University of Lincoln – Student News

An aspiring architectural designer will live and work in New York City after being awarded an international scholarship to explore his own innovative research proposal.

Matthew Taylor (21), who graduates this September with a first class degree from the University of Lincoln’s BA (Hons) Architecture programme, was awarded the John Roberts Travel Scholarship to support him through a nine-month internship with I Beam Design, an award-winning New York based architecture and design firm.

The scholarship was awarded by Lincoln-based John Roberts Architects through the Lincolnshire branch of the English Speaking Union, a charitable organisation that promotes the advancement of international education to bring together and empower people of different languages and cultures. John Roberts was Chairman of the branch for 20 years.

Matthew’s successful application was based on his unique research proposal. While in New York, Matthew will explore issues surrounding safety and security in New York, and examine how the 9/11 terrorist attacks have changed architecture in the city.

Through his research, Matthew will aim to uncover the architectural changes that have occurred over the last 12 years.

Speaking ahead of his internship, Matthew said: “I feel extremely lucky to be able to benefit from the support of the John Roberts Travel Scholarship. It has enabled me to accept the placement in New York, which is a wonderful opportunity. I feel that I will learn a lot from working, living and travelling in a foreign city, and I am very much looking forward to beginning my research project. Many people know about the event, however very few know what happened afterwards architecturally.

“I would like to thank the English Speaking Union, and John personally, for their support and for presenting me with this opportunity.”

The grant, which is awarded to one individual every two years, will see Matthew receive £2,500 towards relocation costs, work equipment and travel fees. John Roberts, Founder of John Roberts Architects in Lincoln, presented Matthew with the scholarship and will visit him in New York later this year.

John said: “I was very impressed with the enthusiasm that Matthew has expressed for his ambitious venture to study in another country.  It has always been my belief that travel abroad, especially on one’s own, is one of the biggest educators covering architecture, history, current affairs, relationships and enterprise.  I offer Matthew every good wish for a successful and enjoyable year and I look forward to seeing him in New York.”

Carlos Marquez, Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Matthew’s tutor at the University of Lincoln, said: “Here at the Lincoln School of Architecture we are extremely proud of Matthew’s achievements. He is an exceptionally talented and motivated individual, who is always eager to learn more. He is one of the finest examples of the talent we have here at the University, and is certainly on his way up. I am confident that he will enjoy a very successful career and wish him the best of luck in New York.”

Matthew will begin his scholarship in September 2013, and will create a journal throughout his internship that he will present to the English Speaking Union and John Roberts Architects on his return.

The University of Lincoln will provide more research and development opportunities to support innovation in business by introducing its new Schools of Mathematics and Chemistry.

The £6.8million investment from the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) builds on the highly successful model established through the development of the Lincoln School of Engineering. It is a sign of the confidence funders have in the University of Lincoln and will respond directly to the needs of local, regional and national employers.

Links to a wide range of companies, including Lincolnshire Co-operative, Humber Chemical Focus Ltd, Castlet, Deloitte LLP, Duncan and Toplis and Siemens, have been crucial in supporting and driving this investment.

Professor Mary Stuart, Vice Chancellor of the University, said: “The University of Lincoln has an established reputation for developing industry relevant research which drives growth. The graduates from our schools of study are well prepared for the world of work. Our progress has been built on innovation in teaching and research. To sustain and secure our vision, and our future, we must evolve rapidly, responding to an increasingly challenging environment. The new Schools will create provision in these critical subject areas in the region and will reshape our whole Brayford Campus as we evolve into the university of the future.”

Yvonne Hawkins, HEFCE Associate Director, said: “Our investment will help develop a long-term solution to create more graduates in maths and chemistry in a part of the country where there is an identified shortage. This in turn will help to stimulate the economy and provide jobs for local people.”

Universities have a central role to play in their regional economy and the new Schools will support the development of the recently established Lincoln Science and Innovation Park, further growing this multi-million pound partnership with Lincolnshire Co-operative based around the new School of Pharmacy. Along with a successful bid from the Regional Growth Fund to support business growth in the Science Park this further investment secures the development of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

The University of Lincoln, through a strong science course portfolio will act as the investment magnet for high-value, industrial co-location. Working with key stakeholders this will create a new high-skills employment zone in the heart of the city, boosting the economic recovery and providing companies with the graduates and research capabilities they require.

The School of Chemistry will be housed in the newly created Joseph Banks Laboratories (formerly Becor House) within the Science and Innovation Park, adjacent to the main university campus in the heart of Lincoln. The first intake of students is planned for September 2014.

The School of Mathematics will be launched in 2014 with the first intake of students in 2015.

Professor Andrew Hunter, Pro Vice Chancellor of the College of Science, said: “Mathematics is the language that knits together the sciences, underpins business and commerce, and is essential to the development of the economy.

“Chemistry is a core scientific discipline, with modern advances in materials and processing promising to transform the world we live in. This development will build upon our track record in working closely with industry, in research, knowledge exchange and curriculum design, and provide great opportunities for future students and for companies in Lincolnshire.”

The Frequency Festival of Digital Culture will return to Lincoln in October 2013, bringing to the city an extraordinary celebration of international arts, culture and technology.

Following its successful launch in 2011, when more than 100 artists exhibited their work to a live audience of more than 32,000 people, the second Frequency festival will again provide a platform to celebrate the pioneering spirit of digital culture through exhibition, creative collision and debate.

With investment from a wide range of partners, including the University of Lincoln and Arts Council England, Frequency 2013 will take place from Friday 18th to Saturday 26th October 2013, when installations and exhibitions from local, national and international artists will transform historic venues across Lincoln.

The thought-provoking exhibition programme is being brought to the city thanks to a partnership between the University of Lincoln, Lincoln BIG, Visit Lincoln and Lincolnshire One Venues (LOV) with Threshold Studios, who will again take the lead as Festival Directors. Threshold Studios is an artist-led creative media and visual arts organisation specialising in the production of digital, moving image and public realm works.

Frequency 2013 will explore the concept of revolution and will invite audiences to consider the impact of the digital revolution, asking how art and culture help us to articulate the dimensions and effects of change.

Festival Director Uzma Johal said: “Frequency 2011 was an experiment with partners across Lincoln, and the county came together with local, national and international artists to create a fresh approach to digital art as part of the Cultural Olympiad Programme. After 18 months of hard work we are excited to announce Frequency 2013, and we are already seeing the city getting behind the festival. It will be a dynamic platform and showcase for Lincolnshire, putting us on the global map as an exciting destination for creativity and culture.”

The nine-day event will take place in a range of sites throughout Lincoln, from non-traditional and unexpected locations across the city to established arts venues including The Collection, Lincoln Drill Hall, LPAC and the University of Lincoln. There will be a range of unique opportunities for students from the University of Lincoln to take part in the festival experience as both artistic creators and consumers.

Professor Mary Stuart, Vice Chancellor of the University of Lincoln, said: “We are delighted to be collaborating with the Frequency Festival of Digital Culture again this year, and to be welcoming new and returning artists to the city of Lincoln. As a festival, it delivers an incredible showcase of local, national and international artistic talent. It provides a gateway for the public to experience revolutionary artwork that they might not otherwise have encountered, and here at the University of Lincoln, our staff and students are looking forward to being part of Frequency 2013.”

As well as integrating contemporary art into Lincoln’s landscape, the festival will also bring new opportunities for creative professionals and recent graduates, by creating a number of internship positions and inviting contributions from local artists.

For more information on Frequency 2013 visit www.frequency.org.uk.

The University of Lincoln has announced it will award a series of scholarships worth thousands of pounds to its highest achieving undergraduates starting degree courses this September.

The Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship, introduced last year to recognise outstanding academic achievement and commitment to extracurricular activities, is worth £9,000 over three years.

This year the University of Lincoln expects to welcome around 3,000 highly-qualified undergraduates, many of whom will receive their results on Thursday 15th August.

New undergraduates enrolling at the University of Lincoln this September who have achieved the highest UCAS points total in a single exam sitting this year will be in contention for the Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship. The winner will be selected from a pool of eligible candidates for having shown exceptional commitment to their subject discipline and their local community. Each shortlisted candidate will receive the University of Lincoln Scholarship, worth £1,000 in the first year. Awards will be presented at a ceremony in the autumn term.

Laura Simmons was the first recipient of the Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship in 2012/13, having achieved outstanding results to secure her place in the School of Sport and Exercise Science at Lincoln.

Now entering her second year, Laura, originally from Newark, Nottinghamshire, said: “Receiving the Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship was completely unexpected. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could achieve such an amazing award! University is where everything begins, from friendships to your future, and the scholarship has made a huge difference to my experience so far.

“It has enabled me to really make the most of my first year, and I haven’t had to panic about any sort of funding for the rest of my time at Lincoln. I also know that it will provide valuable support over the next couple of years, especially because I hope to go on to train as a teacher following my first degree.”

Professor Mary Stuart, Vice Chancellor at the University of Lincoln, said: “These scholarships are a way of acknowledging and celebrating the academic excellence our new undergraduates have achieved as they begin their studies with us at Lincoln.”

The Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship and University of Lincoln Scholarships are additional to the University of Lincoln’s bursary support package, which is worth up to £3,000 in Year 1 for eligible students.

Details on scholarships, bursaries and general fees and funding information can be found on the University of Lincoln’s website: www.lincoln.ac.uk

A student who obtained a highly sought after award from the British Psychology Society was invited to attend its national conference.

Amy Holloway, who is in her final year studying Bsc (Hons) Psychology at the University of Lincoln, was awarded a BPS Summer Research Assistantship bursary last year, for her study on the role of sleep in forgetting of emotional words. Amy is the first student from the University ever to obtain the award, which funds just 10 students nationally.

The study involves two groups, one sleeps and one stays awake. Participants are shown a list of words with each word followed by an instruction to either remember or forget it. They are then given a surprise test and asked to recall all of the words.

Some of the words were emotionally positive, some negative and some neutral.  Amy’s study aimed to discover whether or not it was easier to forget neutral words than emotional words and whether this changed depending on whether or not the participant slept between learning and the test.

Amy said: “I found that the words participants had been told to remember were recalled much better than words participants had been asked to forget, and emotional words were recalled better than neutral words. The sleep group successfully forgot more to-be-forgotten neutral words than the wake group, but this was not the case for emotional words.  I also found that the sleep group showed more than twice the false recall of the wake group – false recall is where a word that was not part of the actual list is remembered. This false recall was positively associated with stage one light sleep, but negatively associated with REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, suggesting that stage one may help to trigger associations with things we have learned, while REM subsequently helps to remove false memories.”

Sleep psychology tends to focus on whether memories can be enhanced and strengthened over sleep. This was the first piece of research examining whether emotional memories could be forgotten. Research like this is important as it suggests that memories can be ‘selectively’ forgotten over sleep, which could prove useful in the future for therapies for memory disorders.

Amy’s supervisor Dr Simon Durrant said: “Amy is one of the most talented students we have had in recent years, and she was an obvious candidate for the British Psychological Society’s Summer Research Assistantship scheme. Her study made discoveries about how sleep can help us to forget everyday things, but that emotional memories are more resilient.  By monitoring participants’ sleep during the study, Amy also discovered that false memories seem to be created early on during the night, and removed again during later dream-intense sleep.  These findings can help us to refine our model of exactly how sleep interacts with memory. The University of Lincoln is rightly proud of Amy’s achievement, which highlights the importance and benefit of the Student as Producer.”

Amy now hopes to continue studying and complete a PhD at the University of Lincoln.

Talented Lincoln graduates are celebrating after being shortlisted for the prestigious Duke of Gloucester’s Young Achievers Scheme, which recognises exceptional young professionals within the construction industry.

Angelitia Clarke who studied at the University of Lincoln’s School of Architecture and Dr Feifei Sun who is a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Associate, were selected as two of just seven finalists nationwide within the scheme’s architecture category.

Now in its second year, the Duke of Gloucester’s Young Achievers Scheme provides an opportunity for outstanding young architects, surveyors, engineers and project managers to be commended and celebrated for their achievements. It particularly celebrates young people who have not only achieved excellence in their careers so far, but may also have overcome challenges to get there, or have gone the extra mile to promote construction as a career.

At the awards ceremony, which was held last month (March 2013) at the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) in London, Angelitia was named as highly commended within the category.

Angelitia, who previously worked with Curl la Tourelle Architects in London and is a mother of two, was recognised after she secured funding to travel and work voluntarily in Nicaragua, Central America. She designed and helped to build an eco-lodge in the country using reclaimed materials, which now serves as a space to train local coffee farmers and worldwide volunteers.

Angelitia said: “I’m delighted to have been highly commended in Architecture by the Duke of Gloucester’s Young Achievers Scheme. I have had to overcome many barriers and obstacles throughout my training, but I feel proud to have stuck to my vision of designing and building valuable community projects.

“The built environment really can draw people together and I have enjoyed being able to make that happen. It is an honour to be recognised for something that I am so passionate about.”

Dr Feifei Sun is an award-winning KTP Research Associate, who was recognised by the judges for her work to develop new methodology that calculates the impacts of operational energy use and associated carbon emissions.

Following the completion of her PhD in Sustainable Environmental Design, Feifei took up her post as KTP Research Associate working on a collaborative research project between University of Lincoln and NPS Humber Limited, and the innovative toolkit she developed received the Innovation Award at Ecobuild 2013. The Carbon4CAST toolkit is an innovative predictive modelling tool, designed to help organisations with large property portfolios reduce their carbon emissions.

Feifei commented: “It was fantastic to be shortlisted for the award, and a great way to round off an amazing year following the Carbon4CAST win, as I have also been appointed as Pinpoint Champion by the UK Green Building Council.

“It has been a very exciting few years for me – I have enjoyed working on government initiatives throughout the EU and China, and I am delighted to have been recognised by the judges for my work.”

Dr Behzad Sodagar, Reader in Architecture and Director of the Centre for Architectural Research at the University of Lincoln, added: “Here at the School of Architecture we are extremely proud of both Angelitia and Feifei, and are delighted that their hard work and commitment has been recognised by the Duke of Gloucester’s Young Achievers Scheme.

“They are extremely promising young talents, and this recognition is absolutely deserved. It is also a fantastic accolade for the School and the University that two out of the seven finalists were from Lincoln, and we wish Angelitia and Feifei the best of luck for the future.”

The Duke of Gloucester’s Young Achievers Scheme promotes the construction industry to young people of all social backgrounds and, as a result, intends to increase the number and diversity of entrants into the sector.

The University of Lincoln’s business incubation centre, Sparkhouse, is celebrating 10 years of supporting business start-ups in the region with a free event aimed at local companies and entrepreneurs.

Since it opened in 2003 on the University’s main Brayford Pool campus, Sparkhouse has helped more than 230 start-up businesses find their feet, creating more than 370 high skilled new jobs. Tenants based at the centre have contributed more than £2m into the local economy.

As part of its anniversary celebrations, the centre will be holding an open day on Tuesday 30th April 2013 for businesses in the region to learn more about the centre and the services it can offer. The event is open to entrepreneurs wanting to make new connections, or people thinking about starting a company to learn more about the University’s support to businesses.

Sparkhouse is the University of Lincoln’s business incubation hub, providing physical space and the support new businesses need to grow and become a success.  It provides business mentoring, workshops and informal advice and space.

New creative, innovative and technology-based businesses of all kinds can rent office space within Sparkhouse. They benefit from stepped, inclusive rental rates which cover essentials like telephones, heating, electricity and Internet. Current tenants include software developers, graphic design agencies, online and broadcast news media, marketing and branding specialists, and film-makers and photographers.

Andrew Stevenson, Director of Research & Enterprise at the University of Lincoln, said:  “The first 10 years of Sparkhouse have been a huge success story. We have provided an environment where innovative ideas can take root and grow into successful businesses which serve as a catalyst for local economic growth.
“Sparkhouse is a gateway for businesses of all sectors and sizes to access the talent and expertise we have here at the University. That could be finding the right graduate to fill a particular vacancy, or commissioning research from our world-class academics.”

Sparkhouse’s open day runs from 11.30am-7pm on Tuesday 30th April 2013. It includes sessions on marketing and search engine optimisation, as well as networking opportunities and presentations. People interested in attending should contact Lauren Baillie at the University of Lincoln on lbaillie@lincoln.ac.uk

The city of Lincoln will host a series of free exhibitions showcasing work from talented young artists as part of the Ballard Arts Festival, which takes places next month.

Inspired by the novels of author J.G. Ballard, the festival invites art-lovers to visit six distinctive demonstrations by students from the University of Lincoln.

The week-long festival will take place from Monday 6th – Sunday 12th May 2013 and will inhabit various locations around central Lincoln, including Stokes of Lincoln and the Sir Joseph Banks Conservatory, with displays spanning a vast variety of media, from performance, painting and sculpture, to digital and sound design.

Andrew Bracey, Senior Lecturer at the Lincoln School of Art and Design, explained: “The Ballard Arts Festival represents a really exciting part of the University of Lincoln’s Fine Art course, when second year students take over venues in the city to put on exhibitions of their artwork. This year each exhibition is also the title of a J.G. Ballard novel and new art has been made by each student in relation to the themes and ideas explored in his books.”

J.G. Ballard was an English 20th Century novelist and short story writer, who became renowned for the literary distinctiveness and dystopian modernity of his work. His best-known works include the semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun (1984), which was later made into a film by Steven Spielberg.

Andrew Bracey said: “Ballard was selected as the uniting theme for the exhibitions as I believe his interests mirror a lot of the work that the students were making in the studios, such as entropy, dystopia and utopia, the modern landscape and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments. This series of exhibitions and events promises great ambition by the students, with lots of exciting and surprising developments currently taking place in the studios ready for the festival launch.”

The artists will display their work in six venues throughout the city, with each location hosting a private viewing event to celebrate the artists and their work. For more information visit http://ballardartfestival.wix.com/ballardartfestival.