InTouch ASTON
ALUMNI MAGAZINE
2016
50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT Twitter’s swear words mapped by linguist Dr Jack Grieve
HOW TO MAKE A CHOCOLATE TEAPOT
ALUMNI PIG TALES -1-
PHARMA SCEPTIC JOE BUSH
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
22 Myths from Aston’s Underworld
08 The Year in Pictures
05 Alumni Pig Tales
02 News
CONTENTS 2016 – Alumni Magazine RESEARCH
COMMENT
IN PICTURES
16 Mapping Twitter’s
21 Pharma Sceptic: Joe Bush
13 The Big Alumni Reunion
Foulest Language 38 Virtual Reality Lab FEATURES 10 Meet the Exec:
44 In detail: Science under
REGULARS 05 Alumni Profile: Swine Dining 42 Where Are They Now?
the microscope 45 Cartoon: Colin
News from your classmates
Whittock’s Campus Life
the Vice-Chancellor takes stock 35 Aston’s new Medical School Editor: Dr Annette Rubery Fundraising Editor: Carol Fryer Cover photograph: Dr Jack Grieve by Richard Battye Design: Digitronix Print: Sterling
alumniinfo@aston.ac.uk
/AstonUniversityAlumni
@AstonAlumni
Aston Alumni Community
#ASTON50
10 Meet the Exec 32 How to... Make a Chocolate Teapot
28 The Reading Brain
WELCOME
A
warm welcome to the 2016 edition of Aston in Touch. This edition is a bittersweet one for me as I prepare to step down from my post at Aston next month. In the feature on page 10 I look back on the University’s achievements and ahead to my new role in the House of Lords, where I will be championing some of the causes that I hold dear. In February we were delighted to announce the appointment of Aston’s new Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alec Cameron, who comes to us from the University of Western Australia. I am sure he will work enthusiastically to promote Aston globally and to further strengthen its reputation as a leading university for business and enterprise (see page 2 for more details). It has been a remarkable ten years and I am delighted to tell you that Aston is in rude health. I am particularly proud of the work we do with students from low-income backgrounds – work that is set to continue with the launch of our new Medical School. We are also the fastest growing university in terms of undergraduate applications in the UK; this shows that we are doing something right. There is much more news inside, including a report of The Big Alumni Reunion weekend, when we welcomed over 1,200 people back to campus (p. 13) and the launch of our brand new Pioneers for Change Campaign (p. 34). Please do keep your stories, comments and feedback coming, we always love to hear from you. Best wishes,
The Baroness Brown of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive
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WELCOME
NEWS
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
Aston’s MBA named one of the world’s best Aston Business School's triple-accredited MBA has been ranked amongst the top MBAs in the world by CEO Magazine. The monthly business magazine for high-level executives is read by 130,000 people across Europe and has been showcasing top business schools from around the globe since it first launched in 2008. In 2012 the publication launched its annual Global MBA Rankings, profiling MBA, EMBA and Online MBA programmes. This year CEO Magazine received a record number of responses from business schools across the UK, Europe, North America and Australia.
New Vice-Chancellor appointed Professor Alec Cameron will succeed Professor Julia King, the Baroness Brown of Cambridge, next month as Vice-Chancellor of Aston University. Professor Cameron was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Education, at the University of Western Australia in 2013, where he has been responsible for the University’s education mission, the UWA student experience, the provision of academic support services, as well as distance learning and online strategies. Prior to this he was the foundation Dean of the Australian School of Business at UNSW Australia and President of the Australian Business Deans Council. He has also held senior positions in the IT and Telecoms industries, including Sun Microsystems, Alcatel and Telstra. Professor Cameron said: “I feel privileged at being given the opportunity to lead Aston University at a time of success, and to evolve the distinctive Aston strategy in a rapidly-changing environment driven by internationalisation, technology and deregulation. Aston is experiencing record numbers of students, best ever levels of student satisfaction, and is growing its research funding base. I look forward to continuing the momentum built up by Baroness Brown, and I am ambitious to see Aston progress globally in research, teaching and business engagement, accompanied by a continued rise in the rankings.”
Student’s search engine wins major award A new ‘intelligent search engine’ created by an Aston student to answer specific questions with relevant and in-depth responses has won a major business award. Nazmul Hussain, a PhD student in Aston’s Computer Science Research Group, was named a Santander Creative Thinker and awarded £5,000 by the Santander Big Ideas competition for his invention. The competition was set up by the bank to identify transformative ideas to overcome key technological issues and bring innovation to the financial industry. Participants this year were challenged to provide solutions to certain problems surrounding virtual banking, digital authentication and the future of search engines.
Aston ranked in top 30 of UK universities Aston has been ranked 29th out of 127 UK universities in The Complete University Guide 2017, with three of its subject areas (Ophthalmics; Aural and Oral Sciences; Pharmacology and Pharmacy) rated top ten in the country. Its student satisfaction level was also ranked highly, scoring 4.17 out of five, placing Aston University joint 16th in the UK. The University is also in the top ten for the number of students obtaining 1st and 2:1 degrees (9th) and has scored highly for its degree completion rate, with a ranking of 18th in the country. Aston is renowned for its graduate employability success and this is confirmed by The Complete University Guide with a top 25 position. -2-
NEWS
Aston linguist helps to develop new draft law
50th Anniversary medal awarded In the summer of 2015 Aston University launched a design competition with Year 12 Product Design students from the University’s Engineering Academy. The brief was to design a commemorative medal to celebrate Aston’s 50th anniversary; it would be used to recognise achievements throughout the 50th year and beyond. The winning design (pictured, above) was by Alex Flanagan, aged 17, who incorporated features from Aston’s coat of arms, including the laurel leaves and torch. In June 2016, winners of the Aston Achievement Award received their medals at a special reception, while all 22 recipients of the University’s prestigious 50th Anniversary Chairs received theirs at the annual Charter Dinner.
Rewarding children with food could lead to comfort eating Research conducted by Dr Claire Farrow of Aston University in conjunction with colleagues at Loughborough and Birmingham universities has found that parents who use overly controlling feeding practices with their children, such as using food as a reward or a treat, could unintentionally be teaching them comfort eating. The study looked at different feeding practices used with children aged three to five, with follow-ups between the ages of five and seven. The researchers assessed how likely the five-to-seven-year-olds were to eat snack foods, or play with toys, when they were not hungry but were mildly stressed. The results showed that children were much more likely to emotionally eat if their parents had reported using food as a reward or had been controlling with food.
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An MP calling for forensic linguistic practitioners and techniques to have even greater legitimacy when used in court cases publicly thanked an Aston academic in Parliament for his role in developing a new draft law. Roger Mullin MP, who proposed the draft Bill to create an approved register of high quality forensic linguistic experts and methods, singled out Professor Tim Grant for praise while delivering a speech in the House of Commons. While the draft law was being written, Professor Grant, Director of the Centre for Forensic Linguistics (CFL) at Aston University, was consulted at length. He made several contributions to the Bill and helped to provide examples of where forensic linguistics have been successfully applied in real cases.
School of Pharmacy receives Royal honour Aston University’s School of Pharmacy has been awarded a prestigious Regius Professorship by the Queen – the first pharmacy school ever to be honoured in this way. Aston is one of 12 British institutions to have been recognised as part of the Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations. The award, which was traditionally created when a university chair was founded or endowed by a Royal patron, is rare and reflects the high standards of teaching and research at Aston. The professorships were conferred following advice from ministers and consideration by a panel of business and academic experts. The first holder of the title, which was officially agreed by the ViceChancellor at the University’s 50th anniversary Charter Dinner, is Keith Wilson, who has helped to shape current and future pharmacy education both in the UK and internationally.
NEWS
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
Aston Graduates’ Association
AGA NEWS As usual members of AGA have been out and about during the last year. In September 2015 we toured the newly refurbished Wedgwood visitor centre and museum in Stoke-on-Trent and were shown the processes used to make this world famous pottery. October saw a group tour the Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens close to Spaghetti Junction. It seems that this was, at one time, a proposed site for Aston student accommodation. A most interesting and historic place, and, considering the time of year we visited, there was a wealth of colour in these beautiful, formal gardens.
Details of AGA events and an application form to join are available at www.astongraduates.org.uk The subscription is £5 per year.
In December Professor Carol Holland and Claire George explained the research being carried out in the Department of Audiology. Afterwards, over a sandwich lunch, we were able to record stories of our time spent at Suffolk Street Technical College (the forerunner of Aston) and the early days at Gosta Green.
martin276@btinternet.com
For further information about any event, please contact Jenny Martin +44 (0)1564 777 185
We celebrated Chinese New Year at a well-known Chinese restaurant in February with a banquet. In March we took a guided tour of Lichfield Cathedral on a beautiful spring day when the recently cleaned stained glass windows showed to their best advantage. The guide carefully explained the significance and history of many of the treasures held here. In May members visited Stratford-upon-Avon for a guided tour of the backstage area at The Other Place, and in July we took part in the annual Pétanque match against Hints village. In addition, as part of the University’s 50th celebrations, AGA sponsored an art exhibition to coincide with the anniversary with prizes for painting, photography and computer-generated art. -4-
Credit: Lichfield Cathedral stained glass window photo, Ron Ellis / Shutterstock.com
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SWINE DINING Annette Rubery meets two Aston alumni who have put some flavour (and fun) into the humble pork scratching. Vegetarians, look away now. The Snaffling Pig Co. has a very clear mission – to take the pork scratching to a place it’s never been before. “We believe that glorious things happen when you embrace your carnivorous side,” announces the company’s smart-looking website. By embracing their carnivorous
sides, Nick Coleman (CH Public Policy and Management/Business Administration) and Andy Allen (BSc Industrial Product Design) have not only given the oldfashioned Black Country snack a new lease of life but have created a unique business that looks set to expand into new areas.
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ALUMNI PROFILE
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
The initial aim, they insist, was not to make the pork scratching posh but to explore some of its natural potential. “The pork scratching is a much more versatile product than people give it credit for,” explains Andy (pictured, right). “It’s always been the same old thing – a hard product in a plastic bag but we have tried to move it to different places.”
Photograph: Helen Atkinson / Yellow Snapper
Admittedly, some of those places have been hipster bars selling craft beers, but the product is also available online and even has its own gift range. As a result, The Snaffling Pig Co. has quickly moved from a side-project to the pair’s main concern. But how did the friends, who graduated together in 2004, get the idea in the first place? Says Nick: “I started another business six years ago called Medical Supermarket which sells everything a GP surgery would ever need to buy. Two years ago my business partner, Udhi, and I set ourselves a challenge to each take £500 and start a new business, with the first one to reach a £1m turnover winning a slap-up dinner. I had the idea, the infrastructure and the experience, I just didn't have the right branding, which is where Andy came in. His knowledge and experience was exactly what I needed so I suggested he came on-board. Fast forward two years and Andy, Udhi and I have eight staff and over 600 customers and I’m only a few months away from that dinner!” “I must admit,” adds Andy, “when he first called me, I was in the middle of a client meeting. My reaction was: ‘Right… really?!’ After a few months Nick had got a manufacturer so I said I’d have a proper look at the branding side and the marketing opportunity. Pork scratchings are something I love; I’ve got abiding memories as a kid of going down to the old [Birmingham] Bull Ring and getting a bag of scratchings from the market. It was a passion project and an opportunity for me to write copy and get into the creative direction side of things.”
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Instead of bags, these little piggies went to market in Kilner jars”
The product is made in Walsall (the “spiritual home of the pork scratching” insists Andy) by a family who have made scratchings out of the back of their butchers’ shop in the traditional way for generations. It’s a simple foodstuff, so the quality of the ingredients are paramount. But what really pushed the product into new realms was the use of flavours and novel formats. Instead of bags, these little piggies went to market in Kilner jars – a decision that was taken largely because foil was too expensive for the new business. The jars have had the additional advantage of appealing to high-end pubs and bars and this has, in turn, helped The Snaffling Pig Co. to reposition the snack as a premium product (the jars are also reusable). Apart from selling to pubs, they also supply the likes of Selfridges and Fenwick, and now that the business has grown they can also afford to offer foil packs.
we needed something big and bold,” says Andy. “Pork snacks are not subtle. So we’ve done some classic things – salt and vinegar, which no one had ever done before, and habanero chilli and barbecue. We do something close to a regular flavour, which we call perfectly salted, and we also do black pepper and sea salt, which is a bit different and a good way of stepping into new things. After that we started to go a bit crazy. We did sweet chilli; fennel; and we’ve done the first ever sweet version – a maple.” Wait, a sweet pork scratching? “It’s sweet but still salty so it will work with a pint,” says Andy reassuringly. “And then we did a really crazy thing; we did a superspicy job which we call the Pig of Doom. That’s made with ghost chilli – one of the hottest chillis
But perhaps the greatest innovation has been in the range of flavours. “When we decided to do flavours we agreed -6-
ALUMNI PROFILE
For more information about The Snaffling Pig Co. visit www.snafflingpig.co.uk
in the world. Pubs tend to have it on the bar as a bit of a challenge. It taps into that Man v. Food thing.” The Pig of Doom – which started out as a bit of theatre for potential clients during sampling – proved so popular that The Snaffling Pig Co. added it to their repertoire and it has since inspired a hot sauce. This, says Andy, is currently being sold as part of a gift bundle but will soon be rolled out as a separate product. “It’s ridiculously hot,” he chuckles, “When we season the scratchings, the staff have to wear masks and gloves.” The macho approach has not done them any harm. They were delighted, for example, to pair with www.notonthehighstreet.com who saw their pork scratchings as a potential Fathers’ Day present. Last year they were the website’s fastest-growing food-and-drink partner. “We would never position
pork scratchings as a male-specific gift,” Andy says firmly, “but let’s be honest, it does solve a few problems. We’d like to think we offer a more exciting alternative to socks.” The success of the venture has taken them both by surprise. Andy says that, although he didn’t follow the trajectory of his degree and go into product design, he learnt a lot at Aston. His experience with the Guild of Students was hugely influential and helped him to form important friendships, not least with Nick, who was a fellow Sabbatical Officer. Nick also credits his involvement with the Guild as a significant period of his life, helping him to take the lessons learnt on his degree and apply them to a real business. “That role [Guild Vice-President] was a safe environment for me to push the boundaries of my ability,” Nick explains. “I made a lot of mistakes -7-
but I learnt quickly. I was proud to be instrumental in helping the Guild to receive a large donation to redevelop the third floor. I tried to start a number of businesses at university, all of which failed as quickly as they started, but that’s part of the experience. I remember going from flat to flat selling orange juice but my costs were wrong and I was selling them cheaper than it cost me to make! Aston’s campus and passion for business is a great environment for budding entrepreneurs to give something a punt.” When it comes to pub snacks, the gamble has paid off. Whether the pair have turned the humble scratching posh is a matter for debate and bad jokes (have they made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?) But with plans to expand the brand, The Snaffling Pig Co. clearly has a lot of scope… and Nick will doubtless enjoy his dinner.
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
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— The Year —
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IN PICTURES
07
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06
IN PICTURES
01. The Paternosters
06. Walking on custard
To mark the University’s 50th anniversary, a wall was removed in front of the paternoster lift system and a glass viewing panel installed along with lighting and a permanent exhibition.
She may not be able to walk on water, but Pharmacy’s Professor Yvonne Perrie did walk on custard at The Big Alumni Reunion (see pp. 13-15).
02. Gazing in at Gazing Out
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In January Professor Tim Meese gave his inaugural lecture, explaining how visual psychophysicists match observations with theory to understand how the universe came about.
03. The Bernard Gilmartin Scholarship
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Parminder Randhawa was the proud recipient, in March, of The Bernard Gilmartin Scholarship. The fund (presented by Professor Gilmartin) enables outstanding students to speak at international conferences.
04. March graduation Alumnae Adeela Iqbal (left) and Sofia Bibi posed for the camera after graduating at Birmingham Town Hall. Both were awarded an MSc in Human Resource Management and Business.
05. Alumni networking in Florida In April the Vice-Chancellor, Julia King DBE, Professor the Baroness Brown of Cambridge (standing second from left), joined alumni in Orlando, Florida, for drinks and networking.
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07. Sporting Memories competition winner In April Gavin Ward (Geology/ Physics 1988, pictured in his Cobras shirt) visited campus and collected his award, presented by Isla Featherstone-Clark (Vice President of Student Activities).
08. Saturday Night Feiger Executive Dean of Aston Business School, Professor George Feiger, made a sartorial statement at April’s 50th anniversary Gala Dinner with his studded biker’s jacket.
09. 50th Anniversary cake-cutting On April 22nd 2016 we celebrated 50 years since Aston became a university with a cake-cutting ceremony led by Provost and Deputy ViceChancellor, Professor Helen Higson.
10. BSc Mechanical Engineering class of ‘83 reunion Engineering alumni met for lunch and a pint in April. Pictured: Nigel Watts, Gary Tomlinson, Graham Vanhouse, Phil Higgs, Charles Bott, Mike Wood, Steve Buckle, Ian Bolton, Derek Connolly, Iain Cran and Paul Shuffleton.
MEET THE EXEC
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
MEET THE EXEC Julia King DBE FREng, Professor the Baroness Brown of Cambridge The departing Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive looks at what’s changed during her time at Aston, and considers what’s next.
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MEET THE EXEC
Brain Centre and our Centre for Forensic Linguistics. It would have been nice to have got to the stage where there were three or four of these in every School. However, we have grown – especially our European research income – which is one of the reasons why staying in Europe was very important to us. That has enabled us to do some high-impact research as well as to bring some excellent young researchers here through the Marie Curie schemes. I looked at research income over the ten years I’ve been here and it’s increased by 400 per cent, so we haven’t done badly, but it’s still not as big as I would like it to be.
AiT: Many alumni have commented on the transformation of our campus during your tenure. Apart from the campus, what other big changes will you remember from you time here? JK: We’ve grown a lot. When I arrived we were still suffering from the reduction of the University by a third in the early-to-mid 1980s and because of the student number control we never really managed to grow out of that again. By improving our league table position, publicising the benefit of placements and raising our profile, as well as by becoming a real leader in degree apprenticeships, we have grown fast, particularly in the last five years. I think there’s more growing to do, especially staff numbers, but it’s great to be in a position to recruit distinguished academics as well as to be able to give so many opportunities to people starting out on their academic careers as new lecturers.
AiT: You have worked both for big business, including executive roles at Rolls-Royce, and you have worked in academia. What do you think universities can learn from the business world? JK: I think we’re going to have to accept that management of the university on business lines is needed; that you can’t just operate through layers of voting and committees and be world-class today. Universities that can make decisions quickly are more likely to be amongst the winners in this more competitive environment. Academia is different to industry; when you join a company you’re expecting to be part of how that company is run and organised, and I don’t think that’s been the case, historically, for academics. Things are changing and we have to work hard at the trust. But we also have an obligation to students to ensure that they get the very best quality that we can deliver. We must do things in as cost-effective a way as possible, ensuring that we don’t repeat tasks and that we’re delivering data efficiently to places where it’s needed. There’s a lot of management needed to make sure that all runs smoothly.
AiT: Philanthropy is clearly important to you, as you have given over £100,000 to the University personally since your appointment. What impact do you see philanthropy making on Aston? JK: We’ve started to bring in some significant sums of money, making a real difference to student support and also to some of our research projects like EnergyHarvest: our work with pyrolysis and gasification in India. Fundraising is becoming something that everyone across the University understands the benefits of because they’re starting to see it – the impact of the fundraising we’ve been able to do in connection with Aston Medical School, to enable us to recruit medical students from disadvantaged backgrounds, is very exciting and I think it’s helping to make academics see why we have to do this. They now understand why they would want to get involved and why this will make a real difference.
AiT: Why do you think there are still so few female ViceChancellors in UK universities? Should I even be using that term?
AiT: Is there anything that you wanted to tackle but felt you couldn’t because of time constraints? JK: I feel I hand over things as a work-in-progress – that was always going to be the case. I would have liked to have grown a larger number of research areas. We have some world-leading research – as the REF (Research Excellence Framework) results show – in every one of our Schools, but I would have liked to be able to point to more. The Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies is one of our jewels in the crown, as is The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme, the Aston
JK: I don’t have a problem with the term. Women make up 51 per cent of the population; until you get 51 per cent of the representation in all of these senior and wellpaid roles, then actually we should be flagging up that we’re a minority. One of the things I find surprising is that, whereas in industry everybody wants to be the boss, very few people do in academia. But it’s hard for people to make the decision to go for a leadership role
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MEET THE EXEC
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
which will take them out of being a top-end researcher. You need to have the confidence that you’re going to be able to do things on a government/public/business stage – advising and influencing – rather than the hands-on research. But again, why don’t women want to do that? I think academia has for quite a long time been kidding itself that it was a very equal place to work, but we’re now beginning to understand that academia has exactly the same problems as industry and business. AiT: Congratulations on your elevation this year to the House of Lords. Can you please tell us about your role? JK: I’m very much an apprentice Peer at the moment – I’m still finding my way around the building! I’m looking to play a strong part where there are things in my areas of interest, so higher education; on areas of climate change; on developing a low-carbon economy; on the shortage of engineers; on manufacturing. I’m looking forward to getting stuck in, supporting legislation and asking questions on those kinds of topics. That will really get going when I leave Aston.
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Aston is very much a place on the up – and it hasn’t got as far as it can yet. It’s been great to start to achieve that and I shall look with great pride as someone else takes the next steps.”
AiT:
What will you miss most about Aston?
JK: I shall miss the people. I shall miss seeing the campus develop. The recent refurbishment of the staircase, for example, has given the Main Building a sense of proportion and grandeur. I remember when we opened the refurbishment of the first half of the Library, it was great seeing the students in there, enjoying the different environment. I will always be happy to be involved with Aston, but I do need to keep out of my successor’s way, especially whilst he gets established. Aston is very much a place on the up – and it hasn’t got as far as it can yet. It’s been great to start to achieve that and I shall look with great pride as someone else takes the next steps.
The Baroness Brown of Cambridge is succeeded as Vice-Chancellor next month by Professor Alec Cameron (see News, p. 2).
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THE BIG REUNION
The Big Alumni Reunion How do you celebrate a milestone like a 50th anniversary? We hosted a two-day party on campus under the banner of “Astonishing Aston, Transforming Lives”. The Big Alumni Reunion was held across the weekend of April 23rd and 24th 2016 and was attended by over 1,200 alumni, students, staff and friends of the University. The celebrations officially kicked off with a cake-cutting ceremony on Friday April 22nd, marking the anniversary of the awarding of the Royal Charter. The following day we threw open our doors to visitors, offering a range of talks, tours and workshops with the intention of showcasing our campus and our forward-thinking academic research. On Sunday we held an Aston Family Day, complete with science demos, a circus-skills workshop by CircusMash and announcements by our own alumni town-crier, Kevin Ward (Physics, 1976). It was busy on our social networks too, with plenty of memories, selfies, reflections and congratulations. Thank you to all who visited and who wished us well. If you didn’t get the opportunity to take part, the celebrations continue until the end of 2016 with special lectures and events.
For more details see our website www.aston.ac.uk/alumni/events/ - 13 -
THE BIG REUNION
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
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THE BIG REUNION
The story behind the tweet 140 characters explained in 140 words The tweet: @AstonUniversity impressive marquee for #Aston50 viewed from my son’s room – following in his mother’s footsteps! Helen Oakes @Ladyh13Helen
Photography: Huw Meredith.
The story: Helen Oakes did a Combined Honours in Business Administration / Society and Government at Aston (1989-1992). Her son is currently at Aston Business School studying Business and Management. “All he knew about university was that he wanted a city-centre location,” she explains. “I knew straight away he would like Aston. I tried very hard on the two Open Days we attended not to keep gushing about everything! Out of the five universities he visited, Aston was the only one he wanted to go to. I lived in Lawrence Tower and then Stafford Tower and worked in the bar and restaurant in the top of the Vauxhall Dining Centre, so I love visiting him in his accommodation and seeing how everything has changed. I have such fond memories of Aston and visiting him makes me want to do it all over again.”
Cartoons: Two Viz Think Ltd.
Follow @AstonAlumni on Twitter.
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COVER STORY
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
MAPPING TWITTER’S FOULEST LANGUAGE Forensic Linguist Dr Jack Grieve is using geo-tagged data from Twitter to analyse swearing on both sides of the Atlantic.
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RESEARCH
D
r Jack Grieve types a word into his computer and points to a heat-map of the United States. “Talking about swearing makes sense on Twitter because it’s really informal,” he says. “If you wanted to look at the use of scientific vocabulary, for example, Twitter would probably not be the right place for it. If you want to look at swearing and newword slang creation it makes sense, right?” Can something positive come out of Twitter’s enormous scope for foul language? Surprisingly, yes. A Senior Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics at Aston University, Dr Grieve has been working on a unique data-mining project – supported by ESRC and AHRC via Digging into Data – which maps words using Twitter’s gigantic corpus of geo-tagged tweets. In the process he has created a free app, Word Mapper, which reveals regional patterns across the United States. Work on mapping British data is also underway and his techniques are proving fruitful in other work supporting the police with profiling suspects in murder and paedophile cases.
Photography: Richard Battye - 17 -
COVER STORY
Nevertheless, the media focus has – predictably enough – been on swear words. His Twitter project has not only attracted the attention of linguistics bloggers, but he has appeared in the Huffington Post, The Independent, Daily Mail, The Guardian and countless other media outlets; he has been invited to get involved in the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year and has been asked to write a book on swearing (the latter is unlikely, he says, however he has recently published Regional Variation in Written American English – the first study of its kind). How did he get the idea to look at swear words in the first place? “We have another project where we map the top 10,000 words in American-English. My post-doctoral student was looking at it and he said ‘These swear words are new’, so I posted the maps on Twitter and people seemed to love them.” It’s not often that academic research goes viral, but despite its playfulness, Dr Grieve’s project is underpinned by some serious challenges. The biggest was wrangling such a large amount of data. As he explains, it was the first time in his career that he couldn’t use a standard PC to handle the data but had to start using servers and thinking in terms of parallel processing. Digging into Data – a scheme that supports international data-mining projects in the social sciences – funded the servers and the dataset was built by a data-mining geographer at the University of South Carolina. Although data-driven linguistics is not a new thing, the use of Twitter, which provides access to ten billion geo-coded words drawn from about one billion tweets, is relatively novel and is in stark contrast to the traditional methods such as conducting interviews or running surveys. There have been criticisms – such as the fact that Twitter’s user-base is not representative or that Twitter does not help to analyse the spoken vernacular – but Dr Grieve takes a phlegmatic attitude to these points. “I’m a corpus linguist and come from a different tradition,” he explains, “I would argue there is no such thing as the spoken vernacular, there are all sorts of different types of speech, all sorts of different types of writing, and Twitter is pretty informal in many ways. Yes, we are looking at Twitter but
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
Map showing relative frequency of the use of “And” in different areas of the USA
“ Twitter has a demographic profile and we’re analysing Twitter – we’re not generalising directly past it.
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we’re doing that because it’s the only thing that gives us this much data. I’d be happy to work with a ten billion corpus of conversations, but that doesn’t exist. In the American dataset from 2015 we got 20 million different user accounts – some of them will be duplicate accounts, but that’s the size of Canada! There are 320 million people in the US so 20 million is not a bad sample. And Twitter isn’t as skewed as people might think. It’s obviously skewed towards young people and towards African-Americans, but it is what it is. Twitter has a demographic profile and we’re analysing Twitter – we’re not generalising directly past it. Having said that, though, I think the patterns are broadly true, but nobody knows for sure because this is the first time we’ve had this kind of data.” As Dr Grieve types more examples into Word Mapper, it is clear that looking up swear words is in fact the least of the software’s capabilities. A search for the word “but” and a search for the word “and” create almost complimentary heat-maps of the US: an intriguing result for which Dr Grieve has yet to explain (see above). He has also discovered cultural patterns, such as more talk about family on the East Coast compared to more about work and travel on the West Coast. Another
RESEARCH
Map showing relative frequency of the use of “But” in different areas of the USA
interesting outcome has been the difference between African-American English and white American English. “Clearly AfricanAmerican is, if not the main source for new words, the single biggest source of lexical innovations. That’s not entirely surprising when you think of things like hip-hop, which is very influential,” he adds. But the real benefits of the project have been how this Big Data approach can be applied in a forensic linguistics context. As part of his work at Aston’s Centre for Forensic Linguistics, Dr Grieve is involved in supporting police investigations by analysing a range of written texts – from emails to social media posts – to prove authorship or gain clues about a suspect’s background. One area where his digital mapping may be valuable is in identifying participants in paedophile rings, where written conversations form a large bulk of the evidence. He is also starting to look at British data for the first time to see if he can develop methods of geographical profiling.
like those authorship problems when the police give us three authors and ask ‘Which one wrote this text?’ most times it’s not like that. It’s more likely that we will get a text and be asked what we can tell about the person who wrote it. We can make guesses on education; gender is very hard to guess. But the geographical data really helps. You can see how we could map words using this technology and get some very strong evidence.”
For access to Word Mapper visit https://isogloss.shinyapps.io/isogloss/.
For more maps and languagerelated tweets follow @JWGrieve.
“It seems to me that Brits are tweeting a bit more than Americans. I was a little bit worried that we would not have enough data for Britain but we have a lot, so the outcome should be really strong. Although we really - 19 -
Regional Variation in Written American English is published by Cambridge University Press and is available now.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND ...
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
WALKING BOOTS In 1966 Aston was granted university status, England won the World Cup and miniskirts gained popularity. It was also the same year that Nancy Sinatra released These Boots Are Made for Walkin’. The song was popular upon release and has remained part of our cultural zeitgeist ever since, covered by artists as eclectic as Boy George, Geri Halliwell and The Muppet Show’s Swedish Chef.
I
n the song’s main refrain, Nancy repeatedly states that her ‘boots are made for walking and that’s just what they’ll do’. When watching the original video, one assumes that the boots Nancy sings about are the knee-high, heeled, leather boots that she wears. Although fashionable, these are not the boots made for walking that I envision. Instead I picture laced walking boots with a flat and durable sole specifically made for walking long distances over difficult terrain. Shoes are not a recent invention and studies of human fossils from 40,000 years ago show a weakening of the little toe, indicating the advent of shoe wearing. The oldest shoe that we currently know of has been dated as 7,000 years old and was designed purely for protective purposes. In the intervening years, as society has become more complex, the shoes that we wear have developed in complexity too, functioning as indicators of status, fashion and cultural beliefs. Over the past few decades, developments in material and sport science have yielded shoes that are far lighter and more comfortable. Research into biomechanics – the study of human movement – began to heavily influence footwear
design in the 1970s and innovated cushioning systems in athletic shoes. These advancements fed into the design of walking boots and today’s generation of boots offer many different cushioning systems that include orthopaedic foam insoles, honeycomb lattices of impact-resistant polymer films, and gel cushioning. Directly comparing Nancy’s boot with a classic walking boot, the most striking differences is in the sole. Nancy’s heeled boot features a thin and smooth sole, whereas walking boots’ are much thicker and grooved. Walking boot soles are often made from thick rubber or thermoplastic rubber, a form of synthetic rubber, with many deep groves. When designing the boot, manufacturers need to make the groove deep enough for traction in wet or muddy terrain but sufficiently shallow to be stable in rocky environments. Being waterproof and breathable is important for a walking boot and whilst Nancy’s leather boots are probably waterproof, they definitely won’t be breathable. Use of materials such as Gore-Tex allows a walking boot to have both of these qualities. Gore-Tex is found in almost every walking boot and is made out of an exceptionally thin - 20 -
layer of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) which has over a billion holes per cm2 and prevents water and wind getting into the shoe but allows sweat to escape in the form of moisture vapour. The boots that Nancy wears in the video and declares to have been ‘made for walking’ were not suited to walking long distances or over rough terrain in 1966, and still may not be 50 years on, but in the intervening half-century there has been a wealth of development in science to result in boots that are definitely made for walking – and walking in comfort.
Abigail Skinner graduated from Aston University in 2014 with a BSc in Human Biology and is currently studying for an MSc in Science Communication at Imperial College London.
You can read her blog at www.abigail-skinner.weebly.com and follow her on Twitter @abigail_skinner.
PHARMA SCEPTIC
A DOSE OF REALISM In our era of healthcare transparency, there’s no place for the prescribing of placebos argues Dr Joseph Bush. Dictionary.com defines a placebo as “a substance having no pharmacological effect but given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine”. The placebo is somewhat fixed in the public consciousness as the dummy ‘sugar pills’ which are used in clinical trials to assess the effectiveness of ‘active’ medicines. But the placebo effect - that is the therapeutically beneficial response generated from a pharmacologically inert dosage form - is much more interesting and prevalent than people commonly believe. To address one popular misconception, people sometimes assume that the placebo effect is tantamount to zero effect but this is not the case. All medicines (and even nonmedicines; more of which later) produce a placebo response. This is why new treatments are commonly tested against placebos - to provide an assessment of the response to the new treatment in excess of the placebo effect (for what it’s worth, many more new medicines should be tested against the ‘current best’ medicine rather than placebo but that’s a discussion for another day).
A large number of well-controlled clinical trials have established that homeopathy performs no better than placebo. Homeopathic pills are simply sugar pills which are devoid of any active pharmacological ingredient so this is unsurprising. Some people who take homeopathy report that it makes them ‘feel better’ - this is the placebo effect in action and this placebo response is maximised by the amount of time that homeopaths make themselves available for (typical homeopathic consultations can last up to an hour, and cost lots of money, whereas most GP appointments are about ten minutes in duration and are free to NHS patients). Building a rapport allied to in-depth discussion of all the factors that might be impacting on an individual’s health status leads to the development of trust between prescriber and patient which encourages a patient to believe in the efficacy of the product prescribed.
For more comment follow @josephbush on Twitter
Placebo has cultural meaning too. For example, two placebo sugar pills are more effective than one placebo sugar pill, red sugar pills are more effective than blue sugar pills, and fancy-looking branded tablets are more effective than identical unbranded tablets. This may go some way to explaining the enduring popularity of Nurofen (£2.49 for a pack of 16 tablets each containing 200 mg of ibuprofen) in the face of competition from much cheaper generic rivals (35p for a pack of 16 tablets each containing 200 mg of ibuprofen). Despite the inner rage felt by all pharmacists when we are unable to persuade a client to purchase the cheaper generic alternative, it is not entirely irrational to believe that the branded product is more effective than the unbranded equivalent.
GPs too could maximise the placebo response to the medicines that they prescribe. All they would need to do was offer one hour appointments. I’m not a GP but I can see no plausible reasons why this isn’t possible (aside from the chronic lack of funding, the sheer volume of patients they need to see on a daily basis, the increasing levels of burnout within the profession etc. etc.). Should GPs prescribe placebo pills to the worried well in self-limiting conditions? While this would no doubt improve their ‘Friends and Family’ score, this proposal has two major flaws - ‘self-limiting conditions’, by definition, will disappear of their own accord so no treatment (aside from, perhaps, some symptomatic relief) is necessary and, more troublingly, it would necessitate GPs lying to their patients about the effectiveness of the placebo pill they prescribed.
The crux of the placebo effect lies in the bit of the definition which says “who supposes it to be a medicine”. If you were honest with the patient and told them that you were giving them an ineffective sugar pill then there would be no placebo response. In the age of shared decision-making and informed consent, that cannot be an acceptable approach. Dr Joseph Bush is a Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice and Director of the MPharm Programme at Aston. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of Aston University or its School of Pharmacy.
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ASTON UNDERWORLD
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
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ASTON UNDERWORLD
Tuck checks “ Colin my feet for high heels.
Satisfied I’m sensibly shod, he looks around our small group and asks: “Before we start, does anyone suffer from claustrophobia?” Is there are nuclear bunker under the Main Building? Can you get to the Town Hall through subterranean tunnels? Annette Rubery explores the strange world of Aston’s basement.
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ASTON UNDERWORLD
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
C
olin Tuck checks my feet for high heels. Satisfied I’m sensibly shod, he looks around our small group and asks: “Before we start, does anyone suffer from claustrophobia?” It’s 3pm on a Thursday and the Main Building reception is noisy with staff and students. Colin, Health & Safety Advisor, and Graham Faulks, Deputy Director of Estates Engineering and Sustainability, are going to take us seven metres below the bustle of the reception area to investigate some popular myths about Aston’s basement. “You know what’s down there?” a member of academic staff had asked me one afternoon. “A nuclear bomb shelter.” “I heard there was a shooting range,” said another academic. Intrigued to know more, I asked on Twitter. “I’ve heard there are seven basements down there are they’re all flooded,” an alumna replied. I asked colleagues in the lunchtime sandwich queue. “There are tunnels running to the Town Hall and the Law Courts,” one nodded. When I mentioned the rumours to Graham on the phone, he sounded genuinely surprised. I explained that I’d seen a Midlands Today news item on YouTube about the Anchor Exchange – a nuclear bunker under Birmingham city centre. Someone has written in the comments underneath: “When I was at Aston Uni (1984– 88), it was a widespread belief that this bunker was under the Uni’s Main Building.” Graham laughed. “I’ve never seen a nuclear shelter, although there is a room down there which I’ve never been in, mainly because I keep forgetting to take the key.” With that one remark Graham succeeded in crushing my hopes and raising new ones in their place. What room could he be talking about? What was in it? I had to find out. So at 3pm on a drizzly Thursday we leave the main Reception and take the stairs to street level. From there we descend into a stairwell below the level of the drains. Colin takes us through a door where all we can hear is his voice booming against the thick walls. He flicks an old light switch and shows us a room where chemical materials were once stored. There is no sign of a nuclear bomb shelter or tunnels to the Town Hall.
“If there was a blocked-up tunnel here you would see some kind of evidence in that concrete,” Colin says, pointing. We lean forward hopefully, squinting into the darkness. These days, he explains, rising ground water is more of a threat than atomic warfare. “Since this building was built most of the industry around here has gone. Those industries used to suck water out of the ground through boreholes and the groundwater level has now risen. At this depth we do get occasional seepages through the walls.” We move into a corridor where machines are working noisily behind a series of cages. Networks of pipes snake above our heads and the temperature is noticeably warmer. Graham explains that he can control the Main Building’s heating from his iPad, in case of sudden changes in weather during holiday periods. In 2014 his team reinsulated the basement heatingpipe network with a material called phenolic foam which has reduced the University’s CO2 emissions by around 60 tonnes a year. One thing I had not expected to find was so much evidence of human habitation. In a supreme irony, the basement was once home to the Astronomical Society, and their office still exists, untouched, since the winter of 2010/11 when they moved out. It’s a curious timecapsule. Overalls, grimy with dust, still hang on hooks in the doorway. A yellowing newspaper - 24 -
“ We move into a corridor where machines are working noisily behind a series of cages. Networks of pipes snake above our heads and the temperature is noticeably warmer.
”
ASTON UNDERWORLD
lies on a workbench beside a tin of Marvel powdered milk. There is a lathe where they ground lenses for telescopes. Above a partially collapsed sink is a filthy towel and a passiveaggressive note that reads “Would Members please wash their hands before using the towel”. The room is earmarked for clearance soon by the Estates team. “We found all sorts of horror stories in here with regard to safety so we moved the Society to the roof of the North Wing,” says Colin. What these star-gazers thought about their office below drain level is sadly not recorded. As building projects go, Aston’s Main Building (as it’s now known) was not an easy one. Work on the foundations initially started in the late 1940s. The construction was planned in two phases, with a large rectangular building forming the first phase and two wedge-shaped wings forming the second. Phase one was bedevilled with delays due to post-war steel shortages, and the central structure was not finished until 1955. At 145 feet above street level it was tallest building in Birmingham at that time. Due to Gosta Green’s poor quality subsoil, its foundations went a whopping 40 feet below ground. The architects’ original design incorporated both a basement and airraid shelter but the latter seems to have been abandoned. However, the basement under East Yard still contains one surprising relic from the past: an industrial coal-fired boiler. As we move along a narrow corridor Graham points out the pumps used to keep flooding at bay. Asbestos has been another major challenge. “Over three years I was having asbestos removed from those pipes and it was one of the largest removal jobs in the Midlands,” Graham says. It’s a testament to the diversity of the Estates team’s remit that they have also been using the basement to preserve the University’s analogue heritage. One section has been refurbished with strip lighting, rolling shelves and a reinforced wall to store the University’s vast collection of PhD theses.
“
It’s a curious time-capsule. Overalls, grimy with dust, still hang on hooks in the doorway. A yellowing newspaper lies on a workbench beside a tin of Marvel powdered milk.” - 25 -
ASTON UNDERWORLD
As the tour comes to an end, we’re pleased to find that one rumour proves true: the existence of a shooting range. There’s something uncanny about this subterranean space with its dog-eared target, its rubber curtain and the ghostly bar area. As Colin explains, it was first used as a Civil Defence Shelter Station in times of emergency, complete with a rifle range for practice (which was later turned into an archery range). It’s now used to store unclaimed bicycles which Aston renovates and donates to charity. Understandably, Colin and Graham are not romantic about the contents of Aston’s basement, but they remain enthusiastic champions for a sustainable and safe campus. Their work is paying off. Last year the University obtained a First Class Award in the People and Planet University Green League (Aston is the only university to do so seven years in a row). But despite his pragmatism, Colin admits that he was also fascinated by Aston’s mythical underworld when he first started work at the University.
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
“Because I had responsibility for the basement, I took time to look for the elusive tunnel but after 16 years I’ve still not found it. I’ve spoken to many staff, both current and past, and they’ve never found the tunnels although they’ve heard of them as well. “After being virtually derelict for some 20 to 30 years, the basement is now getting a new lease of life for the storage of archives, records, files, documents and books, so many staff now get to visit it again.” That, says Colin, is a satisfying part of the job. “So here’s to the next 60 years of the ‘tunnel-less’ Main Building,” he adds with a smile.
DID YOU KNOW? Replacing the gas-fuelled hot water boilers in the Main Building basement with a heat exchanger fed off the district heating network saves the University around 90 tonnes of CO2 a year. Through its combined heat and power scheme, the University generates 65–75 per cent of its electricity as a by-product of heating its buildings. Soon the University will join its heating network to the larger Birmingham City heating network via Birmingham Grand Central station. The University has two solar PV systems on its Main Building and Vision Sciences roofs. The electricity they generate is the equivalent to the annual consumption of 13 medium-sized houses. Aston’s Main Building has been home to a nesting pair of kestrels for approximately 30 years.
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COMMENT
PRESCRIBING THE HUMAN TOUCH There is an old joke in pharmacy which goes along these lines: Patient: “Why does it take 20 minutes to stick a label on a box of pills?” Pharmacist: “It doesn’t. It’s the ‘making sure it doesn’t kill you’ that takes the time!”
T
his apparent ‘commodification’ of medicines is nothing new, but with the advent of internet-based pharmacies – online companies who can post your repeat medication direct to your door – is this a view we need to be careful of developing further? When we take a tablet or capsule (as opposed to a pill, see right), we are adding chemicals to an already complex mix of other chemicals; i.e., our bodies. Each drug’s effect may differ between individuals, especially if patients are taking other medication or have particular diseases. Penicillin, for example, can be used to treat infection quite safely in the majority of patients; however, a minority may have an allergic reaction which could, in extreme cases, be fatal. But what about medicine bought over-thecounter? I have been asked: “Why do I get all these questions when I simply want to buy something from the pharmacy?” Well the same principles apply. Just because an item can be bought over-the-counter and is not restricted to prescriptiononly supply, it does not mean that it doesn’t come with any potential risk. The role of your community pharmacist is evolving and although internet pharmacies have their place in a modern healthcare service – for patients stabilised on longterm medicines, the ability to quickly obtain further supplies of medication is convenient – are we risking throwing away valuable face-to-face interactions? Community pharmacy is one of the most accessible healthcare resources. You don’t need an appointment and they are ideally placed to be able to deliver a range of
services beyond what can be expected of internet-based pharmacies. Pharmacists are also involved in the delivery of locallycommissioned services, for example weight management schemes, smoking cessation clinics or minor ailment services. Pills are small spherical historical dosage forms made by mixing drugs with other ingredients to make a stiff mass, and then rolling this into a “pipe”. The “pipe” was then cut into equal portions and rolled into balls. As the release of the drug was poor, the dosage form was very ineffective.
To access the HLP Study go to www.aston.ac.uk/hlp Follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisALangley - 27 -
Aston Pharmacy School is educating future pharmacists to undertake these extended clinical roles and work in partnership with patients and other healthcare providers to deliver modern healthcare in a community setting. In parallel, academic pharmacists are undertaking research examining how the community pharmacy can develop healthcare services for patients – for example, the Aston University Healthy Living Pharmacy (HLP) Study. So what does this mean for patients? The advent of internet-based pharmacies have increased patient choice and, for some, have offered a welcome service. However, for others, the ability to interact face-to-face with their community pharmacist is an important part of modern healthcare and not one which is going away. Therefore, as more services are commissioned through pharmacies, expect the time and interaction you have with your community pharmacist only to increase.
Professor Christopher Langley FRPharmS is Head of Pharmacy and Associate Dean for Taught Programmes at Aston.
RESEARCH
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
The Brain - 28 -
RESEARCH
Annette Rubery discovers how Professor Joel Talcott and colleagues in the Aston Brain Centre are using a combination of real-world assessments and new technologies to unlock brain disorders such as dyslexia.
I
n the 1970s the idea that a child who struggled to read, write and spell might have an underlying difference in the way their brain processes information was not widely accepted. When teachers or parents reported these kinds of problems, Child Guidance Clinics would generally step in with a referral to a psychiatrist, an educational psychologist or a social worker. The fact that there could be a neurological
basis for literacy difficulties – what we now understand as a specific reading disability or dyslexia – had not been extensively investigated. Yet complications with reading and writing in a highly literate society were as problematic then as they are today. In the past the root causes were thought to be disadvantaged backgrounds, low IQ or behavioural issues, all of which stigmatised the sufferers.
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RESEARCH
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
During the 1960s and 1970s, Margaret Newton was one of the key people working in this field. At Aston she spearheaded the development of a clinical-research base to investigate and validate the constitutional basis of dyslexia. Newton joined the Applied Psychology Department at the College of Advanced Technology in 1965, going on to develop the Aston Index: a groundbreaking test for dyslexia that could be used by teachers in the classroom. Put the title into Google and you can still see it being sold today, with its distinctive red cover and its symbols to test visual sequential memory (some of which decorate this article). At the time this was a novel idea. Now, 30 years on from Newton’s test, Aston University continues to investigate the cognitive side of dyslexia but the field has changed considerably. Professor Joel Talcott is one of a group of scientists working at the Aston Brain Centre: a specialised research environment, launched on campus in 2011, which houses a Dyslexia and Developmental Assessment Unit as well as a unique neuroimaging infrastructure – the Wellcome MEG Laboratory – epilepsy unit and a Human Brain Tissue Laboratory. In the Aston Brain Centre, academic and clinical studies merge traditional educational assessments (such as paper-and-pencil tests) with multilevel research
techniques in order to advance our understanding of reading difficulties. This research activity spans a range of areas such as genetics, cognitive testing “We are now realising that it’s not so much the structure and location of the specific areas of the brain that are most important, but how effectively and efficiently they communicate with each other.” and brain imaging. The latter includes the use of Magnetoencephalography (MEG) – a functional neuroimaging technique which maps brain activity with very sensitive detectors of the brain’s magnetic fields. Although their main focus is dyslexia, the academics also work with other disabilities such as ADHD and autism. Says Professor Talcott: “The Aston Index was one of the first instruments to look at dyslexia at different cognitive levels and how they might impact upon reading. For example, it looks at the relationship between auditory, visual and motor skills, handwriting difficulties and reading performance. “We still use cognitive measures like those in the Aston Index to understand the different types of abilities that might be associated with patterns of impairment of reading development but now we’ve also designed and - 30 -
implemented techniques that we can use to supplement this level of analysis by looking at mechanisms at the brain level as well. For example, we can now look at high-resolution images of the brain structure; we can look at whether there are structural differences and how these change with maturation and through education, and identify whether these changes preceded the reading difficulties or whether they emerged through the process of learning to read. And we can also use information that tells us about the genetic and environmental risk-factors involved and their interactions.” Today many labs use structural neuroimaging techniques, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), where scientists can visualise brain structure throughout the course of development. But, explains Professor Talcott, reading takes place over a very short timescale – on the order of tens to hundreds of milliseconds. Functional MRI measures physiological changes that take place on the order of seconds, which is typically not fast enough to measure the critical components of the reading process. This is where Aston’s expertise in MEG offers a unique perspective on reading:
RESEARCH
(Left) Margaret Newton and examples of free expressive writing.
“MEG is the perfect tool to study many cognitive processes such as reading since it provides something akin to real-time neuroimaging, showing both when and where information is processed in the brain. We are now realising that it’s not so much the structure and location of the specific areas of the brain that are most important, but how effectively and efficiently they communicate with each other. During reading, communication is taking place across a large number of brain areas over very short timescales.” Aston Brain Centre was, in fact, the first institution in the UK to develop and install a whole-brain paediatric MEG scanner. But the strength of Aston’s approach is not solely down to its use of new technologies. In keeping with the University’s long history of applied approaches to science, the Centre offers an educational assessment service and runs projects in partnership with primary schools, such as the Aston Literacy Project (both have involved Dr Laura Shapiro, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Aston, as well as organisations such as the British Dyslexia Association). One of the Brain Centre’s main aims is to join up this practical activity – assessing children both on and off campus to get them the support they need – with the business of theoretical research in educational neuroscience. Aston is unique in this respect and it is this constant dialogue between theory and practice that opens up new avenues of enquiry for the academics involved.
One of the areas that particularly interests Professor Talcott is the analysis of genetic risk-factors, an approach that Newton – who died before vast collaborative enterprises like the Human Genome Project had got underway – might never have envisaged. He is also interested in measuring trajectories of reading development and is working with schools and software developers to build child-friendly mobile applications to test children in real-world settings outside the clinical and laboratory environments. Increasingly, scientists are acknowledging that the key to solving big problems is collaboration across disciplines. “You do benefit from the broad expertise of multidisciplinary teams,” says the Professor. “We need to have geneticists on-board; we need to understand the neurology; we need to have cognitive scientists with expertise in development involved; you need buy-in from educators and assessment teams, not to mention the children and the parents, who also need to have access to the benefits of the science. We have all of that expertise here on campus, and we can tackle reading and writing problems using the convergence of different but not incompatible approaches. You want to help children and adults to fulfil their potential but what makes our research in the Aston Brain Centre unique is that we’re putting together that clinical-practitioner element with the basic science to make a real difference to people’s lives.”
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HOW TO ...
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
How to‌
MAKE A CHOCOLATE TEAPOT Scientists at Aston are dedicated to answering the big questions, carrying out cutting-edge research and exploring a world of possibilities. But sometimes the small questions need asking too. I was confronted with such a question which shook the foundations of everything I thought I knew. I found myself entering the world of confectionary oddities and stumbled upon a chocolate teapot. I remember my grandmother often used this idea as an example of impracticality. But the very existence of a commercially available chocolate teapot gave me pause. This warranted further investigation.
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HOW TO ...
THE EXPERIMENT
1. The bottom of the chocolate plug starting to soften and bulge under the weight of the water.
2. Forty seconds later the plug begins to yield.
3. After another ten seconds it’s all over… my clothes.
Words: Dr Mark Prince. Illustration: Heather Horsley.
A good cup of tea, in my opinion, should be made with one teabag, freshly once-boiled water, and needs to steep for a good three to seven minutes. So for a teapot to be effective it should be able to keep its structure for at least three minutes. If chocolate could stand the heat for this long then there’s life in this story! So I prepared a series of bottomless plastic cups filled with plugs of dark chocolate (because naturally you should only add the milk after it has brewed). The chocolate plugs were made from differing thicknesses and chilled to various temperatures. THE RESULTS
Chocolate is quite an effective insulator, sustaining a temperature differential between its hot and cold surfaces in excess of 70oC for several minutes. It was only when the outside surface had broached 35oC that the chocolate was too soft to support the weight of the water. The thinnest chocolate tested was ten mm, which withstood the heat for three to four minutes; 15 mm withstood the heat for almost five minutes, while chocolate of 20 mm thickness did not fail for almost 12 minutes. The results are subject to the tea’s rate of cooling, the initial temperature of the teapot, the chocolate’s cocoa butter content, and the respective volumes (weight and thermal mass) of the teapot and the water. But what I can conclusively report is: - 33 -
1. C hocolate teapots melt and are
best used only straight from the ‘fridge (not that I’m condoning making tea with a cold pot). With walls ten mm thick they can hold freshly boiled water for long enough to make a mild strength cup of tea, but to keep your lap dry and free from scalding chocolatey water, 15mm or more is recommended.
2. C hocolate teapots are viable
if you only like to use teapots once, and if you like your tea very sweet and chocolatey.
Does this mean that granny was wrong? Are teapots made of chocolate actually useful? No – of course they aren’t – never argue with your granny, they always know best.
Dr Mark Prince is a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering and Design and is currently researching medical technologies and tools for surgery, particularly in ear, nose and throat, and acoustic particle manipulation for microfluidics. He is also developing new tools for defeating technological fraud in professional cycling.
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
SUPPORTING ASTON
Aston has a history of leading the way and for pioneering change. The University and its students have achieved some remarkable things. In our 50th anniversary year, to take the University into the next 50 years of breaking new ground, we are launching Aston’s first ever major Universitywide fundraising campaign – Pioneers for Change: Transforming Lives. Thanks to the generosity of Aston’s alumni, friends and supporters, we have just £12 million to raise against a £50 million target. I have personally donated over £250,000 towards the campaign. This will enable Aston to transform lives through ground-breaking work in health, research and business, and to transform the lives of bright, young individuals by providing opportunities to study at Aston regardless of their background. Pioneers for Change: Transforming Lives will ensure that Aston continues to educate, inspire and innovate far beyond the next 50 years. Some of the projects we’re working on are outlined over the next few pages; we need your help to ensure that Aston’s work remains life-changing. I hope you can join me by offering your support. Thank you.
Dr Tony Hayward Geological Sciences graduate, 1978 Honorary graduate, 2008 Chairman of the Development Board.
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HEALTH
A PUBLIC MEDICAL SCHOOL WITH A SOCIAL CONSCIENCE
In 2014 Aston University announced that it would be opening a medical school in Birmingham. Its first research students started in 2015 and undergraduates will begin their studies in September 2018. The Dean of Aston Medical School, Professor Asif Ahmed, explains why we need this School now and how it’s pioneering the way for other institutions.
M
edical schools have the ability to improve public health in the communities in which they are founded. Birmingham currently has health outcomes that are considerably poorer than the rest of the UK, with twice the level of childhood mortality. If you are born in the area around Aston your life expectancy is five to ten years less than those born in Edgbaston or Solihull. This is a problem that Aston University is tackling head on. Aston Medical School will support 20 scholarship places to enable students from the most deprived areas of Birmingham, Solihull and the Black Country to be able to study medicine and become doctors. We are working alongside 39 local schools from the areas with the highest index of deprivation, to teach, train, mentor and support students that otherwise might not consider a degree in medicine. Our model is to take higher numbers of international students, who don’t get the opportunity to study due to the UK government cap on numbers, and use a portion of those fees to reach out to schools in the local area. We will then provide 20 fully funded scholarships per year to allow students from socially deprived areas to study medicine at Aston.
The Medical School has two arms in research and teaching. There are three areas of research: cardiovascular health, mental health and women’s health. We have a small faculty of six PhD students. The new building will open in 2018 and will contain lecture theatres, small-group teaching facilities, simulation activities and digitalised pathology. We hope to add research laboratories and networking spaces. Through the generosity of alumni and funding from trusts and foundations we have already raised over £1.5m towards the Medical School. You can still support us in many ways, through connections, donations or mentoring. There are misconceptions, as people think we are launching a private medical school, but Aston’s new venture is a public medical school with a social conscience. If you would like to find out more about Aston Medical School and how you can help, please get in touch. pioneers@aston.ac.uk or call 0121 204 4199
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Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
SCHOLARSHIPS NEWS
ASTON CREATES 50 RESEARCH PIONEERS
Fifty new Fellowship and Studentship prizes have been announced as part of the University’s 50th anniversary celebrations. These awards will nurture early career researchers and PhD students who will become the next generation of research leaders. They will be based across all five Schools and their work will address societal challenges and Government priorities in research areas of importance to Aston. Over the course of four years, ten anniversary prize fellowships will be given to outstanding early career researchers, getting their professional lives off to a flying start. Meanwhile, PhD studentships will be awarded to 40 high-achieving graduates to start doctoral research programmes, bringing the total to 50.
61% of Aston students are in receipt of an income-based scholarship
Aston’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, Professor Paul Maropoulos, said: “The 50 new prize researchers will significantly strengthen our research community and capability, and help to bolster our already impressive research impact and global reputation.” The scheme was launched in March 2016 with the prizes part-funded by alumni donations alongside contributions from industry, business and the University.
43% of Aston students are from disadvantaged backgrounds
With your help, we can do even more. We can provide more opportunities for the brightest, enquiring minds from all backgrounds to continue their research at Aston.
To find out more go to www.aston.ac.uk/researchpioneers/ 94% of Aston students are from state schools
or email pioneers@aston.ac.uk. - 36 -
FUNDRAISING
YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE
“ An Aston education teaches you that success comes from hard work, persistence and a little patience. It pushes you to do things that you may not have done otherwise. I now have many more doors open to me than before. Scholarships helped me to expand my ambition. I worked abroad during my placement year, which wasn’t an option before I received the scholarship.” Robert (Politics with International Relations) “ For me, education has been a lifeline. It has helped me stay focussed during a difficult period in my life. As a financially independent student, the scholarship made it possible for me to go to university. The placement year that Aston offers has been one of the highlights of my time here so far. I learnt vital skills that have increased my future employability.” Bobbi (Psychology and Business) “ Scholarships matter a lot, not just for students but for their families, alleviating some of the burden. Without them some students would miss out on studying at Aston, making it hard for them to fulfil their ambitions.” Sarah (Business, Management and Public Policy) “ Aston University and the scholarship funding has helped me to acknowledge and achieve my current ambitions by consistently providing a standard of educational excellence and offering a breadth of opportunities otherwise unavailable to individuals without a strong financial background. This has enabled me to have the expertise, self-belief and dedication to set up my own business whilst at university.” Olivia (Business and Management; Co-Founder of The Pop Up Card Company Ltd.) - 37 -
THE HAYWARD SCHOLARSHIP FUND Right now every gift from our alumni unlocks a matching amount from The Hayward Scholarship Fund. The Fund has been created by one of Aston’s most successful graduates, Tony Hayward (Geological Sciences, 1978), who is CEO of Genel Energy. Each £1 donated by alumni and friends of Aston will unlock another £1 from The Hayward Scholarship Fund, meaning that each gift you make is effectively doubled.
“ I really believe it is important that Aston continues to support and encourage students from all backgrounds and I am happy to be able to offer my support in this way.” Tony Hayward
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
RESEARCH
ALIVE AND WELL
A
ccording to the government’s last assessment of research quality in UK higher education institutions, 78 per cent of Aston’s research was ranked as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally recognised’. Delivering impact on a global scale requires constant innovation and increasingly interdisciplinary ways of working. To address these needs the University is launching the Aston Laboratory for Immersive Virtual Environments (ALIVE): a research tool that makes use of novel virtual-reality technology. CLINICAL CHALLENGES There are 250,000 cases of brain injury such as stroke or head trauma in the UK each year, and, sadly, similar numbers are diagnosed with degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, causing a dramatically reduced quality of life. Many more individuals suffer with the limitations of physical disabilities or developmental disorders such as autism and ADHD. In order to develop quality-of-life therapies it is essential to analyse brain function in patients encountering everyday tasks and hazardous situations. Research in this area is highly limited, however, as many important experiments cannot be carried out
because it is dangerous and unethical to expose participants to risk. ASTON’S SOLUTION Aston is home to a new virtual reality (VR) laboratory that will drive forward medical research by combining state-of-the-art equipment with neuroimaging and stimulation technologies. Thanks to immersive projections and acoustics, ALIVE will enable patients to be safely assessed by replicating hazardous environments such as urban traffic or the use of electrical appliances. ALIVE will become a training centre for the next generation of scientists.
Yet as Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience (and co-Director of ALIVE), Klaus Kessler, explains, the lab’s potential goes beyond the medical sector: “We have police officers coming to the equipment as they are interested in decisionmaking under stress. By using the VR laboratories we are able to put them under stress in a realistic, safe environment and can monitor brain activity at the same time.”
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ALIVE comprises a virtual reality room with three-wall and floor projection, a driving simulator, a motion-capture system and a range of brain-recording and stimulation devices. Professor Kessler’s coDirector, Tim Meese (Professor of Vision Science at Aston), explains: “Our work with ALIVE will incorporate a variety of approaches such as cognitive and motor training, neurofeedback and transcranial stimulation and will create great scope for the development of new rehabilitation therapies for those experiencing the activity and independencelimiting effects of brain injury, degeneration, disabilities or developmental disorders.” Aston’s blending of VR with physiological techniques (such as the use of EEG to record brain activity) is unique in Europe. As such it’s hoped that the ALIVE facility will become a training centre for the next generation of scientists. Find out more about Aston’s research projects. pioneers@aston.ac.uk
www.aston.ac.uk/pioneers.
“Our mentors are windows onto the real world of business”
Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean Professor George Feiger, Economics and Management student mentee Francisca Olekaibe and Managerial and Administrative Studies graduate mentor Scott Wallman
T
hose in any field of modern business know a great deal about managing change, inspiring teams and putting together strategies. If they are advanced in their career, they also probably know a thing or two about avoiding mistakes and overcoming failure. This knowledge, far from being just the fruits of personal experience, is a powerful resource – and one which is of great value to Aston’s students. The Professional Mentoring scheme connects alumni with second-year students to work on a one-to-one basis to help prepare them for their placement year. The scheme, which began in Aston Business School five years ago with just 20 mentors, has flourished, and now involves over 100 alumni every year who support students across all Schools. Meanwhile, the MBA mentoring scheme began in 2015 and matches every full-time MBA student with an MBA alumni mentor from the world of business. MBA graduates make ideal mentors as they understand both the rigours of study and can provide a critical sounding board
VOLUNTEERING
Emily Jane Sheppard and Susanne Evans at a mentoring dinner
and support during the MBA, as well as advice and guidance to prepare students for their future. First-time mentor and Managerial and Administrative Studies graduate, Susanne Evans, who is the Director at Feldspar Consulting Ltd., won Most Supportive Mentor of the Year at a celebratory event for mentors and their students at Aston in April. Susanne (pictured, above right) supported Business and Management student, Emily Jane Sheppard, who said: “Susanne is a total professional with a heart of gold. She has built a successful career and is extremely inspiring, but hasn’t forgotten her roots and the University that made her into the person she is today. She is passionate about helping the next generation to form their own successful careers, shown by her commitment to ensuring that I am supported.” As part of the scheme mentors and mentees are carefully matched according to their background and industry sector. They mentor either face-to-face or online, but have the opportunity to meet over networking - 39 -
dinners at Aston Business School. Kirit Vaidya, Director of the Aston MBA, is delighted with the success of the scheme so far. The opportunity for students with high aspirations to learn directly from top business professionals is, he says, an excellent way of helping them to drive their career forwards. Baljeet Baba, a biologist and fulltime MBA student from India, said about the scheme: “Our mentors are our windows onto the real world of business, showing us how to apply everything we are learning.” If you are interested in becoming a mentor please contact the Alumni Team.
+44 (0)121 204 4540
alumniinfo@aston.ac.uk
www.aston.ac.uk/alumni/ get-involved/mentor/
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
FUNDRAISING
WHY I GIVE The reasons why people give to charity are varied and often linked to personal beliefs and experiences. Here, some of Aston’s donors share why they support the University.
“ Having worked at Aston for some time I have seen at first hand the difference that the Aston learning experience can make to our students. Seventy per cent of our students are the first generation in their family to study at university, 43 percent come from the lowest socio-economic groups, but the effect of our curriculum, and student life at Aston transforms their lives and our students are amongst the most employable in the country. Of particular importance is the integrated placement year. As Professor of Higher Education Learning and Management my research is on employability competences. It shows that those students who are less academically strong, or who have less social capital from their previous family or school life, benefit the most from a placement year. It is for this reason that I have been donating to Aston for the last few years. Funding a student scholarship helps to change lives and generations.” Professor Helen Higson OBE Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost, Aston University
“ My time at Aston, whilst it feels like a lifetime ago, was extremely useful. It gave me confidence in my abilities and widened my knowledge. By supporting Aston’s scholarships others will also be able to grab the opportunity with both hands and make the most of it.” Matt Dolphin (MBA, 2000)
If you have any questions about making a gift to Aston University please contact Geoff Savage in the Development Team
+44 (0)121 204 4199
development@ aston.ac.uk
To donate online go to www.aston.ac.uk/ makeagift
“ I loved my time at Aston. I was at the University at the time before tuition fees. I just hope that the contribution I’m making will allow someone to come to Aston that might not have otherwise considered going to university. They will be able to have that brilliant time that I had and it will set them up for the rest of their life, like it did for me.” Sue Hedaux (BSc Pharmacy, 1984)
“ Aston University are highly supportive of talented young students who might not otherwise get a place at university. I think that’s a very fine thing to do and I think it adds to the sum of human happiness.” Neil Lawson-May (BSc Managerial and Administrative Studies, 1982) - 40 -
Fenn Edward Enjergholi Oivind Mo Pointer Joyce North Mark Francis H ry Clark Paul Fisher Stephen Hart M Cardew Ismail Elgizouli Peter Gask Paul Windsor Amanda Broad Chris topher Banks Richard Oldfield Nick Horslen Ashley Silverton Mike Stop DONOR David Crump PeterROLL Hood Denise G OF HONOUR Chris Wallace Sue Greener Yvonne Davies David Earp Christopher Me Derek Butler Peter Barron Ian Cham Marisa Cardoni Paul Carroll Gillian lins Karen Maynard Henry Broom C erine Jones Sue Fraser Mark Mear A Corrigan Guy Whittern Debbie Wi Brian Nesbitt Rabbi Goldstein Caro Thank you to all of our generous alumni who have donated to Aston, helping to make possible new research projects, to improve facilities for students, and to give those from less privileged backgrounds the opportunity to study and gain life-changing experiences.
Please visit our website to see the full list of who has donated to support Aston on the Donor Roll of Honour: www.aston.ac.uk/roll-of-honour - 41 -
CLASS NOTES
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Where has life taken you since you’ve been away from Aston? We’d love to hear what you’ve been up to. Why not drop us an email at alumniinfo@aston. ac.uk with your story and a photograph? The best will be included in the next edition of the magazine.
1960s Bernard Aston (BSc Mechanical Engineering, 1967) started as a dayrelease student at Birmingham Central Technical College from his job at BSA Tools in Marston Green. He obtained an HNC, a City & Guilds and a Diploma in Industrial Administration, and was able to use ACT (Birm) after his name. This changed in 1967 when his ACT (Birm) was replaced by an ad eundem degree, BSc in Mechanical Engineering, from Aston University. Bernard worked for a number of companies, large and small, in design, manufacture and management before forming his own company, A.B.Precision (Poole ) Ltd., in 1966. He sold the company in 1987, staying on for a year as a consultant. He says: “I enjoyed my time at the College and I have to thank David Bramley and his team for the management training which helped me so much over the years. Also my technical education, together with my apprenticeship, could not have been better.”
1970s David Willey (BSc Applied Physics, 1970) stayed in Birmingham to obtain a Certificate in Education (1971) from the University of Birmingham. After teaching for a year at Saltley Grammar School, he moved to the USA to continue his education at the Ohio State
University and graduated with an MSc in Physics in 1974. David was hired as a physics instructor by the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, USA, in 1975 (he retired in August this year). He was the recipient of the President’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2006. In the early 1980s he developed an hour-long physics demonstrations show that has since been seen by over 100,000 people. In July of 1998 he organised a 165-feet-long firewalk that set a new world record. This led to an appearance on America’s top late-night talk show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. David made 19 appearances on this programme as Jay’s “Mad Scientist”, presenting dramatic physics demonstrations. He has appeared worldwide on television presenting similar demonstrations (many can be found at https://www.youtube.com/user/daiwilley). David would love to hear from any of his classmates from Aston, the university he is most grateful for and proud of attending. Christopher Marklew (BSc Electrical Engineering, 1970) started at Aston in 1966, graduating from the four-year sandwich course. He then worked as a control and instrumentation engineer for several employers. After retiring from full-time employment he became a freelance consultant and has been working at the University’s European Bioenergy Research Institute (EBRI) for the past year. This means that, during the University’s 50th anniversary year, Christopher celebrates a connection with Aston that also spans 50 years. Rita Hockman née Roter (BSc Communication Science and Linguistics, 1974) has run her own Food Safety and Hygiene Company since 2007. She is a trainer, a food auditor, and, since 1991, has also been an examiner for the Chartered Institute of Linguists.
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1980s Alistair Hill (BSc Metal and Materials Technology, 1984) worked in production management and marketing. He undertook an MBA on a part-time basis between 1990 and 1993. He has been a professional consultant since 1998, working in innovation strategy and commercialisation. He emigrated to New Zealand in 2002 and is now undertaking a PhD at The University of Otago. He has been married since 1990 and has two boys.
2000s Jaspreet Singh Nepaul (BSc Computing Science, 2005) followed his degree at Aston with a PGCE in KS1/2 Primary Education. He is now a Senior Teacher and Behaviour Coordinator at Acocks Green Primary School. In addition to his teaching, he has been successful in taking on the role of ICT Coordinator where he is responsible for planning and delivering a rich curriculum and monitoring the quality of teaching and learning. He is also an Associate Member of the British Computer Society (AMBCS) and ambassador of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). He says: “I have fond memories of Computing Science at Aston and want to give our younger generation the desire and enthusiasm to succeed in computing. My ultimate aim is to raise standards for all pupils, in much the same way that Aston University did for me.” Robert Stoubos (BSc Computing Science, 2005) began working in digital marketing after graduating, starting off as an SEO junior marketer at a small agency in Birmingham city centre. In 2008 Robert moved to a larger digital marketing
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CLASS NOTES
OBITUARIES It is with great sadness that we record the loss of alumni and staff whose passing has come to our attention over the last year. Our sincere condolences go out to the family and friends of those listed here. agency where he gained a wealth of experience working on brands such as Nectar UK, Peugeot and many more. In September 2013 Robert decided to go it alone with his own digital marketing agency Odyssey New Media Ltd. (www.odysseynewmedia.com). The company has continued to grow year-on-year and in the future will be looking to recruit interns and graduates in the coming years – perhaps some candidates from Aston University! Kasad Ali (BSc Logistics, 2007) has built a successful career in transport consultancy and management. His first work placement was with Cadbury, working as part of its distribution team. This was followed by a management position with one of the UK’s leading transport associations, the FTA (Freight Transport Association). Here he undertook the role of a transport advisor, which involved providing operational and legal advice to transport managers, directors and executives based throughout the UK. Having left the FTA, Kasad decided to set up his own transport consultancy business (Eastside Central Transport – www.eastsidecentraltransport. co.uk) which allows him to work as an external transport manager for small- to medium-sized businesses who operate both heavy goods vehicles and passenger carrying vehicles.
Read more entries for Where Are They Now? on the website: www.aston.ac.uk/class-notes/
Sir Adrian Cadbury (1929-2015). In September 2015 we heard the sad news that Aston’s former Chancellor had died, aged 86. Sir Adrian led a truly remarkable life and left an indelible impression on everyone he met. Sir George Adrian Hayhurst Cadbury was born on April 15th 1929. He was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, he rowed in the 1952 Boat Race and was a British Olympic rower, competing in the 1952 Helsinki Games. He had a long and varied career in business, joining the Quaker firm, Cadbury, in 1958 and becoming Chairman of Cadbury Ltd. in 1965. Sir Adrian was also the Director of the Bank of England from 1970-1994 and of IBM from 1975-1994. He was a pioneer in corporate governance and was perhaps best known for the code of best practice which carried his name. His connection with Aston began in the 1950s, when it was a College of Advanced Technology. In his role at Cadbury, Sir Adrian forged links with the then Department of Industrial Administration (later Aston Business School), and, following the receipt of its Charter in 1966, he joined the University Council. In 1979 he succeeded Lord Nelson as Chancellor, helping to steer Aston through difficult times in the 1980s when the sector was subject to funding cuts. After stepping down as Chancellor in 2004, Sir Adrian continued his close relationship with the University. His lifelong enthusiasm for sport, coupled
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with his concern for student wellbeing, led the Student Council to appoint him President of the Athletic Union. One of his duties was to give out prizes in the annual sporting awards: an activity that he described, with typical self-effacement, as “a constant source of encouragement, inspiration and admiration”. He was the most generous philanthropist that Aston has ever known and his gifts have been instrumental in shaping the campus we have today. In the 2015 New Year Honours list, Sir Adrian was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) for his services to business and the community, especially in Birmingham. Many staff gathered at his memorial service at Birmingham Cathedral on January 19th 2016, where Aston’s ViceChancellor and Chief Executive, Professor Julia King, the Baroness Brown of Cambridge, spoke of him as an inspiration and remembered his generosity of spirit and his dedication. Others remarked on his gift for shining a spotlight on others while downplaying his own achievements. In a communication to staff after receiving news of his death, the Baroness Brown wrote: “He was a much loved colleague and friend to many at Aston and possessed a deep belief in the power of education to transform and embolden peoples’ lives. He will be greatly missed.”
IN DETAIL
Aston Alumni Magazine — 2016
THE FORCE IS STRONG International Placements Assistant, Richard Freiherr von Berlepsch, did his placement at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Golm, Germany. He took this photo of a sample of barley that he was examining with the help of one of the Institute’s Atomic-force microscopes. - 44 -
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
“Don’t be silly, of course your old lecturer won’t remember you forgot to hand in your thesis thirty years ago...!”
THE SLEEVES-UP UNIVERSITY
Aston University’s first Guild President, Keith Robson, featured in a Sunday Mercury double-page spread in May 1966 called “The Sleeves-up University”, celebrating Aston’s recently-granted university status.
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