All your latest news and events

Newswire
October 2021

News

Welcome to Our New Students

Matriculation marks the start of a new journey for all of our new students. While the rite of passage is a tradition we cherish, it celebrates the opportunity for our new community to seize the moment with vigour and rigour, explore new ideas, challenge conventional wisdom, open minds to different ideas, cultures and thinking and become extraordinary!

Durham Ranked 6th in UK

We’ve been ranked 6th in the UK in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2022. This follows our Top 5 position in the recently published Guardian Good University Guide. These latest rankings further consolidate our position as a leading UK and global university.

Supporting Women to Succeed in High Performance Computing

We are a member of the N8 Centre of Excellence in Computationally Intensive Research (N8 CIR), which has been recognised as a chapter of the Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC) organisation.

Lighting up Durham

This November will see the return of Lumiere, the light festival which turns our beautiful city into a stunning, immersive art gallery every two years. Once again, we’ll be supporting the event as a major partner.

Durham Representatives to Attend COP26

The application process began in 2020 and saw us detail how we met 10 criteria needed to gain the observer status for COP26. This included demonstrating our interest in, and commitment to, climate change research and education, and the SDG agenda.

Events

Upcoming Events

Crystal Structure in Pharmaceuticals
Thursday 14 October 2021, 6pm (BST)
Ever heard of blue tomato ketchup? Seen hair-like braids on the nanoscale? Professor Steed from our Department of Chemistry takes us on a journey through the wonders of polymorphism – multiple types of crystal packing in solids. Polymorphism is now big business in areas such as drugs, agrochemicals and explosives.

Knowledge Across Borders
Climate Change, Extreme Events and Health Risks
Friday 15 October 2021, 8am (BST), 3pm (Beijing)
Heatwaves, wildfires and floods have become more common, with major risks to people's health. Join experts in this webinar to find out what our climate future looks like and what needs to be done.

DAZN: Building a Recommendation Engine for a Sports Streaming Platform
Thursday 21 October, 5pm (BST)
We will hear from Hakki Deviren (Senior Product Manager Personalisation) and Thomas Thorney (Head of Applied Machine Learning) as they tell the story of how DAZN (the global sports streaming service which operates in over 200 countries worldwide) came to be.

COP26: What Would Success Look Like?
Tuesday 26 October 2021, 6pm (BST)
Join us for an evening panel discussion hosted by the Durham Alumni Energy Chapter anaylising the upcoming COP26 conference. There will be an opportunity for Q&A and the event will include an optional breakout session at the end for those wishing to network and continue the discussion.

Diamonds: An Intriguing Past, A Scintillating Future
Wednesday 27 October 2021, 6pm (BST)
Since time immemorial, diamonds have been a source of fascination to mankind. Join Durham alumna, Joanna Park-Tonks (Arts Combined, University College, 1996-00), for a thrilling journey through the history of diamonds - their intriguing past which captured the imagination of many and more recently their evolving future as man has devised a way to create laboratory grown diamonds.

Convocation
Thursday 4 November, 5.30pm (GMT)
Convocation is the annual meeting of alumni. We hear from Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost, Professor Antony Long, on the past year and a view to the future along with the opportunity to ask your questions.

View all upcoming events

Check our events pages regularly for all of the upcoming alumni events across the world.

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Alumni

Applications for the Study UK Alumni Awards Now Open

The Alumni Awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of alumni and showcase the impact and value of a UK higher education. Could you be an award winner in 2021-22?

Work That - Health Benefit Packages

Work That offers online health and wellness services ranging from personal training, nutrition guidance, Pilates, meditation classes, stretching, strength and more. Read more to claim your exclusive alumni discount.

Dunelm Shanghai Centre

Recently, 45 alumni attended the launch of the Durham University alumni hub in Shanghai. It was wonderful to see you all there and to celebrate our ever-growing global community.

Mentoring Scheme Opportunities

The Durham Law Society is looking for mentors to help students, studying both law and non-law, to enter the legal profession. Mentoring does not have to be a large commitment and our scheme is very flexible, allowing mentors to choose how many mentees they would like to take on and how regularly they meet with them. Additionally, we are open to mentors from all sectors, including those who are working or have worked abroad, since our mentees have a wide range of interests.

The Durham University Leadership Framework develops our students into ethical leaders for today and tomorrow. As part of the programme, we match student leaders with volunteer mentors in senior leadership positions. Mentoring would involve meeting (online or in person) your mentee at least once every 6 weeks from September 2021 to July 2022, plus the opportunity to take part in forums and a networking event with all students and mentors.

If you are interested in either of these opportunities or would like to find out more, please get in touch.

Class Notes

David Breeze (Modern History, University College, 1965-70) has been awarded the 2021 Kenyon Medal for his outstanding international contribution to the archaeology of the Roman Empire.

Yvette Clark née Jackson (Modern Languages, University College, 1991-95) debut novel, Glitter Gets Everywhere, was acquired by HarperCollins as part of a two-book deal. The book was released earlier this year.

Paul Ellis (Modern Languages, Grey College, 1991-95) has co-authored his latest book The What, Why and How of Assessment, aimed at anyone teaching in secondary and higher education with an interest in educational assessments.

Kamal-Deen Kassim (New & Renewable Energy, Josephine Butler College, 2019-21) CEO of Hinata Energy, have launched their biofuel-powered cookstove into the Nigerian market.

Awais Khan (Management Studies, 2010-13) critical acclaimed second novel No Honour is out now.

Dr Arthur Turrell (Mathematics and Physics, St. Aidan’s College, 2005-08) has written a popular science book The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet.

Colleges

Josephine Butler College

We are looking for volunteers to join us as mentors for our brand new freshers! You’re role would be to meet with a group of students for an hour, every other week to chat and offer guidance etc. The mentor sessions start on Tuesday 5 October and will run every other week. If you are local and would like more information, please contact lynsey.a.thomas@durham.ac.uk.

South College

Staff and students of South College look forward to Welcome and Orientation Week when we will welcome the second intake of new students to our thriving new community. Together we will write a new chapter in the history of Durham University's superb, seventeenth college.

St Cuthbert's Society

With huge thanks to Mr. Greg Kyle-Langley (Philosophy, St Cuthbert’s Society, 2003-06) for his ongoing support for music at Cuth’s, we are delighted to announce that Cuth’s will receive a Boston Baby Grand Steinway piano in April 2022. This programme is only possible with the support from alumni and other donors like Greg.

St John's College

In September we were delighted to host two belated reunions that spanned generations of Johnians - the first for Freshers of 2012, and the second a 'Golden Reunion' celebrating 50 years on from student days.

Pictures here

Trevelyan College

As the new academic year begins, we have been busy preparing to welcome new Trevelyan College students to Durham.

University College

We were delighted to see so many of you at our virtual reunion a couple of weeks ago! One of the highlights of the weekend was a presentation by Bex Harvey, our Artist in Residence. Bex gave an update on the Women of Castle Project, which brings to life stories of 10 incredible women who shaped the history of our College. If you were not able to attend, you can view a link to Bex’s update here.

Watch now

Departments

Biosciences

PhD student Eilidh Smith has written about The Impact of Disturbance on Red Deer.

Law School

We hosted the 112th annual meeting of the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS), the oldest and largest learned society for academic lawyers. The conference was attended by over 570 delegates from 34 countries with about half in-person in the SLS's first hybrid conference, including dignitaries like Sir Jonathan Jones QC the former chief Government lawyers (Chad's) and Sir Andrew McFarlane QC (Collingwood). The event was led by SLS President, Professor Thom Brooks, who is the second President from Durham and only the second foreigner to hold the position. The event took place from 31 August to 3 September in the University's award winning Teaching and Learning Centre. This was the first major conference hosted at Durham University since last year's lockdown.

Geography

The Department of Geography is delighted to announce the second in our series of lectures from current members of staff, showcasing some of the exciting research that is happening within the department. The talks will last approximately 1 hour, with time for questions and discussion, and will be delivered online. They will also be recorded, so if you can’t make the live event, you can catch up at your leisure. Our next lecture takes place on Wednesday 3 November at 7pm (GMT) where Professor Erin McClymont will be talking about her research on how Antarctic ice ecosystems respond to climate change.

Merchandise

Here at the Retail Office, we strive to provide staff, students and alumni with the best possible merchandise, to commemorate their time here at Durham. With stock ranging from stationery and jewellery to clothing and glassware, there is sure to be something that will take your fancy.

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