Old Members’ Trust Graduate Conference and Academic Travel Fund report – Douglas Brown (2023, Bioscience)

This spring, I was fortunate to be accepted to the QLife Spring School on Cell Dynamics in Developmental Systems at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. This was a week-long workshop with lectures, digital workshops and poster sessions with other graduate students from a range of backgrounds, but all studying the same area of biophysics. The topic of the school is closely aligned with my research, and this was a fantastic occasion to learn from some of the world experts in this area.

The topics of the lectures and workshops ranged from the biochemical mechanisms driving the processes I model mathematically, to the techniques used to gather data from developing organisms, as well as state-of-the-art software I will likely use later on in my PhD. As a physicist, this was an excellent opportunity to learn more about the wider biological context of my work, as well as different frameworks for modelling tissue mechanics, which is the focus of my research.

The spring school was also an excellent networking opportunity, and the poster sessions were a fantastic chance to learn from and exchange ideas with others doing research in the same area. It was great to discuss my work with researchers with both biological and mathematical backgrounds, and in some cases think about possible areas for collaboration. The poster sessions both overran as we were too absorbed in discussing science, which is quite a nice feeling!

Finally, it was, of course, very enjoyable spending a sunny weekend Paris after the workshop, catching up with a friend who lives there, and paying frequent visits to boulangeries throughout the week.

I’m hugely grateful to the Trustees of the Old Members’ Graduate Conference and Academic Travel Fund for helping to make this possible.

Published: 16 May 2025

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