Over the past 3 months, I have been based in East Africa, in Kenya as part of my PhD program under the PIPS scheme (Professional Internships for PhD Students). It was here that I was given the opportunity to work on projects related to science communication, science media production and international capacity building. For the … Continue reading The End of my PhD Internship in Kenya – A Reflective Look Back
Tag: PhD
AfriPlantSci Summer School 2019 at Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya
We had arrived in Kilifi on the eastern coastline of Kenya. Our accommodation was a little more unorthodox that most. We were to be staying on a boathouse! The boathouse was located by the Kilifi boatyard on the water and required dinghy service to get to and from. On board were 3 bedrooms, a kitchen … Continue reading AfriPlantSci Summer School 2019 at Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya
A Fresh Start
Another week was upon as and to start off, we thought more about the branding behind the channel we would be using to upload our online training video series. Initially a few ideas were floating around. We thought hard about a suitable name, but it was tough. Either the names were somewhat lacklustre, were too … Continue reading A Fresh Start
For the Love of Chapatis
This week was another big filming week. We had worked a lot with Mwihaki last week on a predatory conferences video. This week we would be working with Bernice filming a bioinformatic BLAST video. We were recording presenter-to-camera inside shots in front of a green-screen, and outside on-location multi-camera shots. We were so fortunate to … Continue reading For the Love of Chapatis
From China, The Long Way Around.
For Hans and I, it was time for another week of the PIPS internship out in Nairobi, Kenya. What will this week have in store for us? We first started, following our weekly Monday morning meeting, with a bit of creative brainstorming. As part of our internship, we are creating a series of online training … Continue reading From China, The Long Way Around.
Sugary Tea, Techno Jazz and Ngong.
Its another week of the internship. Monday, as always starts with our group meeting. We get a chance to hear what everyone else has been working on, we also get to share our own progress and it’s also a space where issues can be raised. Fuelled by overly-milky, overly-sugary tea and oddly sugarless donut balls, … Continue reading Sugary Tea, Techno Jazz and Ngong.
Filming Commences
This week started with getting to grips with some animation software to start to produce some motion graphics, useful for transitions, backgrounds or titles. This involved wrestling with the notoriously challenging 3D animation software blender. After many tutorials and lots of practice, I was able to produce a few short transitions which I have to … Continue reading Filming Commences
The Project and the Wildlife
Our first week of our PIPS (professional internship for PhD students) placement has begun, time to start the project. For Hans, this was to create a production pipeline for a transferable skills video training series. For myself, a similar project but for a bioinformatic video training series. To start off the week, we attended the … Continue reading The Project and the Wildlife
The Adventure Begins
The time had come. It was time to travel to Nairobi Kenya for our internship as part of our PhD doctoral training partnership called the Professional Internship for PhD students (PIPS) scheme. We ventured towards the airport equipped with cases, documents, a healthy dose of excitement, a dash of nerves…and of course, a generous sprinkling … Continue reading The Adventure Begins
Kenya PIPS – An Introduction
For the next 12 weeks Hans and I (Danny) will be undertaking an internship. This internship is a necessary part of our PhD program for which we are both students of. I am based over at the John Innes Centre while Hans is based over at neighbouring University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. This … Continue reading Kenya PIPS – An Introduction
Kenya PIPS 2019 