2019 BSA Media Fellows Announced

The BSA Media Fellowships provide a unique opportunity for practising scientists, clinicians and engineers to spend two to six weeks working at the heart of a media outlet such as the Guardian, BBC Breakfast or Buzzfeed.

Previous UCL fellows have included Professor Clare Elwell, who worked at the Financial Times, Dr Gary Zhang who worked at the I newspaper, and Dr Robert Thompson who worked for BBC online

Our three media fellows for 2019 are Dr Giulia Barbareschi of UCLIC / UCL Computer Science, Dr Lena Ciric from UCL Civil, Environmental, and Geomatic Engineering and Dr Anna Ploszajski of the Institute of Making / UCL Mechanical Engineering

Giulia is a post-doctoral Disability & Assistive Technology researcher at the UCL Interaction Centre and the Global Disability Innovation Hub. Her research focuses primarily on how to develop better assistive technologies for people with disabilities by involving users more in their creation. In her current role Giulia is working on several international projects with partners such as the WHO, Motivation and Humanity & Inclusion that aim to increase access to assistive technologies for people living in low to middle income countries. Giulia is also a proud STEM ambassador and throughout her years at UCL she has delivered several outreach courses for young pupils ranging from introduction to coding, robotics, wheelchair design and creating alternative computer interfaces.

Twitter: @GiuliaBar86

After completing her first degree at the University of Oxford in 2000 and her CASE PhD studentship at the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxford and Napier University Edinburgh in 2017, Dr Ciric took up a postdoctoral position at the University College London Eastman Dental Institute. She has held a permanent academic position at the UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE) since 2012. Lena's research expertise lies in the application of molecular biology techniques to study the microbial communities that reside in the built environment, including hospitals, public buildings and water treatment facilities. Within this context, she also studies bacterial antibiotic resistance mechanisms and their modes of transfer between organisms. She is also involved in the discovery of novel antimicrobial strategies. Lena is the director of the Healthy Infrastructure Research Group at UCL CEGE . The group consists of eight researchers investigating the microbial communities within the built and managed environment and designs and tests engineering solutions that reduce the spread of infectious disease and improve environmental health. Lena is also the coordinator of the UCL AMR Network which brings together researchers from many disciplines to work together on AMR.

Twitter: @drlenaciric

Dr Anna Ploszajski is an award-winning materials scientist, engineer and communicator. By day, Anna is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Making, researching 4D printing and metamaterials. By night she communicates materials science on stage, on radio, on TV and on the page. In 2017 she was named Young Engineer of the Year by the Royal Academy of Engineering, and in 2018 won the Silver Medal from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.

In her spare time, Anna plays the trumpet in a funk and soul covers band and swam the English Channel in July 2018. Oh, and it’s pronounced “Por-shy-ski”.

Twitter: @AnnaPloszajski