Report on the 18th Conference
of the European Colloid and Interface Society
19-24 September,
2004 Almeria Spain
Eric Rideal Travel Bursar's Report by Dr Melanie Bradley
 The
Sir Eric Rideal Travel bursary I received was used to attend
the 18th Conference of the European Colloid and Interface Society
(ECIS) in September 2004. This was a five day conference that
covered eight topics. These were directly relevant to my research
and many of the talks and posters presented were informative.
I gave a talk titled 'The Uptake of PEO Molecules by Copolymer
Microgel Particles of NIPAM and Acrylic Acid', and I was fortunate
to give this presentation on the first day of the conference.
The attendance at this session was good and I found the opportunity
to deliver an oral presentation was a great exercise in communicating
directly to a wider scientific audience. The feedback including
comments and questions following my talk was generally useful
and provided me with the chance to elaborate on the key concepts
of my research. In particular I found the discussions that
followed on from my talk during the succeeding days at the
conference allowed me to meet and network with a variety of
eminent scientists crossing a range of disciplines.
Perhaps of greater benefit was the possibility I had to attend
talks/poster presentations by other delegates working in similar
areas, as this has directly impacted the course of my research
at Bristol. In fact the oral presentation I gave was work
conducted in collaboration with Jose Ramos, a PhD student
from the University del Pais Vasco San Sebastian, who spent
several months working at Bristol University. Meeting again
at the conference allowed us to discuss the outcomes of our
research and we have since submitted a paper on it.
Benjamin Sierra-Martin, a student from the University of
Almeria, also collaborated with our group at Bristol. He gave
an oral presentation outlining the work he conducted at Bristol
on 'The NMR Study of Pnipam Microgels Near the Volume Phase
Transition'. I found this presentation particularly enlightening,
having recently conducted similar NMR experiments, and his
interpretation and reasoning helped towards explaining observations
in my own system.
It was also an excellent conference to pursue future collaborations.
It was interesting to discuss Monte Carlo simulations being
conducted on gel systems with delegates from Lund University,
and the presentations on photo-responsive gels were particularly
fascinating. Work that has since followed on from this conference
is a project looking into photo-responsive microgel particles
that will be undertaken in our group at Bristol University.
In addition I had the rare chance to discuss my PhD work on
'Ultrasonic Initiation During Emulsion Polymerisation' with
a colleague from Australia who has recently started research
in this field.
Having lived in the UK less than two years, my attendance
at ECIS provided a perfect opportunity to gain insight into
the current research being undertaken in the colloid and interface
field within Europe, and the universities and institutes associated
with this research. This knowledge will inevitably be valuable
in my future research career.
Finally, it was a pleasure to visit Almerimar and Almeria
for the first time and swim in the Mediterranean Sea. Overall,
I found my attendance at ECIS a rewarding experience and I
would like to thank the Society for Chemical Industry and
members of the Sir Eric Rideal travel bursaries committee
for making my attendance at the meeting possible.
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