Training Programme

SofTMech Training Programme

The SofTMech training committee and the wider SofTMech leadership organise a series of training events for our PhD students and PDRAs.  These events are also open to members of the other EPSRC Maths-in-Healthcare centres and our SofTMech partner Universities. Events will run in a hybrid format to allow online participation. In order to put training into practice we will also organise competitions.  The Training programme will also include training events run by our partner institutions to which our PhD students and PDRAs are invited (see POLIMI Training event)

These events take one of two forms: 

Large Scale Events: include conferences and workshops, and spanning from a half day to several days. Previous/upcoming large scale events include: 

Small scale (informal) training events: Previous/upcoming small scale events include:  

 

  • Competitions: Puting your training into Practice 

Early Researcher Career day 24th Oct. 2023

An Early Career day was held on Tuesday 24th October at the Advanced Research Centre at the University of Glasgow.

Highlights of the day can be viewed on the slide show and video.

     Talks at the ECR Day

 

Figure Making Workshop

The workshop will give an overview of some tools for making scientific
figures, and the various points to think about when using figures to
communicate scientific ideas. Some concrete examples will be
demonstrated (gnuplot, matplotlib, Matlab amongst others for example).

POLIMI PhD Course: An Introduction to Nonlinear Solid Mechanic

The course, open to all the interested PhD students, will be delivered online by Anna Pandolfi in the period November 14-November 28, 2022. View programme via link.

 

 

What happened at the PhD Poster Competition on the 31st May

Tuesday 31st May 2022 saw the third event in the SofTMech Training Programme, held in conjunction with the Centre for Mathematics Applied to Life Sciences (CMALS).

The event was an in-person Poster competition open to PhD students from SofTMech and CMALS.  28 people registered for the event; 17 presented posters. 

After two years of the pandemic this event gave a valuable opportunity to at last ask questions in person, for discussion and perhaps just as importantly to meet some colleagues for the first time. Students participated in the event from the University of Glasgow Schools of Mathematics and Statistics, Biomedical Engineering, Ultrasonic Engineering and Computational Mechanics. Students came from the University of Strathclyde departments of Mathematics & Statistics and Biomedical Engineering.

Prior to the event the students arrived early to set up their posters.  The event was opened by Dr Sean McGinty, Director of CMALS.  A series of 1 min flash presentations, where each student had to give an overview of their poster by displaying a maximum of 2 PowerPoint slides, set the scene for the poster viewing. One of the students even gave directions to where his poster was; it worked as he finished 2nd !

The posters were judged by a combination of a panel of members of staff and also by the students themselves, who were each allowed one vote for their favourite poster.  The standard of posters was high across the board. Certificates and vouchers were awarded to the best three posters.

Prize Winners

1st Prize: Tahani Al Sariri

Hyperthermic temperature and interval induced by magnetic nanoparticles transport in vascularised tumours

2nd Prize: Yuzhang Ge

Gaussian Process for Predicting Left Ventricular Displacements in Diastole

3rd Prize: Alistair McQueen

Computational modelling reveals an intricate interplay between drug release rate and dose on restenosis

Thanks go to the panel of academics for judging the posters, the library for turning around the printing of the posters, catering for the excellent scones, and all the attendees.  

We hope the experience of this event will help all the students as they progress in their careers.
 
The Event in pictures can be viewed on the A-Z link on the right
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Event Details
 
Participants should prepare a portrait A1 poster about their research, to be presented alongside a 1 minute flash presentation formed from no more than 2 slides.
 
Training videos: In preparation for this event please view the two short online videos on preparing a poster; links on right 
 
 

Attending an academic conference and networking

Attending an academic conference and networking: 24.03.22

Our first informal training event discussed academic conferences, covering:

  • what actually happens at an academic conference?
  • what can I hope to get out it?
  • how do I network effectively?

The event also included a practical exercise on preparing an elevator pitch for networking with senior academics.

A recording of the event can be accessed from the link on the right hand side of the screen.

 

 

 

 

 

A view of the main building from the library during sunrise
A view of the main building from the library during sunrise

SofTMech Training Day 28.01.22

Mon, 31 Jan 2022 12:21:00 GMT

On Friday Jan 28th 2022 The SofTMech Training committee hosted a (virtual) half day training workshop on the theory and practice of the Finite Element Method. To view further details including how to access the recorded talks click here .....

Training day image
Training day image

TRAINING DAY JANUARY 8th 2021

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 10:54:00 GMT

On Friday 8th January 2021 an on-line training day organised by Professor Dirk Husmeier and Dr Peter Stewart was held. 51 people registered, a mixture of CIs, RAs and PhD students from the University of Glasgow, University of Plymouth, Terumo Aortic, POLIMI, MIT, EPFL and North Carolina State University. There were sessions on Mathematical Modelling Principals, Dark data, Parameter estimation and uncertainty quantification see more .............

The Results of the SECRET Competition are in:

RESULTS
The parameter values that generated the data are as follows:
Systemic model: [f2, f3, fs2, fs3, alpha] = [-32.9, 426000, -40.6, 643000, 0.88]
 
Pulmonary model: [kMV, alpha, lrrA, lrrV, GP_lengthScale, GP_amplitude] = [2.5e+05, 0.885, 35, 25, 0.1, 5.8]
 
Finishing in the top three, using a combined score for the Systemic and the Pulmonary Model, are
 
Iain Murray from the University of Edinburgh
William Ryan from the University of Glasgow
UQ Team from the University of Exeter
 
The order is alphabetical by surname/Team name, with 1, 2, 3 placing to be announced at the conference.
 
At the conference, we invite each of the top-ranked participants to give a presentation to describe their method. We will then present our assessment criteria, followed by an award ceremony.
 
We will finish the conference day with an open discussion about the assessment criteria and lessons learnt from the competition, both in terms of model development and running future competitions.

The day will finish with a conference dinner
 
It is important that you register for the Conference Day.  The link is 
the second link down and here.  There is also the option to register for 
the Training day the following day.  You can do just one or both days.
 
Draft Conference Day Programme A final programme for the workshop will be published soon, but will consist of the following:
Welcome
Method presentations by each of the three top-ranked participants
Presentation of our assessment criteria
Award ceremony
Open discussion about lessons learned from the competition, covering the computational inference methodology, assessment criteria, and organisation of future workshop. We would also like to discuss a draft manuscript on the competition for potential publication, on which each of the top-ranked candidates will be included as a co-author.
 
Draft Training Day Programme: this will comprise of a few of the following topics:
1.    Academia versus industry -- an open discussion 
2.    What is takes to excel in industry 
      OR
       What it takes to be a successful academic
 
3.    How to write a successful early career grant application
 
4.    Tools and tricks for distributed numerical computing and inference (TensorFlow & JAX)
              OR
       Computing platforms for solving partial differential equations (Fenics versus Abaqus)
 
5.    3-minute research presentation competition
      OR
      Academic speed dating to identify common research interests.      
      Team work and competition:  participants get together as a team, using preferences based on the preceding speed dating.  The goal is to write a short collaborative project proposal and collaboration plan. There will be a prize for the winning team.