[Astronomy] Royal Society conference in London

After my visit to the RLSS Speeds, the next stop on my whirlwind tour of the UK took me to London for a two day conference at the Royal Society. Titled "Characterising exoplanets: detection, formation, interiors, atmospheres and habitability", it promised to be an interesting look at some of the aspects of exoplanetary research that I'm not so in touch with or involved in. It was also the first conference that I'd attended since my visit to the SUPA Cormack Astronomy Meeting in November 2012.

Ah, the Royal Society. Such a storied institution, and they've got impressive

facilities too. (Credit: David Brown)

This was the second meeting that I've attended at the Royal Society. Back in January 2010, about 4 months into my PhD, I travelled down to a meeting about the impact that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would have on society. That was a lot of fun, and so too was this meeting. 

The Royal Society have an interesting format for their scientific discussion meetings. Rather than the usual talk with time for questions, followed by another talk with time for questions, etc. they group their talks together into sessions, with each session comprising several talks back to back, followed by a panel style discussion section with all of the speakers from that session. It's different, but did occasionally lead to one or more of the speakers sitting there with no questions to answer whilst the others answered question after question. However I feel that it works a little better for promoting actual discussion, as the speakers can chime in on questions directed at each other, and it gives more time to explore interesting avenues that open up off the back of a particular question. I'm not sure that it would work for all meetings, but it's definitely got its merits.

The building at Carlton House Terrace is very impressive. This is the library. (Credit: http://bff-architects.blogspot.co.uk/)

Of course no meeting can be exciting without some good talks to listen to. I'm pleased to report that, for the most part, this was the case here. There were some standout contributions of course, just as there were a couple of talks that weren't particularly informative or stimulating (or even that good generally), but the general standard was quite high. I think this was helped though by the fact that it was only a two day meeting, and all of the speakers had been invited by the organisers.

As well as the talks there were some posters. In an interesting twist, these were limited to PhD students and postdocs in their first year or so. I thought that was a great idea, as it gave early career researchers a great platform to promote themselves without getting lost in the crowd. If I'd had anything to present I would have done so, but unfortunately I was at a stage in my write-up where I didn't have anything worth putting on a poster. I could have re-used an old one though, and I wish I had to be honest, as all of the posters were getting a lot of attention. 

This is the Wellcome Trust lecture room, which is where our meeting was held. It's got a lot of room, 

but the chairs tend to be placed quite close together. Not good for tall people like me! (Credit: royalsociety.org)

Part of what makes a conference good is of course the people that you go with, and I was lucky there too. One of my friends from St Andrews also travelled down, and I was pleased to see when I arrived that several of my friends from Warwick were there, along with my friend Alex who I went road-tripping around America with. There were also a lot of staff there that I knew, or had at least met before, so I even got a bit of networking done.

Conferences always get me excited about my job, and I tend to come away from them reinvigorated with the desire to do research. This meeting was no exception, but it wasn't the end of my astronomy related activities for the week. At the conclusion of this meeting I travelled to Chicheley Hall in Buckinghamshire for a satellite meeting, which turned out to be even better......