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The Friday Prof-ile: Richard Paul

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in Bioanalytical Chemistry, Richard Paul… 

Headshot of Richard Paul

Richard Paul

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?  

I’m a bioanalytical chemist and my particular focus is the study of biomarkers for forensic and medical applications. Essentially, I apply chemistry and instrumentation to solve problems. What I love most about this discipline of chemistry is the variety. I could be developing techniques for forensic casework, searching for traces of drugs in the environment, or using chemistry to contribute to the early detection of cancer – it can be very diverse!

What has been your career highlight to date?  

A couple of years ago I was asked to design and implement an analytical protocol that would be capable of detecting traces of psychoactive drug fumes in indoor air in UK prisons.

There have been increasing complaints from staff working in prisons of secondary exposure to psychoactive drug fumes, and our work is contributing to the evidence base on this issue.  The technical challenges the research presents are very significant. Drug fumes from smoking are diluted within the air of a large building, and so are at very low concentrations. There are also issues of thermal degradation, and complicated logistics of deploying the technology within prisons that have made the project exceptionally challenging.

Working with the various organisations involved on this complex, high pressure commission has been very rewarding.

What are you working on at the moment?  

I lead a project researching skin cancer metabolomics. We’ve developed a non-invasive technique to capture and identify volatile chemicals released from skin cancer sites. We’ve just completed a trial to assess the viability of the technique on cancer patients, and are now wading through the results. Developing and testing the technique was tricky, but the results are quite exciting. We’re seeing a lot of interesting biomarkers, some of which could be quite significant.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

I’d probably be an analytical chemist working in industry, but really nothing motivates me more than the variety and opportunities of the job as an academic.

What do you do to unwind? 

I’m fairly obsessed with guitars so if I’m not playing guitar, I’m reading about guitars. Music in general is important to me.

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth? 

If we’re talking about the town, then I’d say the beach. I’m not a local, so it still feels like a holiday destination sometimes! In terms of the university itself, I’d say the culture here and my colleagues across the faculty.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?  

The ability to control time and space. Surely the most useful on the superpower wish list!

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you? 

A 1959 Les Paul and a Marshall stack, plus some kind of everlasting power supply.

What advice would you give to your younger self? 

When opportunities present themselves, say yes.

Latest BU publication on academic writing

Guidance, international, open access, Publishing, writing

Today the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology published our latest paper on academic writing, under the title ‘The Art of the Editorial’. [1]  This editorial highlights the importance of writing and publishing editorials in scientific journal.  Writing editorials seems sometimes to be a dying art.  This is perhaps due to more and more online journals not publishing regular issues, but adding papers online as and when they have been reviewed, revised and accepted. This paper is co-authered by Bournemouth University’s Professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen, two of their four co-authors are also BU Visiting Faculty: Prof. Padam Simkhada based at the University of Huddersfield and Dr. Brijesh Sathian based in the Geriatric Medicine Department, Rumailah Hospital, Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar.  This paper is an Open Access publication.

This paper on the art of writing editorials follows on from a series of papers on a wide-range of aspects of academic writing and publishing by FHSS (Faculty of Health & Social Sciences) authors [2-18].  FHSS co-authors on aspects of academic writing include: Dr. Orlanda Harvey [2], Dr. Pramod Regmi [2-3,4,16], Prof. Vanora Hundley [1,3,5,6,12-14], Dr. Nirmal Aryal [3-4], and Dr. Shovita Dhakal Adhihari [4,16], Dr. Preeti Mahato [3,16].

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V, Sathian, B., Simkhada, P., Robinson, J., Banerjee, I. (2022) The Art of the Editorial Nepal J Epidemiol, 12(1): 1135–38.
  2. Harvey, O., van Teijlingen, A., Regmi, P.R., Ireland, J., Rijal, A., van Teijlingen, E.R. (2022) Co-authors, colleagues, and contributors: Complexities in collaboration and sharing lessons on academic writing Health Prospect 21(1):1-3.
  3. Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Hundley, V. with Shreesh, K. (2022) Writing and Publishing Academic Work, Kathmandu, Nepal: Himal Books
  4. van Teijlingen, E.R., Dhakal Adhikari, S., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, A., Aryal, N., Panday, S. (2021). Publishing, identifiers & metrics: Playing the numbers game. Health Prospect, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.3126/hprospect.v20i1.37391
  5. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, BD. (2013) Writing an Abstract for a Scientific Conference, Kathmandu Univ Med J 11(3): 262-65. http://www.kumj.com.np/issue/43/262-265.pdf
  6. van Teijlingen, E, Hundley, V. (2002) Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper, J Advanced Nurs 37(6): 506-11.
  7. Pitchforth, E, Porter M, Teijlingen van E, Keenan Forrest, K. (2005) Writing up & presenting qualitative research in family planning & reproductive health care, J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care 31(2): 132-135.
  8. van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada, PP, Rizyal A (2012) Submitting a paper to an academic peer-reviewed journal, where to start? (Guest Editorial) Health Renaissance 10(1): 1-4.
  9. van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada. PP, Simkhada, B, Ireland J. (2012) The long & winding road to publication, Nepal J Epidemiol 2(4): 213-215 http://nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/7093/6388
  10. Hundley, V, van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada, P (2013) Academic authorship: who, why and in what order? Health Renaissance 11(2):98-101 www.healthrenaissance.org.np/uploads/Download/vol-11-2/Page_99_101_Editorial.pdf
  11. Simkhada P, van Teijlingen E, Hundley V. (2013) Writing an academic paper for publication, Health Renaissance 11(1):1-5. www.healthrenaissance.org.np/uploads/Pp_1_5_Guest_Editorial.pdf
  12. van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal J Epidemiol 4(1): 344-347.
  13. van Teijlingen E., Hundley, V., Bick, D. (2014) Who should be an author on your academic paper? Midwifery 30: 385-386.
  14. Hall, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) The journal editor: friend or foe? Women & Birth 28(2): e26-e29.
  15. Sathian, B., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Roy, B, Banerjee, I. (2016) Grant writing for innovative medical research: Time to rethink. Med Sci 4(3):332-33.
  16. Adhikari, S. D., van Teijlingen, E. R., Regmi, P. R., Mahato, P., Simkhada, B., & Simkhada, P. P. (2020). The Presentation of Academic Self in The Digital Age: The Role of Electronic Databases. International J Soc Sci Management, 7(1), 38-41. https://doi.org/10.3126/ijssm.v7i1.27405
  17. Pradhan, AK, van Teijlingen, ER. (2017) Predatory publishing: a great concern for authors, Med Sci 5(4): 43.
  18. van Teijlingen, E (2004), Why I can’t get any academic writing done, Medical Sociol News 30(3): 62-63. britsoc.co.uk/media/26334/MSN_Nov_2004.pd

Keep getting lost? Maybe you grew up in a city

I am absolutely delighted to be part of the amazing Sea Hero Quest team. Sea Hero Quest is a game for mobile phones in which users solve navigation tasks. With more than 4 million contributors/players it is one of the largest citizen science projects ever. We  used Sea Hero Quest to analyse navigation performance of several hundred thousand participants. In this Nature paper – which came out today – we showed that people who grew up in rural areas have better spatial navigation skills that those raised in cities.

Follow the links below for more information about the paper and Sea Hero Quest:

Recruiting a PhD Studentship

PG research

The Doctoral College receive many queries from BU academics asking how to recruit a PhD studentship. They may have been successful in a bid that included costing for a PhD student, or believe they have a strong research project which would be suitable for a PhD student to undertake. They may even have been working with an external organisation who is excited to work with us and have offered the funding for a PhD student to undertake some research.

To assist academic colleagues in navigating the next steps for a studentship, we’ve created this helpful flow chart to show you the next steps. This flow chart will ask a few questions such as if you already have funding agreed (and where it is coming from), and even provides recommendations of what to do if you don’t have the full funding confirmed.

Your first point of contact will always be the PGR Admissions team or RDS Research Facilitator, who can provide further detail and assistance for you. We can advise on the studentship schemes BU runs internally, how to submit a proposal to the fees board if your project does not have full funding, and the additional steps such as the research contract that will need completing alongside colleagues in RDS and Legal Services.

If you have any further questions about PhD studentships at BU, please email us on PGRadmissions@bournemouth.ac.uk

Elsevier-UK Institutions Agreement

open access, Publishing, REF Subjects, writing

Elsevier and Jisc have established an agreement to enable continued reading access for UK researchers and to enable open access publishing. When publishing in eligible Elsevier journals, authors will be able to choose to publish open access at no additional cost to the author.

This agreement is effective until the end of December 2024.

This agreement supports corresponding authors affiliated with a Jisc participating institution (which BU is), regardless of the department in which they work.

Authors who publish under this agreement can:

  • Publish their peer-reviewed research open access in hybrid journals, at no charge to the author.
  • Publish their peer-reviewed research in fully gold open access journals at a discount on the list price APC.
  • Publish eligible articles in a wide variety of participating Elsevier journals across disciplines.
  • Rely on high-quality peer-review and experienced editorial support.

You can search for whether the intended journal falls under the agreement here.

Eligibility criteria

  • The author must be the submitting corresponding author affiliated with an eligible institution
  • Articles must have an acceptance date between 1.1.2022 and 31.12.2024

Instructions for corresponding authors

  • Once your article has been accepted for publication in a participating journal, you will receive an email containing a link to the “post-acceptance author journey”. Upon selecting your publishing options, your affiliation will be validated by your institution, and you will be informed if the APC will be covered by the agreement.
  • Upon publication, your final published open access article will be made freely available on ScienceDirect, the world’s largest publishing platform.

Other open access publishing options for authors

Authors can continue to choose to publish under the subscription model and self-archive their manuscript (Green Open Access) in line with Elsevier’s sharing policy.

Details of this agreement and others which BU holds with publishers such as Wiley and Springer, can be found here. Any queries, please contact openaccess@bournemouth.ac.uk

PGR Supervisory Lunchbites | Recruiting PGRs

PG research, Training

Hosted by the Doctoral College, these one hour online lunch bite sessions supplement the regular New and Established Supervisory Development Sessions and are aimed at all academic staff who are new to, or experienced at, supervising research degree students and are interested in expanding their knowledge of a specific aspect or process in research degree supervision.

Each session will be led by a senior academic who will introduce the topic, and staff will benefit from discussions aimed at sharing best practice from across BU. Bookings are arranged by Organisational Development.

This session is focused on identifying best practice in recruiting PGRs and exploring ways of ensuring you recruit the best candidates. This discussion will be led by Dr Sally Reynolds, FST.

Staff attending will: 

  • have gained additional knowledge of the best practice and challenges of recruiting PGRs
  • have gained additional knowledge of the relevant recruitment processes

Further details on the session as well as information on future lunchbite sessions can also be found on the staff intranet.

Date: Thursday 7 April 2022

Time: 13:00 – 14:00, Teams

To book a place on this session please complete the booking form.

Further details and future sessions can also be found on the Supervisory Development Lunchbite Sessions staff intranet page.

Rapid Response Research: Real-time Mass Grave Open Source Documenting in Ukraine

Awarded & submitted bids, BU Challenges, Fusion, student research

Reports of mass graves in the city of Mariupol, Ukraine, are emerging. Since the casualties are alleged to be civilians unlawfully killed as a result of armed conflict, international law demands protection to facilitate an effective investigation. Documenting and cataloguing mass graves is vital for protection and investigation measures to follow.

With the help of two BU LLM Public International Law students, over the next weeks, we will be conducting real-time open source documenting of mass graves. Our aim is to catalogue reporting on mass graves found in media outlets, civil society research, official statements. This will include gathering information on the recording of mass graves; the reporting on mass graves; information on victim numbers in mass graves; the protection of mass graves; alleged disturbances of mass graves and, where applicable, the investigation of mass graves.

Through this activity we will be producing an important repository with significant utility for BU’s ongoing research portfolio in the area of mass graves and missing persons but also in response to a call by the International Criminal Court’s Prosecutor Karim Khan. In a press release he stated that he is seeking

“the support of all States Parties and the international community as a whole as my Office sets about its investigations [into the alleged commission of crimes in Ukraine].  I will be calling for additional budgetary support, for voluntary contributions to support all our situations, and for the loan of gratis personnel. The importance and urgency of our mission is too serious to be held hostage to lack of means.” [Statement of 28 February 2022]

The project is funded through the Humanities & Law Department’s QR budget, and is led by Professor Melanie Klinkner, supported by Dr Jonathan Whittle.

 

 

 

Research process seminar. Dictionary-based computer-assisted text analysis. March 29th at 2pm on Zoom

You are warmly invited to this week’s research process seminar. Hosted by FMC but open to all staff and research students.

This week’s one captures the spirit of the seminar series in a nutshell: interdisciplinary, practical and accessible. Hopefully of interest to colleagues from across the university.

Dictionary-based computer-assisted text analysis – by Prof. Irene Pollach (Aarhus University)

Researchers often use all-purpose sentiment dictionaries compiled for other purposes to measure sentiment in their textual data. I will discuss the validity challenges associated with using all-purpose dictionaries to measure sentiment in texts, especially news texts. Further, I will present recommendations for applying all-purpose sentiment dictionaries with higher accuracy.

Tues 29th March 2-3pm on Zoom

https://bournemouth-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/9292103478?pwd=UzJnNTNQWDdTNldXdjNWUnlTR1cxUT09

Meeting ID: 929 210 3478

Passcode: rps!4fmc

Hope to see you there

Dan and Sae

 

 

Second WAN Wellness Retreat

Women's Academic Network

Tired? Harassed? Stressed, sore and stiff? In need of a bit of TLC and revitalisation in a relaxing collegial environment? You are reading the right BU Blog!

Following from our first retreat on the 8th Sept 2021, here is another opportunity for WAN members to enjoy the second of our bespoke WAN Wellness Retreats with our former convenor and in-house SportsBU yoga expert, Dr Melsia Tomlin- Kräftner.

So, what’s in store?

Melsia specialises in rehabilitative ChiRestore and Yoga for many injuries and debilitating health conditions, including stress relief. So come and join us for 3 hours and leave feeling a new woman! For more information go to: www.zenohmsphere.com

To join us on this complementary retreat email: ahamidi@bournemouth.ac.uk

Please bring a mat, a towel and a bottle of water. Leave the rest to Melsia!

Date:               6 April 2022.

Time:               9.00-13.00

Location:         Student Hall, Talbot House

If you are not a WAN member but are interested in becoming one, please email Dr Jo Mayoh jmayoh@bournemouth.ac.uk or Abier Hamidi ahamidi@bournemouth.ac.uk

Free Person Performing Exercise Stock Photo

The Friday Prof-ile: Janice Denegri-Knott

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

This week, we’re chatting with Professor in Consumer Culture & Behaviour, Janice Denegri-Knott… 

Black and white profile image of Janice Denegri-Knott

Janice Denegri-Knott

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?

My main research focus is the intersection between digital media and everyday living – in particular consumption. I have studied the role of platforms in stimulating desire for digital and material goods, and the value that people derive from their ongoing interactions with digital media.  In particular, I have been very keen to understand why there should be demand for digital goods and why people would form attachments to them – something that when I first began my studies, was deemed unorthodox, and even foolish. Throughout my career I have been a keen observer of transformations (positive and negative) happening at the very porous, or leaky, points of that intersection, where people and digital media come together.

My initial interest in the area came about as a result of an animated seminar I held with C&J students back in the early 2000s where we avidly discussed why somebody would ever buy a virtual chair that they couldn’t physically sit on.  From there on the examples became more extreme. Today, we have grown more accustomed to the idea that under certain conditions (uniqueness and scarcity), a digital piece of art like Pak’s ‘The Merge’ could have a transactional value of $91.8 million, or why 30,000 people across the world would want to pitch in together to buy it. Evidence of this shift abounds. Today, we have a vibrant market for Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) which have become very desirable investments. Just in the first four months of 2021 NFTs had been traded over 2 billion times, an increase of ten-fold from 2020.

What has been your career highlight to date?  

I am immensely proud of the many projects that I have carried out over the years in close collaboration with colleagues in the C&J Department in the Faculty of Media and Communication – Dr. Rebecca Jenkins, Dr. Chris Miles, Dr. Mel Gray, Dr. Sae Oshima and Stuart Armon.  We have delivered high impact research, supporting positive transformation in the promotion and media industries. In particular in areas to do with the monetisation of digital content (for ITV), and metrics to measure advertising effectiveness and rethinking recall and recognition as measures of attention. Of note is work undertaken for Exterion Media (now Global) and Transport for London (TfL) that helped Exterion Media secure a £2,000,000,000 contract to manage the TfL advertising estate, improved advertising effectiveness by format, location and time by 70%-80% and making advertising during travel journeys more relevant and enjoyable for 1,300,000,000 TfL users annually.

What are you working on at the moment?  

Right now I am working on two projects.  I am writing a couple of papers reporting findings from a British Academy/Leverhulme funded intergenerational study into the value parents, children and their grandparents ascribe to their digital possessions. Thanks to this study we have found that value is not wedded to meaning only – in terms of sentimental associations that remind people of loved ones or expresses aspects of their identity- as is the case for material possessions.  Value is also firmly rooted in affordances – what people anticipate their digital possession will enable them to achieve.  I am also working with a key player in the NFT market on a study of people’s desire for and attachment to NFTs across a diverse group of users.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

I would be working with food – possibly running a Peruvian restaurant with the help of my husband and daughters.

What do you do to unwind? 

Long walks, meditation, long distance calls with family and impromptu dances in my kitchen with my daughters.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?  

Tele-transportation, so that I could beam myself to Peru and back (where my parents and family live)

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you? 

My silk kaftan.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

To be less concerned in anticipating all that can be wrong with your research, and focus more on all that is good.