UCL EGA Institute for Women’s Health
Annual Alumni Newsletter 2014
Foreword by Peter Brocklehurst
Welcome to the first newsletter of the Institute for Women’s Health alumni. This initiative which has been
championed by Joyce Harper, is the first in what we hope will be a regular process of communication which will
complement our other communication strategies. I first arrived at the IfWH three years ago and since then have
been impressed by the passion and commitment of the Institute’s staff and students in the aim to improve the
health of women, their babies and their families. The Institute continues to be the leading UK centre for research
and education of women’s health, and our educational activities are central component of our strategy. Under
Joyce’s leadership we continue to expand our educational opportunities. Watch future editions of the Newsletter
for updates.
First Alumni Event, UCL, Friday 4th July 2014,
6-9pm, North Cloisters
Angela and Joyce have been working hard to
organize this event with a lot of help from UCL
Alumni Office. This date was chosen as it is the date
of the 2012-2013 students’ graduation ceremony.
We want to use this opportunity to network alumni
and we will hold this event annually on the day of
the graduation ceremony. We will be having drinks
and canapés, and some speed networking. More
will be revealed on the night but we have tried to
develop a programme so that you can talk to people
who you do not know, as well as to people you do
know.
News from 2012-2013 MSc students
In 2012-2013 we had 36 students from as far afield
as Malaysia, India, Russia, Sudan and South Africa.
It was a high achieving year with ten students
achieving an overall Distinction and nine a Merit.
Eleven students achieved a Distinction in their
projects with supervisors at IfWH, UCL, and beyond.
Photos are on the Alumni Facebook page. We are
looking forward to seeing them at their graduation
on July 4th.
Meeting at ESHRE 2014
Joyce hopes to see some of you in Munich.
Unfortunately this year she will only be there on
Monday and Tuesday. If anyone is attending –
please can we use this opportunity to meet for
lunch. Joyce would like to meet you on Monday at
12.15pm in Room B1 (Hall B0) directly after the
ESHRE PGD Consortium data talk.
Email or
Facebook in advance so Joyce will know to expect
you or just come along on the day.
New building at Chenies Mews
We are sure you will all be glad to hear that we may
be getting a new shiny building in Chenies Mews.
We will believe it when the first brick of our current
building is knocked down, but the whole Institute
has been working hard with the architects and plans
have been drawn up. It will include laboratories,
offices, social hubs and most importantly, great
lecture theatres. We will keep you updated.
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UCL EGA Institute for Women’s Health
Annual Alumni Newsletter 2014
Social Media
We know that Facebook is not for everyone, but it is an easy way to keep a wide audience up to date with news
and events. The Institute’s Facebook page can be found by searching for UCL EGA Institute for Women’s Health.
And for those of you who have not joined the MSc Alumni page yet – you can find this at UCL IfWH Graduate
Student Society. Other pages you might want to like are: UCL Centre for PG & D, Centre for Reproductive and
Genetic Health, and the Embryology and PGD Academy.
Joyce has made a LinkedIn Page for those that use this. Please search for Joyce Harper. Peter Brocklehurst and
Joyce are also now on Twitter.
News from 2013-2014 MSc students
This year we have 36 students from Australia,
Kenya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Spain, Poland
and Finland, as well as a healthy representation
from Greece, Cyprus and the UK. We have had a
great year so far and they are now preparing to start
their projects.
Some new jobs and successes for alumni
We would like this to be a regular section so please
send Joyce and Angela any updates. For this year
we have just put down some successes for the
graduates from 2012-13. Several have taken up
career opportunities overseas, for example in
clinical IVF laboratories in Japan and India (Anamika
Choudhury and Shardul Trivedi), and in the UK, for
example on the NHS Clinical Embryology Specialist
Training Programme (Chelsea Buck). Two students
have stayed on in the Institute for Women’s Health,
one as a Research Assistant in the UCL PGD group
(Caroline Picard) and one as a clinical research
nurse in Women’s Cancer (Shohreh Ghazali). A
number of students have continued with their
medical training, and one 2012-13 graduate,
Elpiniki Chronopoulou, has recently secured a
Specialty Training post in Obstetrics and
Gynaecology in London, having been ranked fourth
overall in the London interviews.
News from the PhD students
Currently we have 42 graduate research students in
the Institute. They are sited in many UCL locations
including Chenies Mews, the Rockefeller, the
Cruciform, Stephenson House and the Royal Free
Hospital which highlights our need for a new
building! The research students organised a very
successful internal research conference in January
2014 and are involved in a peer mentoring scheme
that has been set up in the Institute. Nineteen
research students were awarded their degrees in
2013 with a wide range of projects across all four
departments in the IfWH.
Congratulations for marriages and babies
We know that many of you have got married or had
children. We would love to keep an update of these
happy events. We have only listed a few here but if
you have some good news, please let Joyce know
and she will add it to next years newsletter.
A few recent babies have been successfully
delivered by; Elpida Fragouli and Dagan Wells,
Georgia Kakourou and Mara Simopoulou.
And Pinar Tulay will be getting married this summer.
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UCL EGA Institute for Women’s Health
Annual Alumni Newsletter 2014
IfWH Annual Meeting 2014
This was held at the Institute of Child Health on 3rd June. We had an invited speaker for each theme which
included talks by Usha Menon with an update of her work in India, Sarah Creighton who gave a passionate talk
about female genital mutilation, Neil Marlow talked about critical care decision making and George Attilakos and
Ruwan Wimalasundera gave a fascinating talk about the use of the laser for twin pregnancies. We also had a
presentation by Sania Latif who was the first winner of the EGA Hospital Appeal Trust Anne Boutwood Travelling
Fellowship. The key note lecture was by Therese Hesketh who spoke about China’s One Child Policy and the
impact on women.
Outreach
Over recent years we have been increasing our
outreach work with schools. As well as giving
lectures in schools at all Key Stages, several schools
visited the Institute to spend a day seeing what life
is like at university. In February 2013 groups of
students came from Battle Abbey in East Sussex
and from Knights Templar in Baldock to visit four
different groups at the Institute to learn more about
what staff and students do and about their careers.
In June 2013 we ran a day visit for prospective
medical students giving pupils from Knights Templar
School and Saffron Walden County High School
insight into the application process, the curriculum,
and the experience of life as a medical student.
In the summer of 2013 we offered our first IfWH
week long summer school. The students visited
different groups within the Institute. This gave the
students the opportunity to carry out a number of
different activities that were specially organised by
each group. We also hosted three A-level students
on Nuffield Research Placement (two with the
Perinatal Brain Repair group and one with the Gene
Transfer Technology group), as part of the UK-wide
scheme that gives students an opportunity to work
alongside professional scientists for four-six weeks.
Athena SWAN Silver Award for the Institute
The pursuit of equal opportunities for women
underpins our working culture and is fundamental to
our research.
The Athena Scientific Women’s
Academic Network (Athena SWAN) Charter
recognises commitment to advancing women's
careers in science, technology, engineering, maths
and medicine (STEMM) employment in higher
education. The beliefs underpinning the Charter
are: The advancement of science, technology,
engineering, maths and medicine is fundamental to
quality of life across the globe. It is vitally important
that women are adequately represented in what has
traditionally been, and is still, a male-dominated
area. Science cannot reach its full potential unless
it can benefit from the talents of the whole
population, and until women and men can benefit
equally from the opportunities it affords. The IfWH
has been awarded the Silver Athena SWAN Award.
This is a great achievement.
Promotion for Joyce
Joyce will now become Professor Joyce Harper with
effect from 1st October. I am sure we would all like
to congratulate her on this achievement.
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UCL EGA Institute for Women’s Health
Annual Alumni Newsletter 2014
Giving to the Institute for Women’s Health
As alumni of UCL and the IfWH, you may feel you are in a position to give something back to UCL. This could
involve giving your time by mentoring current students, supervising an MSc project or taking a student on for an
internship. You may also be willing to consider making a financial donation. Key areas where your gift could
benefit the IfWH include support for graduate students, specific research projects or the new Institute building.
If you would like to be involved in mentoring any students, please contact a.poulter@ucl.ac.uk. If you are
interested in making a donation, please contact joyce.harper@ucl.ac.uk.
PGD International Society Conference, Kent,
2014
It was great to catch up with so many alumni at the
PGD International Society meeting in Kent in April
2014. The event was organized by one of our
alumni – Darren Griffin. We managed to get most of
them in a group photo which is on Facebook. If any
of you are going to be at a conference that we might
be attending, let us know.
Embryology and PGD Academy
Alpesh, Sioban and Joyce have started a company –
Embryology
and
PGD
Academy
(www.embryologyandPGDacademy.com). The aim is
to develop hands on training globally. As well as the
usual embryo biopsy and PGD workshops at UCL, we
have developed workshops on vitrification and new
technologies in IVF. These can also be delivered in
other countries, so if you would like to co-organise a
workshop in your country, please contact Joyce.
Any ideas and comments you have on this newsletter or anything to do with alumni or the Institute, please let Joyce know
(joyce.harper@ucl.ac.uk). The IfWH is writing an annual report and the one for 2013 is near completion. This is a hefty
document summarizing the achievements of the Institute in 2013 with an update on research projects from each research
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theme. Look out for this – we will post it on the UCL EGA IfWH Facebook Page.