Tuesday 21st April saw another successful annual Russell Binions PhD Symposium. This year, Anna Vignoles, director of the Leverhulme Trust - a major grant-making organisation, joined the event to present awards to PhD students for the Best Paper award.

Russell Binions Memorial PhD Research Symposium is an annual conference organised for PhDs and PDRAs at the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) at Queen Mary University of London, to practise presenting at conferences as a core part of their PhD programme, with the involvement of PDRAs in training and organisation.

The Symposium is in memory of Dr Russell Binions (1979-2017) who was an engaging and enthusiastic colleague, highly popular teacher, and Former Deputy Director of Materials Division.

In 2026, 39 Third-year PhD students from three Research Centres – Centre for Bioengineering, Centre for Intelligent Transport and Centre for Sustainable Engineering – have presented their PhD projects. With the attendance from about 100 academic staff, postdoctoral researchers and PhD students across SEMS, we were successful to host such a productive, comprehensive and stimulating research environment to support all researchers at SEMS.

Dr Chinnapat Panwisawas, Deputy Director of Postgraduate Studies said "We celebrated the success of our students by recognising the best papers per research Centre for the last 12 months by current SEMS PhD students and the two best presentations per research Centre, as decided by centre PDRAs and academics after the talks. This event marks a significant point in the progression of their academic careers."