Irene Bechis

 In June 2019 I was selected to take part to the ‘Global Fellows Programme: Climate Action’, a week of interdisciplinary activities that took place at the London Velodrome in the Olympic Park. For one week, doctoral students from Imperial College London and Tokyo Institute of Technology, from a range of different nationalities and disciplines, worked together to understand the challenges of climate change and to develop possible solutions to tackle it. The week was a great opportunity to meet people coming from different cultural and scientific backgrounds and to develop key transferable skills, such as the ability to collaborate in an interdisciplinary environment.

Thanks to this programme, I had the opportunity to take part in a four-week research placement in the Chemistry department at Tokyo Tech in October 2019. I was warmly welcomed into my host supervisor’s group, where every member took care of me, providing me with an insight into their research. My PhD project is on modelling materials with potential for molecular separations, and my host research group in Tokyo are synthesizing these kinds of materials. This placement allowed me to obtain invaluable experimental insights into what I study computationally, which would not have been possible otherwise. This experience gave me the opportunity to gain a different perspective on my PhD research and on how research is conducted in other countries.

During my month in Japan, I was able to travel a lot around Tokyo and to other cities, such as Kyoto and Osaka. I was in awe of Japan’s beauty. My Japanese colleagues were always very enthusiastic to show me different aspects of Japanese culture and were happy to know about mine as well. I underwent a complete immersion into Japanese culture, having the opportunity to try typical Japanese dishes and to learn basic Japanese words.

This experience allowed me to learn a lot, about the world, myself and my research. I highly recommend that other PhD students apply for this programme, which will help them in many aspects of their scientific and personal development.