I had the pleasure to speak at a PubhD event in Sheffield this week. The concept is to use a whiteboard and a marker pen to explain your research in 10 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of questions. In exchange for speaking you receive a free drink, and I had a pint of diet coke. The event is a great way to test out your public speaking and engagement skills. and as a delegate it is a fantastic opportunity to learn something new.
I saw on the PubhD Sheffield Facebook page that a speaker had dropped out, so I messaged to see if I could speak. With less than a day to prepare I stepped up to the challenge. My talk went down very well, and there were a lot of very interesting questions.
I have delivered many talks over the last year or so, and I have to say speaking at PubhD Sheffield is up there as one of the best. The organisers were very friendly and fit me in at the last minute, and all of the delegates were very lovely.
I highly recommend this event for attending and speaking at. I had a really good time. It was also a great opportunity for me to get feedback on my work, so I also really enjoyed that aspect of the night.
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My abstract for the talk
Social networks and social media allow people to share what they think during an outbreak. So my PhD looks at the types of things people say, and whether it based on truth, and to see if it would be harmful. I am looking at Ebola from 2014, and Swine Flu from 2009. I have some found some surprising and interesting things about what types of things users were talking about. For example there is a lot of stigma and discrimination during infectious disease outbreaks can have negative consequences. As well as doing my PhD, I have blogged about social media research and as a result I have been invited to and delivered quite a lot of high profile talks. These have been to government, multi-million turn-over companies, academia, the mainstream media including the likes of the BBC, and I have been awarded funding to work on projects, and deliver training
Dr. Wasim Ahmed 