Welcome to the Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series page!
This weekly seminar series aims to provide a platform for researchers in the fields of evolution and ecology from across the UK to showcase their work here at Silwood Park.
Location
Seminars are in person in the Oak lecture theatre, Hamilton building, Silwood Park campus, Thursdays at 13.00. The seminars are recorded on Panopto (provided the speaker is happy for this to happen), and are accessible by request there.
Meeting a speaker
If you would like to meet with the seminar speaker, please contact the host listed below.
Inviting a speaker
If you are faculty or a postdoc and have a speaker you would like to invite to give a seminar, please see the timetable below for available slots.
Once you have a speaker provisionally interested in giving a talk and you have agreed a slot for them to come, please email silwood.seminars@imperial.ac.uk with contact information and the preferred slot. We will double-check availability and provide further details to the speaker. Accommodation can also be arranged if required. Hosts are in charge of organising the day for their invited speaker (greetings, meetings, dinner, etc...).
PhD students: You are very welcome to invite speakers, though please bear in mind that you will be responsible for hosting the speaker while they are at Silwood.
Please be aware the timetable is not updated daily.
Speaker expenses / budget
When speakers are on site we can cover some costs with our yearly budget. The maximum amount that can be claimed when hosting seminar speakers is £200 per speaker, and includes travel expenses, one night accommodation and dinner for host and speaker. Please bear this budget in mind when considering invitations. Travel should be booked using cheap, advance options in line with the College’s Expenses Policy (requires College login). Entertainment costs are detailed in the Expenses Policy. Normally speakers should be travelling from within the UK. Exceptionally we can include speakers from Europe if they can travel here within budget: in such cases, the host must notify the seminar organizers for departmental approval ahead of time. Hosts are, of course, welcome to use any alternative source of funding to cover expenses above the £200 limit if required.
Panopto recordings
Most presentations will be recorded/uploaded using Panopto (Imperial login required). You can find all of the recorded talks in the Silwood Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series folder, here. Note that not all talks are recorded, for various reasons.
Previous seminars
The schedules for previous terms (including links to Panopto recordings) can be found here.
Questions
The seminar is organised by a seminar committee (see here for a list of present and former members). Please email silwood.seminars@imperial.ac.uk with any queries.
Timetables
Schedules for upcoming terms are given below. Blank slots are free. Times given are based on UK time.
AUTUMN TERM 2024:
| Date | Time | Location | Speaker | Institution | Host | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10th October | 1pm | Oak | Gergana Daskalova | International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis | Cristina Banks-Leite | Expected and surprising drivers of biodiversity change |
| 17th October | 1pm | Oak | Various | Imperial | "Meet an academic" session | |
| 24th October | 1pm | Oak | Silwood research groups | Imperial | N/A | Research group introduction session |
| 31st October | 1pm | Oak | Jie Deng | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) / University of Oxford | Quqiming (Danica) Duan | Understanding community changes in ecological systems: a probabilistic perspective |
| 7th November | 1pm | Oak | Ambre Salis | Imperial | N/A (Internal) | Exploring Sparrows’ semantics |
| 14th November | 1pm | Oak | Samraat Pawar | Imperial | N/A (Internal) | The role of temperature in the dynamics, control and engineering of microbial communities (AKA microbiomes) in the real world. |
| 21st November | ---- | --- | ------------------------------- | -------------------------------- | ------------ | -----No seminar ----- |
| 28th November | ---- | --- | ------------------------------- | -------------------------------- | ------------ | -----No seminar ----- |
| 5th December | 1pm | Oak | Gustavo Burin Ferreira | Durham University | Cristina Banks-Leite | What can biological interactions tell us about plant macroevolution? |
SPRING TERM 2025:
| Date | Time | Location | Speaker | Institution | Host | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16th January | ||||||
| 23rd January | 1pm | Douglas Kelley | CEH (Wallingford) | Vivienne Comyn-Platt | Niche-dependent forest and savanna fragmentation in Tropical South America during the Last Glacial Maximum | |
| 30th January | 1pm | Mike Hoffmann | ZSL | Rob Ewers | ||
| 6th February | ||||||
| 13th February | ||||||
| 20th February | 1pm | Arran Folly | Animal and Plant Health Agency | Lauren Cator | ||
| 27th February | ||||||
| 6th March | ||||||
| 13th March | 1pm | Claudia Wascher | Anglia Ruskin University | Ambre Salis |
SUMMER TERM 2025:
| Date | Time | Location | Speaker | Institution | Host | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8th May | 1pm | John Spicer | Plymouth | Cordelia Roberts | Changes in the physiology of marine animals over the last century. | |
| 15th May | 1pm | Deepa Senapathi | University of Reading | Jessica Williams | ||
| 22nd May | 1pm | Christine Miller | University of Cambridge | James Rosindell | ||
| 29th May | ||||||
| 5th June | ||||||
| 12th June | ||||||
| 19th June |
BONUS SEMINARS:
| Date | Time | Location | Speaker | Institution | Host | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|