Three Slide Talks

Clare Hall’s Three Slide Talks return in 2023, following their inception by Dr Keri Wong and Dr Roland Alexander several years ago.

College members are invited to give 10-15 minute presentations using no more than three slides, followed by an informal discussion on their topic. Speakers are encouraged to be creative with the presentation, whether it’s on their research or another topic, and must stick to the three-slide rule!

Speakers on 16 March will be:

• Professor Chris Wensrich, Visiting Fellow from the University of Newcastle, Australia, discusses Strain tomography using neutrons.
  ‘Residual stress’ refers to an inner mechanical battle that plays out in all materials and components to some degree. In the area of additive manufacturing in particular, residual stress locked-in by the thermo-mechanics of deposition plays a key role in the performance of printed parts and is of primary concern. A range of new experimental techniques based on neutron scattering are shedding a bright light in this area. Energy-resolved neutron transmission techniques now allow for imaging and tomography of elastic strain in solid components. Akin to a higher-order CT scan, these approaches now provide a new window into the residual stress inside engineering components. This talk will provide a high-level crash-course in this area, including neutron imaging, strain measurement and tomography.
  
• Professor Megan Barker, Visiting Fellow from Simon Fraser University, Canada, addresses Undergraduate education: what is the point of lecture?
  In undergraduate education, the traditional didactic approach to lecture has not substantially changed in hundreds of years. Recently, questions have arisen from university science instructors and researchers: why do we choose this approach? Who is it benefitting, and who is being left behind? What else might we use lecture time for, and what evidence might help us decide how to spend class time? We’ll spent 15 minutes together considering these ideas and considering what we might do in a university classroom that can’t be replaced by a YouTube video.
  
• Andrew McDonald, MRes + PhD student in the AI4ER CDT, focuses on What is Climate Informatics? How Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Can Advance Our Understanding of the Climate System.
  A deep understanding of the climate system is vital in our fight against the climate crisis. The nascent field of Climate Informatics aims to advance this understanding by applying machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data science to find connections, correlations, and causal mechanisms in the petabytes of observational and model-derived climate data generated every day. Scientists are applying computer vision to satellite imagery to monitor deforestation in the tropics, wildfires in the midlatitudes, and sea ice in the polar regions; neural networks to speed up and improve the accuracy of weather forecasting models; intelligent search methods to inform sensor placement in remote regions; and more. Learn more about the past, present, and future of this exciting field in a crash-course introduction—and be sure to bring your curiosity and questions.

Snacks and finger food will be provided, courtesy of the GSB and Tutorial Office.

Discover more via Esdras Paravizo’s emails, and contact him for further details: ep650@cam.ac.uk

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