years, as part of a routine doctors check up, a doctor will use a gas sensor to give you early warning signs for variety of blood conditions and some cancers, but thats a few years off yet.

As its a DTC, I also have to do some modules, so far i've signed up for global security challenges, Risk and contingency planning, qualitative methods and doing research in security science, I get to choose one from the department of chemistry, but ill choose that next week.

I went to Germany a few weeks ago on an induction course where I got to meet the 10 (7 girls, 3 boys) other people that got EPSRC funding to go onto the SECReT programme, they are all lovely people who I am sure I will get along with. The conference we attended was the 7th Future Security conference in Bonn. It was arranged by the Fraunhofer Group, a german research group involved in security and defence technology. During the conference there was only one talk relevant to gas sensing, but it was a good experience. The boys of the group hit the town on the last night and met a very jolly ld man who told u he was a world respected artist and that if we wanted he would draw a picture of us. Ususally e charges €500, but as we were students, it would only cost us €2 each. Naturally we paid him his money (we rounded it up to €10) and watched intently as he put his artistic skills into action. 10 minutes later he gave us the drawing you see below

Definitely worth €500....

It goes without saying it will be hung with great pride in the office.

Thats all for now, fairly boring update, but once things start happening, ill have a bit more to tell you, including, hopefully, what SECReT actually stands for (none of my course mates, or the lecturer that went with us to Bonn, knew what it meant)

Laters

So it begins...

My name is Dave, as I write this I am 22 years of age, a good whistler, a bad loser and a tasteless joke enthusiast. I enjoy many sports, I love cake far to much for someone who is diabetic and occasionally dabble in reading.

I have just completed my first degree, an arduous and mainly thankless task that turned me into a master of chemistry, I posses in my hand (metaphorically) an MChem in chemistry with forensic investigation, which basically makes me Mac Taylor, apart from, you know, all the cool bits.

My degree taught me that forensics isn't all ridiculously attractive people in expensive suits driving really fast cars, shooting guns, catching bad guys and having sex. Its mostly like that, but not entirely.

We're not all this attractive/serious looking

In addition to all the cool stuff, there are about 100 other guys and girls doing the boring stuff, admin, good laboratory practice, repeat testing, repeat testing, repeat testing, sitting around, waiting for instruments, waiting for samples, waiting for sample pots, fixing instruments, the list goes on, but its quite exciting and makes a real world difference, so i'm sticking with it.

We're actually more like this

There couldn't really be a worse time to try and be a forensic scientist, the UK government have just closed the Forensic Science Service, a government run institution that provided forensic services and research on a number of techniques (i.e DNA fingerprinting) to forensic science. In addition to this they ran the national DNA database (NDNAD) and the national automated fingerprint identification system (NAFIS). Unfortunately times is 'ard and so the coalition government chose to close down the service and ignore everyone who had an important view on the matter or a genuine point to add to the discussion, such is British politics. Forensic science is now carried out by independent crime labs and police labs. We will see over the coming years how this works out.

Anyhoo back to the point, got my degree, got a first, time to plan for the future. I was very lucky to be awarded a place at the UK doctoral training centre for crime and security science, based at University College London in the Jill Dando institute for crime science, I am on a program called SECReT (no idea what it stands for, and cant find information anywhere on the website). The SECReT program is an intergrated PhD program. A PhD qualification in the UK is typically 3 years much shorter than many other countries, this generally leaves PhD graduates in the UK well behind those of other countries and many experience too few conferences, publish too few papers and meet too few other academics. The Secret program on the other hand (like all DTC programs) is a 4 year course, which includes both research and taught sections on a number of subjects, from management to presentation skills, with time in a relevant industry (my project will hopefully take me to New Zealand in 2014) and lectures in the relevant field, in my case crime science. I will study with like minded people from fields ranging from physics to psychology and learn all about a variety of different things and their place in society.

I start on 10 weeks, before that i'm doing some work at the 2012 Olympics, which are coincidentally starting in 24 days on my doorstep.

Next time ill tell you a bit about my project and the department at UCL, but for now get back to work!

Dave