My First PhD talk

On Friday I gave the first professional talk of my PhD. I'd been worrying about it for quite a while, especially as I thought it was rather early in my PhD to be presenting my research. My boyfriend is half way through his second year and he still hasn't given a professional talk yet. I suppose it depends on what kind of research you're doing. He has spent most of his time so far developing code so he is only just starting to get results that he can present.

My first talk was to be given at the RAS (Royal Astronomical Society). My supervisor had persuaded me to do it, as he was organizing the meeting and wanted to present the work of some of his students. It would be my first chance to meet the members of the cometary physics community in the UK and I was anxious to make the right impression.

The RAS's crest, it reads 'Whatever
shines should be observed'

The week leading up to the meeting I was very worried. My supervisor was at a conference in Germany and although he had seen the slides for the first draft of my presentation, he hadn't had time to run through it with me. The day before I was due to give the talk my office mate persuaded me to present it to some of the other students at the lab (and then persuaded them to listen to it).

I'm usually quite shy but for some reason when I have to give a presentation I get overwhelmed with nervous energy. It probably means I'm in the right line of work. I have lots of ideas and lots of enthusiasm but if I don't direct it carefully I can end up in an explanation cul-de-sac. Luckily this nervous energy had kicked in a day early and when I gave my talk to the other students it didn't seem like a complete disaster. I did talk too fast (I always seem to during presentations) and I'm sure I did a thousand other things wrong, but they understood what I was trying to say and I was pleased with their feedback. It's certainly a lot less intimidating to practice with a group of your fellow students than with more senior members of academic staff.

The evening before the meeting I went to the cinema with my boyfriend to watch the new version of Les Miserables. I never liked waiting in the night before an exam (and to be honest it felt like an exam, I had visions of people interrupting me in the middle of my presentation with phrases like 'well that's not quite right now is it???'), so I decided to be proactive. The film was pretty good and turned out to be an excellent distraction.

The WHT, part of the ING
at La Palma

The morning of the meeting I couldn't eat anything and was thoroughly getting on my boyfriend's nerves verbalizing all of my worries. I'd arranged to meet my supervisor and his other PhD student at the RAS an hour before the meeting was due to start. My supervisor's other PhD student was 2 years into his studies before he left to work on/play with telescopes at the Isaac Newton Group (ING) based in La Palma, Canary Islands. He was just as nervous as me, even though it was his second time giving a presentation at the RAS - possibly because he didn't seem to think the first one had gone well.

The meeting was organised to facilitate discussion of the science of near-Sun comets. Prior to the discussion I had assumed that near-Sun comets would naturally be the brightest comets observable (as it's the Sun's radiation that causes comet tails, and if you're closer to the Sun there's a lot more radiation). In reality many near-Sun comets are so small that they are very difficult to detect, and consequently fail to survive their precarious trip through the Sun's atmosphere. I found all the talks very interesting and greatly enjoyed seeing the other aspects of cometary science being studied. Everyone seemed very excited about the next big comet: ISON. Predicted to reach perihelion (the closest approach to the Sun) around Christmas 2013, it had been suggested (rather tentatively, as comets tend to be very unpredictable) that ISON will be a very bright comet and provide scientists with both interesting data and an opportunity to get the general public involved.

The RAS meeting room - this was full when
I presented my work from the podium!

When it came time for me to present my talk I was very nervous. I had practiced my opening lines several times to make sure I didn't miss out anything, for instance that I was a first year (please be nice to me...) and that I'd got a lot of my images from my supervisor's collaborators. Once I'd started it didn't seem so bad and to be honest I can't remember a lot of what I said. I don't think I came across as very professional but all the cometary people were very encouraging. I think I just need more practice, especially in a professional setting (the RAS's HUGE projector screen was very intimidating when I stood next to it - it was about 3 times my height).  I got lots of nice questions after I'd presented (they were really interested in my research!), and everyone from my group at MSSL said that I'd done well.

After the discussion I went for dinner with my boyfriend, my supervisor and some of the speakers from the meeting. I soon found myself laughing and discussing the merits of Japanese food with the very people I'd found so intimidating two hours before. So, although I was very worried about the whole meeting/discussion/dinner I had rather a nice time. Not Les Miserables at all...