I believe that Outreach work is one of the best ways to get children interested and engaged in science and maths. I try to do as much as I can, through STEMNET, my department and other organisations. Please find details of things I have been involved with below, and contact me if you want to know more.
Royal Institution Masterclass
With a colleague I have written a workshop for the Royal Institution's Masterclass series for secondary school pupils. The workshop is entitled "Networks rule the world" and introduces the concept of networks for understanding how individuals are connected and how this can influence the spread of epidemics. We have run it multiple times in London and Bristol and have extended it to a day workshop for sixth formers where we will introduce coding epidemic models.
Festival work
I co-organised my department's stall at the Imperial Festival in 2015 and in 2016. In 2016 I gave a public lecture which can be found here. In 2016 I co-organised my department's at Imperial College's activities at Einstein's Garden at GreenMan Festival: our activities were themed around epidemic response. In 2017 I co-organised the infectious disease epidemiology group at University of Bristol's stall at Einstein's Garden at GreenMan festival: the activities were themed around vaccination.
I was involved in The Life Game in June 2013, as part of the MRC centenary. MRC centres from around the country came together in an event at the Science Museum, London. I helped on the stall organised by the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling (Imperial College) and co-presented a short lecture at the museum entitled "Voices, Viruses and Vaccinations", a short talk about infectious disease and vaccination.
During my PhD I worked on a stall at the Festival of Nature in Bristol, spreading an sticker epidemic through the crowd. I also was in a group in Einstein's Garden at Greenman Festival in 2012; we did Science Busking using a range of hands on activities to demonstrate cool science to kids.
STEMNET
I've been a STEMNET ambassador since 2011, in Bristol and in London. I have given workshops and lectures about infectious diseases and epidemics and on the mathematics of outbreak response to all ages of secondary students.
Women in Science
I am particularly interested in Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. I co-organised a discussion group on gender and equality issues in my department at Imperial College and in Bristol I am member of a Lean-In Circle. I believe it is important as a women working in a STEM subject to engage and inspire girls and young women to study STEM - this is one of the reasons why I participate in outreach work.
Code Club
I volunteered in a Code Club at a primary school in London for 1.5 years (Jubilee Primary School). This is an initiative to introduce coding to children, partly using Scratch.
Please contact me if you want to collaborate on any outreach activities - I love it and am always looking for new things to do!