QM Alumni e-Newsletter
| Queen Mary News Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adrian Smith Queen Mary Contribution to UK Economy Other College News Queen Mary Student Success Triumph in World’s Largest Moot Court Competition International Bikini Success for QM Students Study opportunities at Queen Mary Funding Available for Women on Career Breaks BrainAcademy Events |
Your Opportunity to Help Queen Mary |
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adrian Smith
The Principal has been appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of London replacing Professor Colin Bundy. He will take up this part-time role in July for a period of three years. The Principal says that he is looking forward to working towards changes which will help the University adapt to the demands of the future.
Queen Mary contributes £400 million to UK economy in one year
A study reveals Queen Mary, University of London to be a significant player in the economy, generating employment and output worth nearly £400 million to London and the UK over the course of one year.
The study, a snapshot of the 2003-04 academic year, examined the major economic characteristics of the College including income, expenditure and employment. For more details visit http://www.qmul.ac.uk/news/index.php
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Queen Mary Student Success
Queen Mary Students in the world 's largest moot court competition
A team of students from Queen Mary, University of London’s Centre for Commercial Law Studies has won the 13th Willem C Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot – the largest moot court competition in the area of international commercial law. 158 universities from 50 countries took part in the competition, which is held annually in Vienna, other entrants included the London School of Economics; Victoria University, Melbourne; Columbia University and Vienna University.
The aim of the moot is to foster the study of international commercial law and arbitration for the resolution of international business disputes, and to train tomorrow’s law leaders in methods of alternative dispute resolution.
Queen Mary’s victory marks the first time a UK university has won the competition. For more details click here.
International Bikini Success for QM Students
As London basks in warm sunshine, thoughts turn to summer holidays. Spurred on by seeing the same bikini over and over while on a beach holiday, Queen Mary students, Hayley Peterson and Danielle Applebaum, decided to solve the problem by designing their own range of exclusive swimwear. Their business has proved a huge success. Flor Brasil (Flowers of Brazil ) has expanded threefold over the past year in the UK. The Department of Geography is justifiably proud that the students are putting their geography to very practical use as they liaise with factories and designers in Brazil and retailers in Britain.
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Study Opportunities at Queen Mary
MSc Funding Available for Women on Career Breaks
Queen Mary’s Departments of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering are pleased to announce new funding to enable women on a career break to undertake Masters courses. This initiative is being run with the support of the European Social Fund (ESF) and in collaboration with Equalitec.
The goal of this joint project is to promote best practice in the field of recruitment and retention of women in Information Technology, Electronics and Communications. Successful applicants will have the chance to retrain as IT practitioners, convert to high demand careers in the fast growing discipline of bioinformatics, or improve their skills with advanced studies of cutting-edge areas of computing.
For more information visit http://www.qmul.ac.uk/news/index.php
BrainAcademy
The Department of Computer Science's talent competition is underway again. Enter to win the prizes or just for fun. This year the online quiz stage is about Computer Science and entertainment. Prizes include places on the computer science programmes at Queen Mary starting in 2007, with tuition fees paid and the chance to win a career with leading industrial players Microsoft or ARM. This year there are also prizes for younger students. To enter visit www.brainacademy.qmul.ac.uk
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Your Opportunity to help Queen Mary
Helping Students with a Career Choice
Do you want to inspire and pass on your hard earned wisdom to current students? Come along to one of our popular ‘Careers in…’ evenings? We are always looking for former students, from any career background, to talk to our current students about their line of work and how they got into it, as well as to share any tips or advice. These informal evenings offer students an invaluable real insight into the world of work and different career paths, and provide an opportunity to find out/‘what it is really like'and‘what they wish they'd known about careers at university'.
If on the other hand your organisation is looking to recruit students or graduates, whether for part-time or full-time work, voluntary positions or internships, then there are a number of ways in which we can advertise your vacancies and develop your company's profile on campus. For further information please see our website http://www.careers.qmul.ac.uk/ or contact Kirsti Burton, Employer Liaison Officer at k.burton@qmul.ac.uk
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Are you a recent graduate?
The Alumni Relations website will be changing soon to incorporate among other resources, Alumni Profiles. We hope that these profiles will be a useful resource for potential students planning to study at Queen Mary by providing them with a chance to find out more about London, Queen Mary and their chosen field of study from a former student perspective.
If you would like to share your profile with others and tell us about your time here and how your degree may have influenced your career choices, please email Rachel Nabudde at r.nabudde@qmul.ac.uk with ‘Alumni Profile’ in the subject line.
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Events
Friday 9 June, all day
French Centenary Celebration: ‘London-Paris Dialogues’
A day of papers and discussions on Anglo-French relations, today and yesterday, in politics, literature, art, film and culture. This event marks 100 years of the teaching of French at Queen Mary. Alumni welcome.
For further information contact Amy Kobelis in the Events Office on +44(0) 20 7882 5147 or by email at a.l.kobelis@qmul.ac.uk.
Friday 16 June, Noon onwards
A Luncheon to Celebrate the Queen's Official Brithday
The College's Conference, Catering and Residences Service, supported by the Alumni Relations and Events Office, would like to invite you to a luncheon to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s official 80th birthday. Guests will be served a glass of Dubonnet, the Queen’s favourite aperitif, upon arrival.
£5.95 for Octogenarians and £11.95 for all other guests. To book your place please contact Anila Memon in the Alumni Relations Office on +44 (0) 20 7882 3732 or by email at a.memon@qmul.ac.uk
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Monday 26 June, Noon onwards
Wartime Reunion in Cambridge
Following the success of last year's Westfield Wartime Reunion at St Peter's Hall, Oxford, the Alumni Relations Office is sponsoring a reunion in Cambridge for the men and women from Queen Mary who were evacuated there during the war years. The day will include a lunch and tour of Girton College , the first home for Queen Mary's women, followed by afternoon tea and a tour of King's College, where both men and women latterly stayed.
The strong links established between King's College and Queen Mary during the Second World War have continued through the intervening years with a number of Queen Mary college humanities and social science students having the opportunity each year to live and study at King's College, Cambridge.
If you were a Queen Mary wartime student or have been a Queen Mary Visiting Student to King's College in the intervening years or are a former student who now lives near Cambridge, you are most welcome to join us.
For further details contact Anila Memon in the Alumni Relations Office on +44 (0) 20 7882 3732 or by email at a.memon@qmul.ac.uk
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Saturday 16 September, all day
QMandWAlumni Annual Campus Lunch and Mini-Reunions Day
A special date for your diaries, the Annual Campus Lunch and Mini-Reunions Day will be held on Saturday 16 September. Departmental tours are being planned. There will be an opportunity to visit the London Canal Museum near King’s Cross and take a guided tour with Dr Mike Stevens, (Maths, 2002) who is Education Co-ordinator at the museum.
For further details contact the Events Office: +44 (0) 20 7882 5147 or by events@qmul.ac.uk
Saturday 16 September, all day
German Alumni Reunion Day
The Department of German is celebrating 100 years of the language being taught at Queen Mary. Dr Rosemary Combridge will be joined by Professor Rüdiger Görner and current students to discuss the Department past, present and future. Members of staff will be on hand to among other things, help you ‘brush-up your German’ as well as look at the best-seller lists in German and in translation. Writer and broadcaster Daniel Johnson will give an early evening talk on ‘Mozart in London’ and the day will end with a celebratory Centenary Dinner. All alumni who studied German language or culture as part of their degree programmes are welcome to attend.
For further details contact Stephanie Mannion in the Alumni Relations Office on +44 (0) 20 7882 7790 or at s.j.mannion@qmul.ac.uk
Saturday 16 September at 5.30pm
Public Lecture
‘Mozart in London' by Daniel Johnson
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was eight when he arrived in London in 1764. He stayed for just eighteen months during which time he wrote his first symphonies while his father lay desperately ill. Daniel Johnson tells the dramatic story of these turbulent months and poses the question ‘What would have happened to the history of music if Mozart had, like Handel, decided to stay in London?'
For further details contact Stephanie Mannion in the Alumni Relations Office on +44 (0) 20 7882 7790 or at s.j.mannion@qmul.ac.uk .
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Friday 24 November 2006
BATLAA Annual Dinner and Dance
This year’s Annual Dinner and Dance will be held at the Drapers’ Hall, London. Mini reunions are welcome. Please let us know if you would like us to help you contact your contemporaries.
Tickets: £99.50 per person inclusive of dinner and all drinks
Booking essential; Please click here to download a booking form.
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Your opportunity to test yourself with Computer Science's latest teasers
SpaceInvaders Research
cs4fn, the Department of Computer Science's webzine on the fun side of computer science, is running a web experiment about human error with the support of EPSRC. When computer systems go wrong, users often blame themselves. An alternative view is that some human error is systematic and bound to happen eventually if the computer interfaces allow it. Can people learn not to make these errors? MSci student Rob Dann has set up a Space Invaders game with a human error twist to find out. We particularly want people to play the game then try again a week or so later to see if they can still avoid making the errors.
Join the experiment. Play the game. Make the error (or not):
www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/cs4fn/humanerror/
Sodarace is evolving
Sodarace is Queen Mary and Soda's online olympics that pits human creativity against machine learning in a competition to design robots that race over 2D terrains. We would like your ideas on how the software should develop, how it might help in schools and what sodarace should do when it goes on its UK tour. Please visit www.sodarace.net and click on "Sodarace is evolving".
Local Events
Business Leadership for Women in Technology
The event has three main elements: conference, learning and getting connected. The learning element offers delegates the chance to attend pre-booked master classes with leading experts in leadership development. Speakers include Dame Stephanie Shirley, Founder of Xansa; Doris-Ann Williams, Director General of BIVDA; Annie Brooking, CEO of Astron Clinica; Susan Vinnicombe, Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Diversity Management at Cranfield University; Professor Rob Goffee, author of Why should anyone be
lead by you? and Faculty Director for Executive Education at London Business School, plus others.
This will be held at Cass Business School in London on 7 June 2006.
For more details please visit the event website at http://www.lwtconference.com
Spitalfields Festival
For further details visit www.spitalfieldsfestival.org.uk
Saturday 17 June, 7.30pm
The Thames Chamber Choir will be performing a selection of motets and spirituals at St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney High Street, in aid of essential repairs to the church organ. Tickets £5 (concessions £4). For further information telephone 020 7537 0618.
Remember your Alumni Benefits
• 2 issues of Quad and BLC per year
• Access to the Web Email Directory
• Help finding your lost friends
• Assistance with organising your reunions
• 10% discount in the Gallery Restaurant, Mile End
• 10% discount on conference and holiday room bookings
• Access to the Senior Common Room at Mile End
• Access to the library (for those with an Alumni ID card). The Alumni ID card also allows you to register for a lifelong college email address.
For a full list of forthcoming events, please visit the events website http://www.qmul.ac.uk/events/index.php
Web-Email Directory
This is a password protected email directory for former students who have asked to be added to the list. Please email Steph Mannion if you would like access to the list or would like your name added or deleted.
Remember to let us know when you change your address.