Spotlight on Danae Phaedra Pocobelli

BIM is a technology commonly used in the Architecture field, and it helps producing a virtual representation of a building. BIM enables collection and representation of different data, and this is one of the reasons why is such a hot topic today. However, it is a technology that has been developed for new buildings, and my research tries to adjust it to heritage buildings’ uniquity. Being interested in heritage since grad school, it was a natural development for me to embrace such a research topic. Plus, I’ve always liked designing with BIM-like tools!

Friendship is so important during a PhD, because it can turn to a lonely activity very easily. I enjoyed a lot all the ISH events (guest lectures, lunches, research meetings), they were extremely important to building a community and also very helpful to expanding knowledge and stimulating curiosity.

The IT knowledge I acquired during my PhD played a key role for me to be selected. My PhD also gave me resilience skills that came from learning adjust to remote teaching during Covid lockdown. Flexibility, trial-and-error, re-routing, all these were the normality during my PhD, and they became the normality again during Covid.

I think that good and frequent communication with supervisors is fundamental, as well as setting achievable goals, so no one gets disappointed. I would suggest to anyone considering undertaking a PhD at ISH to take advantage from the fantastic spaces UCL has to offer, to meet fellow students and to participate to the many activities UCL organises.