Enrichment Student blog

23/24 Turing Enrichment scheme Student Emily Alger provides us with a three-part series of blogs documenting her nine-month experience on the Enrichment scheme.

Introduction

A three part series of blogs by former Enrichment Student: Emily Alger
 

Volume 1: Autumn Term 2023/24 

Enrichment Student Emily Alger gives us her first impressions of what the Turing is all about. 

Hi everyone! My name is Emily, in October 2023 I started as an Enrichment Student at the Turing, and I am a second year PhD student at the Institute of Cancer Research. This year I’ll be documenting my time at the Turing in three blog posts. I have always found writing an amazing way to catalogue my thoughts, and I hope it can provide you with an overview of the scheme. I’m looking forward to seeing how my experience evolves over the course of nine months. 

 

I am currently a second year PhD student in the Early Phase and Adaptive trials unit at the Institute of Cancer Research. I wanted to learn about machine learning and AI techniques which I could help bring to practice within a clinical trial unit to support patients. The Turing is the perfect place to do that – to meet the right people, attend the right events and work collaboratively across disciplines. The scheme is exceptionally diverse, with an Enrichment Student working in every area of data science I could imagine. This makes it hard for me to talk about the scheme in absolutes - every project and student is so different. So instead, I want to share what my first impressions of what the Turing is all about – whilst documenting my experiences up until now. 

 

It’s about meeting people! 

Even before my first official day at the Turing, I was emailed the name of my Turing Enrichment Scheme Contact (TESC). When I arrived at the Turing, it felt like there were hundreds of people I could meet. After talking about my project in the application, it was finally time to get started. My TESC guided me on the path to meet the right people. Over the course of the first month, I met with members of the Tools, Practices and Systems group, the Research Engineering Group, and members of the Turing’s Health and Medical Sciences programme. Whilst not every meeting led to a new research project, each meeting helped me to build new connections with the Turing community. 

 

It’s about attending events!

Before I joined the Turing as an Enrichment Student, I was a part of multiple working groups at the Institute. However, nothing compares to getting involved in person. Just this last month I have attended meetings with the Trustworthy Synthetic Data in Practice (TSDiP) Working Group, a Clinical AI workshop and the foundation models reading group. I also took on the role of Community Champion for my Enrichment Scheme cohort which means I’ll be organising events and socials to promote a community and social calendar for my fellow students. 

 

It’s about good research 

A week into the PhD I attended a discussion on the Turing Way, the handbook to reproducible, ethical and collaborative data science. I soon learnt that the Turing isn’t just here to generate the research, but to support others to make their work as good as it can be. I knew the Turing was cross-disciplinary when I arrived, but true scale of the network the Turing has built is vast. 

The first quote I think of when I think of Alan Turing is “we can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty which needs to be done”. I used to imagine this was motivation for new research, but now I think there’s a lot more to it. The Enrichment scheme doesn’t only support students to produce good research, it also supports students to become good researchers. There are courses available to learn skills like GitHub and how to communicate your findings to stakeholders. Producing research is not enough, disseminating research is how it makes an impact. 

This term has been about understanding research at the Turing – how research is coordinated, realised, and then disseminated. As I look forward to next term, I’m excited to start putting this plan into action. 

 

 

Volume 2: Winter Term 2023/24 

Building connections at the Turing: Emily Alger on her second term as an Enrichment Student at the Institute. 

After settling into the Turing during my first term, this term’s focus has been on fostering new connections within the Turing network – both academically and socially. In this blog I share three ways I have introduced myself into the Turing – both by joining current communities and helping to develop my own!  

Community Champion 

Since November, I have been a Community Champion for Enrichment Students at the Turing. My role focuses upon promoting cohort-building among students. This includes encouraging engagement with Turing-wide activities, as well as organising cohort-wide socials for Enrichment Students to enjoy. As an undergraduate student, I really enjoyed my time as Social Secretary and President of my University Wind Orchestra. I found that getting involved was the perfect way to strengthen my own engagement with fellow students, and to encourage others to do so too. I wanted to help promote a similar environment among students at the Turing.  I was also very keen to see the Turing from an organisational perspective. 

Alongside Student Representatives, I attend meetings with Academic Services and the Skills team to discuss fellow Enrichment Students’ experiences on the scheme and to provide suggestions to ensure the continued growth of the scheme over the coming years. 

 As part of the role, I also help to organise socials for Enrichment Students with my fellow Community Champion Amin. This has included bowling socials and a student quiz night held in the office during February. Other socials which have taken place this term include a visit to Horizon 22 viewing platform, a tour of the Royal Observatory Greenwich, and fortnightly board games evenings in the office. 

Student Lunch and Learns  

The Student Lunch and Learn series is organised by Enrichment Students and gives us the opportunity to share our research with one another. Our cohort is so diverse, with research interests ranging from astrophysics to digital humanities. I find this diversity one of the greatest strengths of the scheme - there is always someone to learn from. Student Lunch and Learns are held fortnightly and allow us to share our research and answer related questions. It’s the perfect time for us to present our research in an accessible way and show support for each other. 

 

Bayesian statistical methods reading group 

Since October I have been running a reading group for Enrichment Students with my fellow student Luke. I work with Bayesian statistics within my PhD and was delighted to meet other enthusiasts as part of the Enrichment scheme. Luke and I were invited to discuss our experience as reading group organisers at a Research Engineering Group (REG) lunchtime talk in February. We discussed current reading groups within the Turing and focused on how to promote and structure a successful session. 

 Following the session, we opened the reading group to the wider Turing community in March. The Turing has rich connections to Bayesian research, and I am proud to continue strengthening these links during my time on the Enrichment Scheme. 

 Integrating myself in the Turing community and building new connections has been a highlight of this term. Getting to share my knowledge, experiences, and free time with fellow Enrichment Students and the wider Institute is a true gift of the scheme, and one I will continue to take full advantage of as I look ahead to next term! 

 

Volume 3: Spring Term 2023/24 

Emily looks back on her final term as an Enrichment Student, including her appearance at Pint of Science 2024. 

This blog is my third and final I will be writing as a Turing Enrichment Student. This term has flown by! But before I reflect on my time as an Enrichment Student, I want to share my final memories of this summer’s term. 

 

Pint of Science 

During May, I was invited to present my research at the Turing’s Pint of Science event, part of a world-wide festival which encourages researchers to share their scientific research with the general public. Engaging the public with Bayesian statistics was not something I had planned to do during my time at the Turing. That being said, I’ve learnt that the opportunities outside your comfort zone are often the best ones to say yes to – doing something scary is the right thing to do once in a while!

Before the event, I ran through my presentation with the Turing’s Pint of Science team and focused on making my slides as accessible as possible – no equations in sight! My presentation was 20 minutes long and focused on how we all use Bayesian statistics in our day-to-day life. I then introduced adaptive clinical trials which is the focus of my PhD (in adaptive clinical trials we allow for modifications to be made to on-going trials, increasing a trial design’s flexibility whilst safeguarding their statistical integrity). 

 Like all presentations, I was nervous (that never gets easier), but the audience were so engaged and asked so many questions. Not only did the public want to listen to my talk, but they were still curious to learn more afterwards – that was so fulfilling for me. 

 Engaging the public about the statistical methods present in their day-to-day lives is such a valuable and important part of my role as a researcher. Explaining my work to the public was also a great opportunity to test out my communication skills! 

 

Support at the Turing 

Alongside Pint of Science, the Turing has supported me at events further afield by providing me with a Training Support fund to aid my development as a researcher. I used this fund to present at a Precision Medicine workshop at the University of Bath and at the Society of Clinical Trials Annual Meeting in Boston, US too. 

 The connections I have made with researchers at the Turing are invaluable, and I am also grateful that the Turing recognises the importance of supporting the dissemination of our research at external conferences too. 

 Whilst on the scheme, I received a high spec laptop to support my computational work, and a monthly stipend to support my commute into the London office.

 

Reflections on the Turing 

For my first blog, I shared my initial thoughts about the Turing – what I thought was to come and the impressions the Institute had made on me in the first term. 

 As the national institute for data science and AI, the Turing has a commitment to the public to ensure research is undertaken for society’s benefit. The networks I have built at the Turing reflect this mission, from the experts within the Clinical AI interest group to the members of the public reached through public engagement events. If you are ready to disseminate your work widely and apply it to real-world problems, the Turing is the perfect place for you.   

 Events such as Pint of Science are a perfect demonstration of the benefits of the Enrichment scheme. The unexpected opportunity to represent the Turing at the event became one of the most fulfilling parts of my experience here. There are so many events - be ready to say “Yes!” and make the most of your time here. 

I am proud to have represented the Turing as an Enrichment Student for the past nine months. The critical thinking, communication and organisational skills I have developed during my time here are now integral to me as a researcher – I’ll always be able to thank the Enrichment scheme for that. 

 

Emily Alger