What is the programme?

The call for submissions has now closed, and we have a great range of speakers lined up! 

In this webinar, Newcomers Presents...

South Asian women's identity

An intergenerational study of the relationship between South Asian Grandmothers, Mothers and Daughters in the UK - Nahida Hussain

This study aims to examine how the South Asian Woman (SAW) has evolved from generation one to generation three, in terms of her identity, practice and experience of being a mother, and her experience of being mothered. This research will provide an insight into the social, cultural, and religious aspects of mothering and how these are passed on from one generation to another. Qualitative in-depth interviews will be used to collect data from the 3 generation of women from the same family. Thematic analysis will highlight the main themes from the research.

Nahida Hussain is a PhD student at the University of Essex, Sociology Department, supervised by Ayse Guveli and Mike Roper. Her research interests are driven by her background in sociology and her passion in understanding her own identity as a second-generation South Asian woman. Nahida is a mature student, returning to study after more than 20 years. She has a master’s in Research Methods and has worked as a lecturer in sociology for many years. She continues to teach in Higher Education. Nahida has two teenage children and finally feels she has the time to develop her career further.

Tutor profile  -- Student profile -- LinkedIn profile

ESG rating and bank stability

Do ESG (environmental, social, and governance) strategies enhance bank stability during financial turmoil? Evidence from Europe - Stefano Piserà

Stefano Piserà is a PhD candidate in “Managerial and actuarial sciences” at the Universities of Udine and Trieste (Italy), postgraduate researcher and a research assistant at the Essex Business School, Department of Finance. His academic career includes a bachelor’s degree in “Political science and administration” (University of Genoa) and a master’s degree in “Economics, politics and international organizations” (University of Pavia). In 2018 he won a scholarship to attend a Master of Science in “Finance: markets, instruments and sustainability” (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan). He also had the opportunity of a four months research internship at the Center for European Policy Studies in Bruxelles, in the international finance department. As a PHD student, he is focusing on a research project on the implications of ESG factors on financial markets and institutions.

Microbiology, astrobiology, and limits of life

There is no record on the origin of life and setting up an experiment is not so easy. It is even difficult to define life, as we all are in lockdown because of something still debated to be a living organism. However, there seems to be a way to dig into this mysterious question: microbes living in extreme environments - Maria Magliulo

From the evaporation of salty waters, salt crystals precipitate and grow in their fascinating square shape. Embedded in each layer, there are little pockets of brine inclusions, in which microorganisms get entrapped. Halobacterium salinarum (a microbe belonging to the domain Archaea) survives in this microenvironment for a very long time: evidence for survival over millions of years is growing, while evidence for survival over tens of thousands of years is almost unequivocal. The remarkable abilities of this microbe make it a good model to investigate limits of life on Earth, and look through this lens salt-rich deposits on Mars.

Maria Magliulo, is a 2nd year PhD student in Microbiology, in the Department of Life Sciences.  

A more general interest in how life evolved originally led her to a graduate career in Molecular Biology. The big number of highly diversified metabolic pathways made her realize that to satisfy her scientific curiosity she would have needed to “zoom out” from this “micro” perspective. So, she improved her studies in Ecology in order to get a more comprehensive idea of “macro” processes, thus tracing the co-evolutionary feedbacks between the biological and geological world (perhaps, back to the origin of life).  

She is currently involved in the Saltgiant European Training Network. As part of this network, her work aims to understand the survival of halophilic microbial communities inside the brine inclusions of halite, providing a model system for investigating the conditions that could have preserved traces of life in evaporites both on Earth and Mars.

Twitter -- Blog

What is the format of the webinar?

The webinars will be run by the Newcomers team, and the panelists will present their work for 8 minutes each. There will be 3-4 panelists per session. The total time for each webinar will be 60 minutes; this means there will be lots of time for questions. The webinars will be recorded, and added to our Institutional Repository in an accessible format (with subtitles), so can be watched back at a later date. The webinars are free to attend and open to everyone.

How can I attend?

If you’d like to attend this webinar, book your place here. This booking is for Thursday 28th May. There is a separate event booking for the second session on Tuesday 9th June.