Whilst the weather may not have lived up to expectations this summer, I have found that it has been rather fantastic for me. I have been to two conferences, one within the faculty here at Southampton (which Victor blogged about last month and another important national conference.

At the faculty conference this year I presented my work in poster form. This poster described several months of my work and it was great to be able to show my data to people who were interested in what I have been doing. As well as the poster being up for the day, the presenters also have to stand next to them and answer any questions that people have about the data. There were prizes available for the best presentation and best poster from each school, based on how the data is presented and how people answer the questions about their work, and much to my surprise I won a prize! It was a great honour to be recognised for the work I have been doing, and has really helped to encourage me to present my work more in the future.

After winning the poster prize I was given the opportunity to put in an abstract (a short summary of my work) at the last minute for the British Association for Lung Research national conference, which this year was held in Swansea. My abstract was chosen to be presented as part of aYoung Scientist competition, where I would have to give a 10-minute presentation and answer questions on my work for 5 minutes (trust me its much longer than you think!). Some others from my lab were also given the opportunity to present data, including my supervisor, Professor Donna Davies, and some of the post-doctoral scientists within our lab, Emily Swindle, Cornelia Blume and Julie Cakebread. It was also was the first conference for one of my fellow PhD students, Camelia Molnar. As we applied very last minute I was only given two weeks notice to give my first presentation in front of many of internationally renowned scientists in my field so I was very nervous! I thankfully work in a great group where everyone is very supportive, so I was able to practice my presentation several times before the big day and prepare myself for any difficult questions. When we arrived in Swansea I was very anxious, especially when a computer malfunction at lunch meant that none of my graphs worked properly, but luckily it was all sorted out by the time I gave my presentation. I was the third person presenting out of four in total (the others were fellow PhD students, although they were a year ahead of me, and a medic who was much more experienced at presenting than me), but I have to admit my nerves meant that I was not able to properly concentrate on the others. When I got up on stage, and knew I was the one who knew the most about my work in the room I managed to keep my anxiety at bay. I got though my presentation and was a bit worried about the questions as there were many experts in the room on my specific area (whilst these more experienced scientists know a lot about the general area, they do not know the details of my work), but the questions I was asked were easy for me to answer and were not as hard as some of the questions we had practiced. I was very happy that it went well, and I was able to relax and listen to the other presentations, and was able to find out about many new advances in the asthma field. They said they wouldn't announce the winner of the competition until the conference dinner in the evening so after it has finished for the day we all went to the bar for a drink to celebrate our talks and posters being over, as well as congratulate Emily for having won a prestigious fellowship, which she had found out about earlier in the day. When we were at the meal we had the opportunity to talk to the other scientists and eat some fantastic food. At the end of the meal the head of the BALR, Geoffrey Laurent gave a speech about the work they have been supporting, before introducing Ann Miller (the chairwoman of the BALR) who presented the prizes. There were two prizes, one for the best poster and one for the best presentation in the young scientist competition, and much to my delight I was awarded the latter! I was so surprised, I couldn't believe it, especially as it was my first presentation! This is something that is going to be great for my career after my PhD and the prize also includes funding which can go towards sending me to another conference. I am very grateful to the people and organisations that have supported me with this work, especially my supervisors (Dr Lynn Andrews and Professor Donna Davies), the fellow researchers in the Brooke Laboratories and those who have funded my research, the Medical Research Council and the AAIR charity, without whom I would not have had this opportunity.