The LINAS team got together just before the Christmas break for a very vibrant afternoon of food, fun and technical discussions.  The event started off with lunch and informal discussions.

The technical part of the programme was structured as a panel event featuring 21 LINAS PhDs organised topically into four panels based on the PhD topic.  The panel topics were Physics, Security, Accountability-Bias-Regulation and Humans-Technology.  There was plenty of preparatory work towards this event, where students had provided abstracts to know about other fellow panelists' work.  During the panel, each panellist talked about their research, and how they see their work relating to, or complementing other panellists’ work.  The panel took a lot of questions from the audience and several students found it interesting to see research highly relevant to their own from within LINAS itself.  The event was co-ordinated by LINAS core team member, Dr Deepak Padmanabhan.

Among the several observations from the LINAS team at the event were the focus on the social aspects and the keenness to make sense of answers to the underpinning 'why' questions viz., why is the technology working the way it is. Professor John Morison pointed out that attention to such nuances is among the distinctive features of LINAS that has developed over time, and noted that it was encouraging to see the new students (2024 starts) nicely settling in with exploring such aspects in their own research.

Pictured L-R: James Sweeney (third year, Law), Anna Montgomery (third year, Law), Samantha Darrah (second year, Psychology), Anna Hollis (second year, Psychology), Joseph Wakley (first year, HAPP), Fiona Stuart (first year, Law).

 

Pictured L-R: Karli Gibson (final year, HAPP), David Marc (final year, EEECS), Felix Elliott (second year, SSESW), Enas Abdelfatah (first year, HAPP).