AGM 2014 Committee Nominees

2014 Annual General Meeting of the PdOC Society

6.30-8pm Tuesday 1 July 2014

The Postdoc Centre @ 16 Mill Lane

All postdocs from The University of Cambridge, Cambridge Colleges and University Partner Institutions are invited to attend the 2014 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the PdOC Society. The purpose of the AGM is to report on the activities of the Society for the past year, discuss how PdOC should develop in the next year and elect a PdOC Society Committee for the year ahead (until July 2015).

ThePdOC Society Constitution states the aims and membership of the PdOC society, explains how PdOC Society functions and elects Officers of the Society.

Invitation to all

The meeting is open to all Cambridge based postdocs and any other members of the University who are interested in the aims of the society. We would like as many postdocs as possible to attend to get the input from a wide cross section of the current postdoc community.

Please register on http://tinyurl.com/mbmx6jz if you are planning to attend the AGM. This helps us with planning the logistics of the evening!

Nominations for the PdOC Committee 2014-2015

The following nominations have been received by the PdOC Society Committee by the deadline 24 June.  A brief summary of the skills/experience offered by each nominee is given below.  If you have any questions for the nominees please get in touch via their email address.

 A full role description is available for each position. 

  • PdOC President 
    Maya Ghoussaini      mg458 AT medschl.cam.ac.uk
    "Leading the team
    Managing the PdOC committee
    Organising and planning meetings
    Decision making
    Representing the PdOC Society (University committees, events, etc) "
  • Vice President
    Jean-Francois Mercure jm801 AT cam.ac.uk
    "Communications officer for 2 years
    Vice President for the past year.
    Have participated in many events organisation  "
  • Treasurer
    Nicky de Battista     n.debattista AT eng.cam.ac.uk 
    "I have occupied a number of Committee roles in various non-profit organisations in the past, both in University and NGO environments. I have experience in managing budgets of different sizes, including a 70,000 Pound charity fundraising campaign in 2005. My previous training in Accountancy has helped me develop accurate bookkeeping skills and I take pride in delivering the highest possible outcome with the budget available. I believe that the skills I gained during my education and hands-on experience will allow me to build upon the good work done by previous PdOC society treasurers. "
  • Membership Officer
    Paul Coxon     prc39 AT cam.ac.uk
    "    I have served as Membership Officer for the past year and through PdOC have taken part in many events. I serve on the Events Subcommittee. I have found PdOC a great organisation for helping newcomers to Cambridge get settled and am keen to get promote PdOC amongst the body of research staff. As Membership Officer I hope to expand the reach and influence of
    PdOC throughout the university in addition to maintaining the database of members’ details. This can help PdOC identify researchers and university departments engage with others and help PdOC become truly representative of the most vibrant and diverse sector of the Cambridge family."
  • Social and Networking Events Officer (joint position)
    Brian Krummel     bk313 AT cam.ac.uk
    "I love hanging out with the PdOC Society. Through PdOC, I have participated in a lot of great activities and made many wonderful friends. Thus I am very happy to be involved with running events for the society. I have been on the PdOC events subcommittee since July 2013 and have been a PdOC Events Officer since January 2014. In this time I have been running regular movie nights, held a formal dinner at Homerton College, and ordered food for the AGM. I have also been helping other people run other events and working behind the scenes to keep events running smoothly overall. I would like to continue to be involved with the PdOC society in this role." 
  • Social and Networking Events Officer (joint position)
    Alice Hutchings ah793 AT cl.cam.ac.uk
    "My interest in the PdOC Social and Networking Events Officer position stems from the gratitude I feel towards the PdOC Society in making my transition to Cambridge all the more enjoyable. I instantly found a lovely network of friendly people who are just as keen as me to find out what this city has to offer, and I hope that I can help make future newcomers feel just as welcome. As well as general academic experience in organising various conferences and seminars, I have many years' experience volunteering at art and music festivals in Australia. I have some great ideas for future PdOC Society events, as well as a diversity of knowledge relating to making social events enjoyable; not only for those attending, but also for those putting in the hard yards to make them happen." 
  • Communications Officer (newsletter editor)
    Paul Bennett     wpb22 AT cam.ac.uk
    "I've been a member of PdOC society for three and a half years and an active member of the social and networking events sub-commitee for the past year. Over the past year, I've regularly attended events sub-commitee meetings and have organised a number of PdOC events (Peterhouse College MCR dinner, Kings singing on the river event, paintballing trip). During the organisation of these events I've had the pleasure of interacting with Dan Holman, the current Communications Officer, in an official capacity when writing and submitting event advertisements for the weekly newsletter. This has given me an insight into the newsletter article submission procedure. I am also good friends with the remaining members of the committee, i.e. those likely to be regularly requesting articles in the weekly newsletter. Formal skills I intend to bring to the Communications Officer position are reliability (a well-defined, well advertised date & time for newsletter publication and article submission deadline), organisation, familiarity with the PdOC events organisation and newsletter article submission procedures, good relations with other members of the PdOC committee/sub-committee, good communication and English literacy skills, as well as an inclusive attitude and fresh perspective to editing the newsletter. In addition to my potential new role as the Communications Officer (newsletter editor) I plan to continue my current role on the social and networking events sub-committee."

  • Communications Officer (newsletter editor)
    Severine Mollard     severine.mollard@cruk.cam.ac.uk 
    "Being a postdoc is not easy every day, and that is why we need to have an association like PdOC to represent us. I would like to be a member of the committee to be able to help other postdocs. So, why am I applying for the "Communications officer" position (especially when I am not a native English speaker)? I am friendly, I like to communicate, to share information with people and to organize and plan events. And I think I am quite good at that!"
  • College Affiliations Officer
    Antonis Kanellopoulos     ak880 AT cam.ac.uk
    "Being a research associate for many years at different countries and universities has strengthened my intellectual and social skills. Over the years I have served at various developmental committees for researchers and I believe I have a well-rounded opinion on how researchers can collaborate, seek their rights and address the many issues confronting the postdoctoral community. Moreover, currently I participate at the Department of Engineering postdoctoral committee and during the past academic year this gave me a good insight of the challenges and opportunities for postdocs at the University of Cambridge."

  • Marketing Officer
    Johannes Hjorth j.j.j.hjorth AT damtp.cam.ac.uk
    "What would the PdOC Society be without members that know about and joint our activities? My aim as Marketing Officer is to help PdOC Society reach out to the postdocs in Cambridge and make them aware of what we can offer: be it formal halls in the Colleges, trainings, seminars or other social events. In the past year as Marketing Officer my main role has been to put together leaflets, banners and posters. I also provide most of the photos from the Society events that you can see on our leaflets, on Facebook and on our webpage. We currently reach around half of 3,500 postdocs in Cambridge with our email list, Facebook page and twitter account. By showing people how fun and vibrant society life is I hope to make more people keen on joining." 
  • Researcher Development Initiatives Officer
    Natalia Bulgakova     nb390 AT cam.ac.uk
    "If elected, I would like to get involved in organizing a multidisciplinary seminar series within the frame of researcher development initiatives. These seminars will have two main aims: 1) to bring together postdocs from across the University to discuss the hot topics in sciences, e.g. nanotechnology, and humanities, e.g. concept of performance; and 2) to give postdocs an opportunity to present their research to diverse audience. Despite obvious challenge, I am confident that my previous experience will help me succeeding. During last few years, I was organizing postdoc seminar series in the Gurdon Institute as a member of the Gurdon Institute Postdoc Association. Additionally, I was involved in organization of other researcher development events, for example, Gurdon Institute postdoc retreats and graduate student symposium at the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience. By standing for the Researcher Developmet Initiatives Officer role at PDoC I hope to apply this experience to benefit postdocs within the wider University community. "
  • University representation and policy officer (joint position)
    Tariq Masood     tm487 AT cam.ac.uk
    "I have been working for the PdOC as a General Committee Member since last year. Key highlights from 2013/14: – Chair, Departmental Postdoc Committee Chairs Network 2014 (outputs: prioritisation of postdoc needs and possible solutions) – Paper to PdOC on Researcher Development, 2013 (outputs: contributed to a paper to CU 'Researcher Development Committee', 2013) – Organiser of Leadership & Strategy Workshops for PdOC Committee and Departmental Postdoc Committee Chairs, to be held in Sep 2014 In addition, I have prior experience of working with higher levels in UK Higher Education Institutions. "
  • University representation and policy officer (joint position)
    Adina Feldman af550 AT cam.ac.uk
    "In the PdOC Society I want to work with policy issues concerning postdocs, such as career development and employment conditions. We as postdocs have actively chosen to embark on a research career and I want us to have the support, mentorship and opportunity to be able to develop and grow into independent researchers or to acquire the skills necessary to use our research experience in careers outside academia. I have extensive experience with university representation and policy work from my time as doctoral and undergraduate student at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. For the last two years of my doctoral studies I was a member of the Karolinska Institutet Development Council which is a council directly under the Vice Chancellor tasked with helping the University develop into a better and more modern place to work and study. I was also an elected member of the board of the Doctoral Students' Association an the chair of my departmental Doctoral Programme in Epidemiology. As an undergraduate I was a student representative in my programme committee and eventually the full time Vice President for the student union which included serving as a representative of about 6000 students in the university board. "
  • Welfare Officer
    Marko Tainio     mkt27 AT medschl.cam.ac.uk
    "From the Welfare Officer's role description family issues were the one that really caught my attention. I moved to Cambridge with small children and life does look different with kids. To the committee I could bring skills/expertise/ideas e.g. from following topics: • How to better reach post-docs with families, how to take then into account when planning events, are there some family related events that post docs would like to have etc. • Also, the general information from the situation of post docs in Cambridge would be interesting to collect. England is pretty expensive place with kids and paying rent + day care costs from post doc salary is a challenge. Or this is how I feel. Maybe other post docs have similar problems? And maybe there would be some solutions in which University and city could help? " 
  • Committee Member (without portfolio) 
    Clare Simpson     cs740 AT cam.ac.uk
    "Although PdOC has massively expanded its portfolio of events within Cambridge, thus far it has lacked many events for those people who have families and as I will be a new mother I have a personal interest in rectifying this situation. Having been a member of the events committee and more recently joint head of events, I have a lot of experience in organising events and I understand how the events committee, the university booking system and the main committee works.Therefore, I would love to work with the new welfare officer and the events committee to bring about new events for families, which may involve closer cooperation with NVS who in the past have experience in organising these types of events."