This blogpost was authored by Professor Nick Huggett.  Prof. Huggett is based at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA, and specialises in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of physics. He returned to the University of Bristol as a Benjamin Meaker Follow-on Fund Visiting Researcher in Spring 2024 to continue working with Professor James Ladyman in the Department of Philosophy.

I was fortunate enough to return to Principal’s House for May 2024, as a follow-up visit to a Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Professor Fellowship in Fall 2022. During my first visit I worked with James Ladyman of the Philosophy Department, and his (then) student Nadia Blackshaw on the interpretation of quantum theory (specifically on the spread of ‘branches’ formed in decoherence). I also completed a paper with Karim Thébault (Philosophy) on the emergence of classical time in quantum cosmology. In the treatments we investigated, a formal analogy is drawn between the physics of the universe and that of molecules; it turns out that the equations are relevantly similar, allowing the use of the ‘Born-Oppenheimer approximation’, developed to describe the latter, to solve either. (If you saw the recent eponymous movie, then you will have seen several of the characters praise Oppenheimer for this work with Born.) 

During the recent visit Ladyman, Thébault and I wrote a paper explicating the use of Born-Oppenheimer in its home setting, to calculate the physical properties of molecules: spectra, electron configurations, scattering, and so on. We found that the existing philosophical literature is unwarrantedly skeptical about the power of quantum theory to explain these things. Hopefully this will set straight some misconceptions in the philosophy of chemistry, and open the way for future work by the field. 

Principal’s House accommodation is not just a fantastic base for working, it also gave me the opportunity to meet and learn about the work of others. I had many interesting conversations in the communal kitchen, but especially had the opportunity to talk at greater length with the physicist and Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Professor Lev Vaidman. I also enjoyed Bristol again: had some great bike rides, saw some good music, went for walks on the Downs, and of course enjoyed a few pints in the local pubs! 

 Thank you again!

This blogpost was authored by Professor Elisabeth Cooper.  Prof. Cooper is based at UiT-The Arctic University of Norway, in Tromsø and is an ecologist with expertise in arctic plants and ecosystems and their response to herbivory and climate change. She visited the University of Bristol in December 2023-January 2024 as a Next Generation Visiting Researcher  to collaborate with Dr Christopher Williamson in the School of Geography.

I am grateful for support from the International Research Development Team as a Next Generation Visiting Researcher  and to my host, Dr Chris Williamson from the Glaciology Group in the School of Geography to enable me to visit the University of Bristol in December 2023 – January 2024. The theme for this visit was ‘Arctic snow-microbial-plant interactions in a changing climate’, which describes the overlap of Chris’ and my research interests. 

I used this opportunity to develop contacts in several parts of the University, notably within the Schools of Geography, Earth Sciences, and Biological Sciences as well as the Bristol University Botanic Garden, with the aim of developing some joint projects and enabling student exchange. 

I presented a research seminar to post-graduate students and staff in the Geography Department on 19 Jan 2024, to show how long-term increases in snow depth can induce physical changes in the tundra including ice-lens collapse, and the knock-on effect that has for hydrology, carbon and nutrient loss from the system. 

Together with my host Chris Williamson, and also Casey Bryce from the School of Earth Sciences Department, we outlined a Master’s project to be placed within the Cabot Institute, with a named student due to start in Bristol in September 2024, to examine the Biogeochemical consequences of enhanced high-arctic permafrost thaw. Our student will be eligible to apply for fieldwork funding from Norway and will carry out fieldwork in my experiment on Svalbard in Summer 2025. Other projects were discussed with grant applications to be developed later. 

I visited the gardens several times throughout my stay in Bristol with productive conversations with the curators and other staff about the living collection of plants, and the use of the gardens (especially the Evolutionary Dell) for teaching Botany and Ecology. I also gave an open lecture to the general public in the Bristol Botanic Garden in conjunction with the Cabot Institute on 17 Jan 2024, entitled ‘Challenges facing Arctic plant and ecosystems’. This was well attended by the public, friends of the Botanic Garden, UoB students and staff, with a lively discussion afterwards. 

I lived in in Principal’s House for six weeks. It was very comfortable accommodation, close to the University and the centre of town, with several parks and gardens nearby for short walks and fresh air. It was also interesting to meet several other visiting researchers from a variety of cultures and academic backgrounds staying there at the same time. 

In summary, this stay in Bristol was very valuable and has already led to increased collaboration between myself and my host, and we hope to develop further projects and student exchange between Bristol and Tromsø in the future. 

This blogpost was authored by Professor Sharynne McLeod. Prof. McLeod is a speech-language pathologist and professor of speech and language acquisition at Charles Sturt University, Australia. She visited the University of Bristol as a Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor April-May 2024 and collaborated with Professor Yvonne Wren in the Bristol Dental School on the project ‘Children born with cleft palate: Intelligibility and participation’.

As a Bristol Benjamin Meaker Visiting Distinguished Professor, Prof. McLeod collaborated with colleagues in the Bristol Dental School, the Faculty of Health Sciences, and the wider University of Bristol community to advocate for communication for all, acknowledging the untapped potential of those who are underrepresented in society’s conversations. Prof. McLeod was hosted by Prof. Yvonne Wren, who leads the Cleft Collective Cohort Study, a national longitudinal cohort study with over 11,000 participants from over 4000 families in the United Kingdom. The Cleft Collective uses the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS), an outcome measure developed by Prof. McLeod and team, that is also recommended in the International Consortium of Health Outcome Measures (ICHOM) Set of Patient-Centered Outcome Measures for Cleft Lip & Palate. During this visit, Prof McLeod worked with the Cleft Collective team to generate reference data at ages 3 and 5 years and found significant differences based on cleft type and whether a syndrome was present. Despite being available in over 70 languages, this is the first time the ICS has been studied longitudinally. In addition to her well-received lectures, Prof. McLeod undertook capacity building workshops and mentoring to support students and staff across the wider University of Bristol community.

You can read more about Prof. McLeod’s experiences on her blog: Speaking my languages.

This blogpost was authored by Dr Joseph Keating, from the School of Earth Sciences. In May 2024, Dr Keating and Professor Mike Benton from the University of Bristol and Dr Bethany Allen from ETH Zürich were awarded Bristol International Research Collaboration Activities (BIRCA) funding to collaborate on writing activities at Bristol.

Dr Bethany Allen is a rising star in the field of computational palaeobiology. Bethany’s cutting edge work harnesses computational tools and statistical models to understand the fossil record and the evolution of life through time. Bethany has applied her expertise to a broad range of problems, including understanding the future distribution of plant species due to  climate change, investigating whether dinosaurs were already in decline before their extinction and elucidating the spatial pattern of  invertebrate evolution. Bethany has a long affiliation with the University of Bristol. She is a Bristol alumnus, having completed her Masters degree here in 2017. She then completed a PhD at the University of Leeds, supervised by fellow University of Bristol alumnus, Dr Alex Dunhill.  

I first met Bethany during the Palaeontological Association Annual Meeting 2023 in Cambridge. Bethany was presenting her latest research looking at how fossils impact our ability to estimate the ancestral condition of a trait. As I was working in a similar field, I immediately saw an opportunity to collaborate. Eventually I managed to pin her down and we discussed potential collaboration ideas. We settled on writing a review paper outlining the theory, methods and pitfalls of ancestral state estimation using fossils. This was largely born out of a shared frustration (as I imagine a lot of review papers are) that very few people in our field use these methods, and those that do often interpret their results incorrectly!

Bethany’s visit, supported by the BIRCA award, was for one week. Within that week we aimed to plan and write a manuscript draft intended for submission to Trends in Ecology and Evolution. On top of this, we would also jointly deliver a tutorial on ancestral state estimation, which would be free to attend for interested postgraduates and postdocs in Earth Sciences, Geographical Sciences or Biological Sciences. Bethany would also deliver a 1hr seminar to the Palaeobiology Research Group and an informal presentation to the lab group of Professor Mike Benton. This was a lot to squeeze in over one week, but we would rise to the challenge.

Bethany’s seminar and presentation were both excellent and well attended. During her seminar, she showcased her work on skyline models applied to macroevolutionary problems. In her presentation to Professor Benton’s lab group, she discussed some of her past projects and fielded questions from lab members. The tutorial we conducted together was also a great success, attracting many PhD students and postdocs who were actively engaged and asked relevant questions. In hindsight, I believe extending the workshop by an extra hour would have been beneficial, as it felt a bit rushed towards the end. We live and learn.

For my part, the biggest revelation was the collaborative writing sessions. As a postdoc, opportunities for collaborative work are rare, since postdoc research is typically independent. Therefore, working with Bethany was incredibly refreshing. We were able to exchange ideas, quickly develop a cohesive plan for the manuscript, and draft substantial portions of text. As an added benefit, I found working collaboratively helped keep me focussed and engaged. By the end of the week, we had written close to 10 pages of the manuscript.

Bethany’s visit was a great success and honestly one of the most fun weeks I have had at Bristol. I cannot emphasise how reinvigorating it was to undertake such an intensive collaborative project with someone passionate about your specialist subject. Please give it a try! We are now in the process of finishing off the manuscript and catching up over regular zoom meetings. We hope to get our manuscript submitted this summer. Watch this space!

This blog was authored by Dr Shu Minakuchi and Dr Vincent Maes. Dr Minakuchi is currently Associate Professor and runs his own lab within the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at The University of Tokyo. He visited the University of Bristol as a Next Generation Visiting Researcher in March 2024 and was hosted by Dr Vincent K. Maes, Dr Neha Chandarana, and Dr James Kratz, who are part of the Bristol Composites Institute. 

Composite manufacturing is a growing business around the world. Across all industries, companies struggle with parts not coming out of the manufacturing process as desired. The underlying issue being that consolidation, the process by which the base materials are turned into finished parts is highly dynamic and complex. While many models have been developed to analyse the process and help optimize it, validating them has been difficult due to the limited experimental tools available to monitor and inspect the consolidation behaviour in real parts. 

To resolve this, Dr Minakuchi and his hosts as the Bristol Composites Institute (BCI) have combined their research developments to achieve “Enhanced Consolidation Monitoring”. Dr Minakuchi brought across his expertise and novel strip-sensor, which leverages fibre optic cables to allow shape sensing of the composite part throughout the manufacturing process. This was then combined with pressure sensor mats and thermocouple sensors, which the BCI has been using to capture the consolidation conditions. Together these provide a more complete picture that can elucidate the consolidation behaviour. 

During the visit, successful experiments were carried out, the results of which will be published in a joint journal paper. The experiments and subsequent discussions have also allowed further research activities to be identified for future collaborations. 

Further, Dr Minakuchi delivered 2 seminar sessions to present his broad research activities and 1 demonstration workshop to allow BCI researchers to get hands on experience with the novel shape sensors and evaluate where they may be valuable in their own activities. A visit to Southampton, which included tours of their facilities, enabled Dr Minakuchi to further expand his network in the UK.

This blog post was authored by Dr Eleanor Fleming. Dr Fleming is a Clinical Associate Professor of Dental Public Health and Assistant Dean for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry in West Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Dr Fleming visited the University of Bristol as a Next Generation Visiting Researcher January-February 2024 to collaborate with Dr Patricia Neville on several research activities focused on decolinizing dentistry.

Dr. Patricia Neville and I collaborated on a manuscript exploring the diversity of women’s identities in dentistry in 2021 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdoe.12796). From the success of our collaboration and based on our shared intersectional and interdisciplinary lens of approaching oral health, Dr. Neville invited me to Bristol. My visit had a two-fold purpose: first, Patricia and I explored opportunities for our continued scholarly collaborations, and second, I supported her work at the Bristol Dental School as its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Lead, as an outside consultant. 

Over the course of my six-week visit, I gave three lectures: one, to the dental students on justice-centered approach to clinical practice; a second to dental school faculty and staff on transforming dental education; and the final, a university talk on decolonising dentistry to centre health justice. The university talk was co-sponsored with the Centre for Black Humanities and the Black and Brown Bioethics Network. There was a reception afterwards which facilitated rich conversation and relationship building. I am grateful to Dr Elizabeth Robles, Dr Harleen Johal and Dr Matimba Swama for their hospitality and support of my university lecture. Because of the success of the university lecture, Patricia and I submitted an abstract to The First Black and Brown in Bioethics conference 2024 “Engaging Diversity in Bioethics Theory and Practice”. Our abstract was accepted, and our presentation entitled, “A Critical Retelling of Dental Ethics Told Through “George Washington’s Complete Denture” won first place. 

In addition to my collaboration with Dr. Neville, my time at Bristol was well-spent and supported by other colleagues at Bristol Dental School. In particular, Dr. Nilu Ahmed shared her work on antiracism and inclusive pedagogy. As a result of conversations, personally, my approach to teaching is elevated and I am grateful that I was able to grow in both my critical scholarship and pedagogy. To have this opportunity to enrichen my perspective and also to connect with preeminent scholars like Professor Kehinde Andrews made this a trip of a lifetime. 

In consultation with faculty, staff, and students, I offered feedback on Bristol Dental School’s decolonising efforts. I was also able to learn more about the General Dental Council’s Standards for Education. In observing the focus on communication and the use of standardised actors to assess student learning and to provide them with timely feedback as they progress in developing their competency for clinical practice, I have brought my observations back to support my home institution. In curriculum innovation work at my home institution, I have shared what I learned, and we are working to apply these best practices for dental education. In this regard, my time at Bristol has led to cross-pollination of best practices to support student learning and clinical practice. 

My six-week experience at the University of Bristol was truly life changing. For someone like me (Black scholar focused on anti-racism and practicing in dentistry), opportunities like this rarely happen. I am grateful to have spent time reading, thinking, reflecting, building relationships, and collaborating with new colleagues on work that is so needed in oral health and academic dentistry. I loved staying at the Principal’s House, and everyone I interacted with in preparing for the visit and getting settled were warm, generous, and kind people. I also enjoyed being on a university campus (my home institution is a professional campus in the middle of West Baltimore). It was nice to have access to the Royal Fort Garden and to explore, even in the winter, the beauty of the campus. The university events that I attended, the conversations that I had with leading UK scholars and scientists, and the warm reception to my ideas have truly changed how I think about my professional work.  

To say that I flew back to Baltimore rejuvenated is an understatement. In Bristol, I was able to reconnect to my professional and personal purpose, nurture my curiosity, pause and reflect on structural questions, expand my scholarly breadth and depth, and make new friends (across the university, not just at Bristol Dental School). I look forward to looking back in five or so years and seeing the fruits of all the seeds planted during my visit. I hope that my relationship with Bristol and the University of Bristol continues to grow. 

Dr Fernando Hartwig is an assistant professor in Epidemiology at Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil. He returned to the University of Bristol as a Benjamin Meaker Follow-on Fund Visiting Researcher in January 2024 to continue working with Professor George Davey Smith in the Bristol Medical School.

In January 2024 I had the pleasure to visit Bristol yet again, for the sixth time now since my first visit in 2013. Such frequent visits are not an accident: every new visit is an opportunity to get to know a bit more about this charming city, feel welcomed by its lovely people and see old friends and make new ones. It is also a great opportunity to further strengthen collaborations with the Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU) team at the University of Bristol – which was the main motivation (and a very good one!) for all these visits. 

The last visit was funded by the Bristol Benjamin Meaker Follow-on Fund, which greatly facilitated developing the relationships and projects established in my previous visit in 2022 (funded by the Bristol ‘Next Generation’ Visiting Researcher Programme). This time we worked on an important limitation of epidemiological studies to establish whether a given risk factor causally influences disease risk: the problem of unmeasured confounding. For those interested in learning more about this topic, the research paper and a seminar are available. 

Instead of talking about my specific research activities, I would like to take this opportunity to describe my overall experience as a visitor under this programme. I do believe that the University of Bristol offer an excellent environment for anyone committed to improving society through scientific research. In my specific field, I had the chance to work with world-leading experts in the field at the IEU. Of course, developing our planned project and presenting seminars to a qualified and interested audience was great. Nevertheless, what marks and humbles me the most is to truly feel welcomed by such high-profile researchers, who are genuinely interested in hearing my ideas, discussing collaboration possibilities in a horizontal manner, ensuring my visit was productive and making an effort to socialize outside the workplace. This combination of academic excellence and friendliness is perhaps one of the elements responsible for the top-tier status of the IEU team – and the university as a whole – worldwide. 

Another important ingredient for the success of the visit was the support received from the International Research Development team, starting at the application stage (when we received fair and useful reviews) going all the way until the end of visit. During all this time I received timely and efficient help from all my inquiries. All this gave me confidence that practicalities/logistics of my visit were well covered, so I could dedicate my attention to research activities. 

I am grateful for this experience and already looking forward to being back in Bristol. If you ask me if I plan to do anything different for the next visit, I would only say that I would like to visit during the summer so I can bring my family along for them to also fall in love with this charming, vibrant city, its lovely people and excellent university. 

Dr Fernando Hartwig

Colin Wilson is a Professor at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and is an expert in the reconstruction of large explosive volcanic eruptions and their huge sub-surface magmatic systems. He visited the University of Bristol in October-November 2023 on a Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professorship to bring together a range of new perspectives in volcanology. 

Thanks to support from the Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professorship  Programme and my host, Professor Juliet Biggs, School of Earth Sciences, I visited the University of Bristol and the city of Bristol in October-November 2023. I was a post-doctoral fellow here in 1990, and have since then maintained intermittent links with Bristol staff in the School of Earth Sciences (particularly Prof. Sir Stephen Sparks) due to shared experiences and ideas. My experience in studying large-scale volcanic systems is of direct relevance to understanding of explosive eruption processes, subsurface magmatic processes and the interface between modern geophysical monitoring techniques and geological knowledge of past eruptive events. The visit enabled me to learn more about multiple projects currently active within the School of Earth Sciences, and use my long experience to offer some new perspectives on topics across a range of disciplines within the School . 

During the visit, I presented a series of talks, starting with an open seminar on ‘The Life and Times of Supervolcanoes’ designed for non-specialists. It was fantastic to see such a large and diverse audience and receive broad interest and lively discussion. On a more specialised level, I presented three 2-hour master classes, each on a globally iconic supereruption (Oruanui, New Zealand; Bishop Tuff, California; Huckleberry Ridge Tuff, Yellowstone). These were well attended by the community from students on the MSc Volcanology programme, PhD students and postdoctoral researchers and staff and provided an opportunity for in-depth discussion of a wide range of methods brought together to provide new insights into large magmatic systems. One of the aspects of modern volcanology that I have seen grow is the development of models for eruptive and magmatic processes. My talks were aimed at showing that the field study of these vast supereruptions, although time-consuming and not easily funded, represents a rich field of un-tapped observations that present many challenges for the state of our current models. I hope that the students understood that there are still many aspects of volcanism that are amenable to or demand quality field studies.  

Interactions occurred with key staff within the School of Earth Sciences enabled me to build a proposal around developing new understanding of the processes involved in unrest and eruption at reawakening silicic volcanoes. This proposal, if successful, would provide a unique link between researchers in geophysics, geochemistry, volcanology (including the newly appointed Axa Chair) and hazards and risk, with connections to existing research (e.g. the ERC project MAST – Imaging Magmatic Systems using Strain). Although unsuccessful in its original funding target (the Leverhulme International Professorship), discussions are continuing around the possibility of re-shaping the proposal as an ERC Grant. 

Overall, the Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professorship represents a wonderful arrangement that permits people like me (who cannot get away for a full-blown sabbatical) to interact with colleagues in the best volcano-related group at one of the best Earth Science schools in the country. The chance to think about new possibilities in volcanological research and interact with graduate students was much appreciated. The arrangements with accommodation were excellent and just what was needed for a visit of this length. Many thanks to all involved. 

Professor Colin Wilson

Professor Leslie Zarker Morgan is Professor Emerita of Italian and French at Loyola University Maryland. She visited the University of Bristol as a Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor for part of February and March 2024 at the invitation of Professor Marianne Ailes. The visit involved presenting the difficulties of working with the mixed medieval language Franco-Italian and collaborating on introductory materials for the Centre for Medieval Studies to help prepare students for reading and interpreting that branch of romance epic.

Professor Ailes invited me to Bristol to present challenges both in working with the non-standard medieval language mixture Franco-Italian as well as in interpreting versions of those texts produced by scholars, since French and Italian traditions in medieval text editing differ substantially. In working with her and the University of Bristol Library, I provided a local bibliography for those wishing to work in the field, as well as offering a workshop where we examined such materials and discussed their pros and cons together with students and colleagues. These materials will furnish pages for the virtual learning platform (Blackboard) of the Centre for Medieval Studies “Introduction to Medieval Languages” on which we have already begun to work. 

I was pleased to have the opportunity also to revisit an earlier project, the Geste Francor, a fourteenth-century Franco-Italian epic chronicle about Charlemagne’s family in chanson de geste form, to present it particularly to students, but also to colleagues, in a more complete format than is normally possible in conference papers (of 20 minutes). Preparing the talk, in fact, resulted in an interesting finding that will be the subject of a paper about the Geste. 

Finally, my current project concerns epic humor, something about which Professor Ailes has herself written, as have several other colleagues in the area who attended the talk. After the talk, we discussed the linguistic approach that I proposed, and other aspects of humor and how to analyze them. These discussions will be helpful as I develop the monograph in progress. 

Staying at the University of Bristol was a wonderful experience: the lodgings at the Principal’s House provided by the International Research Development Team were perfect: at the center of the University, whence it was easy to participate in numerous events on campus, such as other lectures, and easily meet colleagues for lunch or coffee as well as explore the city itself. I have never had such a short commute to the office! The IT service was extremely helpful in getting me quickly online at the University, the Staff Residential Lettings Office and Staff were very helpful in getting me set up in the apartment. I look forward to continued contact with colleagues and friends at the University of Bristol in the future and collaborating on further projects. 

Professor Leslie Morgan

In March the visits of several of our international visitors lined up, so the International Research Development (IRD) team invited them and their University of Bristol hosts for afternoon tea. This ‘mingle’ took place at our bespoke accommodation for visiting researchers, Principal’s House, and it was an opportunity to share research projects, create connections, and exchange notes on what to see and do in Bristol.

Visiting researchers from Canada, USA and Japan came together to mingle and share findings and developments from their wide ranging research projects with their Bristol hosts, including:

• Franco-Italian epic: Origins, range and interpretations (Prof Leslie Morgan)
• The Historical Implications of American Race and Medicine (Prof Northington Gamble)
• Enhanced Consolidation Monitoring (Dr Shu Minakuchi)
• Mathematics Teacher Educators distributed expertise: Transition from secondary school mathematics teaching to preservice teacher education (Dr Sean Chorney)

Some of the researchers were preparing to deliver talks the following day including Dr Minakuchi’s workshop on ‘Fibre Optic Sensors for composite structures‘ and Professor Gamble’s seminar on ‘Educated in a White Space: African American Graduates of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1850-1925‘. It was great to hear about the activities being undertaken during their time in Bristol, and the positive research developments taking place.

You can see upcoming visiting researcher talks and seminars on our Events page. You can also take a look at our current and upcoming visitors on our Visitors page, and can contact their individual University of Bristol hosts if you are interested in finding out more and engaging with the visitor.

It was a real pleasure to meet our visiting researchers and their hosts and to find out more about their collaborative research development – we’re really looking forward to hearing how these collaborations develop, and to welcoming our next wave of visitors to Bristol in the coming weeks.