Momentum-February-2013 - Swansea University

Momentum
Research news from Swansea University
Issue 9 : February 2013
In this issue
• Memory, community, football: historians capture 100 years of Swansea City
• How supercomputing supports Swansea research
• Greenland glaciers and food festivals - research in profile

2 Momentum | Issue 9 | February 2013
Welcome to the February 2013 edition
of Momentum.
The city of Swansea is currently gripped
by football fever as the local team head
to Wembley for their first ever cup final.
So we report on a history research
project gathering fans’ memories and
experiences of supporting their club
through thick and thin.
We also look at pioneering work on
diabetes, one of the biggest health
challenges of the 21st century, at research
into food festivals, and at how
supercomputing is supporting Swansea
researchers working in health and physics.
Fending off polar bears? It’s all in a day’s
work if you’re a glaciology researcher, as
you can see in our Great Minds feature.
With so much fascinating research going
on across campus, it was good to see
images from our Research as Art
competition featured in a special exhibition
at the Royal Institution in London – read
more on page 6.
In this issue
Page 3 World-leading research – why
and how we focus on it
Page 4 Research highlights – diabetes,
100 years of Swansea City
Page 6 How supercomputing supports
Swansea research
Page 8 Research round-up
Page 10 Graduate success – Nia Bryer,
director, Old Bell 3 Research
Page 11 Great Minds: Prof Tavi Murray
Page 12 Postgrad research: Kate Stacey,
marketing and food festivals
P5
P4
P6
On the cover
Pictures gathered by the Swans 100
project, based in the University
history department, which is
capturing fans’ memories of the
first 100 years of Swansea City
Football Club.
The main picture
is of present-day
fans at the club’s
home ground,
the Liberty
Stadium.
The picture on
the left shows
fans from the
1960s. On the
right is the aptly-named Billy Ball, who
scored the Swans’ first ever goal, in their
debut game as a professional team,
against Cardiff City, on 7 September
1912. The game ended 1-1.
More on the Swans 100 project on
page 5.
P9
Momentum is produced by the
Marketing Department.
Please contact Kevin Sullivan on
+44 (0) 1792 513245 or
email k.g.sullivan@swansea.ac.uk
for further information.
© Swansea University 2013
Swansea University is a registered charity.
No. 1138342.
P11
For more details about
Swansea University’s research

Issue 9 | February 2013 | Momentum 3
World-leading research
Swansea University research has
recently been in the spotlight with the
launch of Breakthrough, a major report
which showcases some of the worldclass
research projects under way in our
institution. Some of these are also
featured in this issue of Momentum.
Professor Noel Thompson and Professor
Ian Cluckie, Pro Vice Chancellors for
research, explain our research focus
across the University.
Swansea University has achieved recognition as
a truly research-intensive institution through a
successful policy of targeted intervention and
investment. The University produces
internationally excellent and world-leading
research across all disciplines and displays
particular strength in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (the STEM
subjects), Medicine and Life Science, Social
Sciences, and the Arts and Humanities.
The results of the last (2008) Research
Assessment Exercise (RAE) speak volumes: the
largest increase in internationally excellent and
world-leading research in the whole of the UK,
with more than 90% of our academic staff
classed as research active.
Swansea University is currently ranked 29th in the
UK in terms of research income as a proportion of
turnover, and our College of Engineering is
performing on a par with universities in the Russell
Group. Moreover, for every £1 million of Higher
Education Funding Council for Wales research
grant awarded, we now secure more than £2.5
million of competitive research funding from a
wide variety sources.
Swansea’s approach to research builds on the
aspirations of our founders, who in 1920 set out
to respond to the requirements of industry but
also recognised in the breadth of its foundation
disciplines what makes for a University. The first
foundational Chairs created reflected this with
appointments in Engineering, Metallurgy,
Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, History and
English and with Dr Mary Williams becoming
the first woman to be appointed to a Chair at a
British University when she became Professor of
French Language and Literature in 1921.
Recent progress has been impressive but our
challenge now is to accelerate that momentum.
We have pledged to continue our policy of
strategic appointments; to sustain the growth of
research grant income through improvements in
bid quality; to engage more researchers in grantwinning
activities and to build effective national
and international collaborations.
Each of Swansea’s six Colleges house research
clusters that bring together our research
community with private companies, the public
and the third sector, and which build our capacity
to lead in emerging areas. Moreover, our
campus-based setting, and researchers who have
invested in interdisciplinary work, have enabled a
programme of cross-college collaboration that is a
distinctive and energising aspect of the University’s
dynamic research environment.
Decades of applied research have enriched our
economy and society. The government’s
growing emphasis upon impact reflects a
guiding principle that informs our campus
development programme with an underpinning
commitment to multidisciplinary research
ensuring that we combine strengths in STEM
with research in the Social Sciences, Arts and
Humanities, Business, Economics and Law. For
only in this way can the world’s most complex
and pressing challenges be addressed.
The Science and Innovation Campus
development heralds a new era for the University
and its research. This significant investment will
enable us to harness research strengths to a
broad range of local and transnational business
Festival of Research
celebrates excellence
enterprises, and to promote the growth of hightechnology
clusters. It will also furnish the space
on the Singleton campus that will allow the Arts,
Humanities, Social and Medical Sciences to
realise their ambitions.
Research informs all academic and student-based
activities across the University and a research
culture characterised by its vitality is pivotal to the
future of the institution. By developing the
University’s research portfolio, attracting and
retaining the most talented researchers and
postgraduates, and by working within and across
disciplines, Swansea will continue to address the
current and future challenges that confront Wales
and the wider world.
Professor Noel
Thompson, FRHistS
Pro Vice-Chancellor
(Research)
Professor Ian Cluckie,
FREng, FRSA,
Pro Vice-Chancellor
(Research)
A week-long showcase of public events, talks and exhibitions at Swansea University is
promoting the very best of Swansea University’s research. The Festival of Research,
coordinated by the Bridging the Gaps programme, is running from 25 February to 1
March. Open to all – students, staff and public alike – and free of charge, the festival
incudes highlights such as:
• Professor Andrew Blake, Laboratory Director, Microsoft Research Cambridge,
opening the festival with a public lecture, Building a Machine that Sees
• Professor Dave Worsley, Research Director of the Sustainable Product Engineering
Centre for Innovative Functional Industrial Coatings (SPECIFIC) project, giving his sellout
Cheltenham Science Festival presentation on Future Buildings
• Chris Marshall, PhD student in the University’s College of Arts and Humanities, giving
a lecture on The Promised Land? Barack Obama and Martin Luther King’s “Dream”.
www.swansea.ac.uk/festival-of-research
More on the Festival of Research in the next issue of Momentum

4 Momentum | Issue 9 | February 2013
Tackling today’s biggest health
problems - diabetes research
Danielle Jones, PhD Student in diabetes research
Chronic conditions have been described by
the former chief medical officer as “the
twenty-first century healthcare challenge”,
which is why research at Swansea into
diabetes – one of the conditions which has
risen inexorably in recent years – is of such
pressing importance.
Swansea’s diabetes research group has
grown rapidly since it was established in
2005. The group has expanded from 2 to
around 20, including senior investigators,
researchers, nurses and PhD students. Led
by Dr Jeff Stephens and Professor Steve
Bain the group is a cross-college
collaboration between Medicine and
Engineering, and has strong links to the
local NHS health boards.
Jeff Stephens says: “Our group has particular
expertise within obesity, prediabetes and
adipose biology. We also look at the genetics
of type 1 and 2 diabetes and associated
complications, cardiovascular disease, exercise
physiology, health in the workplace and
glucose and insulin homeostasis.
We’re involved with a lot of clinical trials of
new medical devices and therapies for type
2 diabetes. We work with major
pharmaceutical companies such as Lilly,
Novo Nordisk, Sanofi-Aventis, Boerhinger-
Ingelheim, Takeda and Astra-Zeneca”.
The group’s research has been published in
the leading medical journals, such as the
Lancet, British Medical Journal, and New
England Journal of Medicine. Their work is
built on a solid foundation of collaboration
with local doctors and scientists through a
research forum, and good relationships with
patients. In fact, the group also presents
research projects to the local branches of
Diabetes UK in the area to inform and gain
approval from patients for their work.
Diabetes Research Network
A multi-disciplinary collaboration, this aims to
promote existing strengths in diabetes
research, and encourage more people with
diabetes to get involved.
Exercise physiology in diabetes
This work looks at the interaction of physical
exercise, nutrition and pharmaceutical
interventions in the management of those
with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Basic Science
This research studies the genetics of renal
and cardiovascular complications in diabetes
Clinical Science
Several projects examining clinical and
physiological aspects of diabetes are under
way. These include studies examining
glucose and insulin homeostasis, cardiac
function and energy expenditure following
bariatric surgery.
Epidemiology, public health & Health
informatics
Collaborative research in these areas is
looking at latent autoimmune diabetes in
adults, and at how routine data can be used
to assess blood pressure differences in primary
and secondary care and any links between
glucose test strips and blood sugar control.
Retinopathy
Research on the costs and the screening interval
for diabetic retinopathy is also under way.
More information: look for the diabetes link
on this page:
www.swan.ac.uk/medicine/research/
Some of the research looks at the role of exercise

Issue 9 | February 2013 | Momentum 5
Memory, community, football:
100 years of Swansea City
Programme from Swansea Town’s first game, 7 Sept 1912
By the time you read this, Swansea City
Football Club may have already played in
the Cup Final at Wembley, having already
knocked out the European champions,
Chelsea, and the previous holders, Liverpool,
on their way. It is a remarkable story. Only
eight years ago the club was on the verge of
bankruptcy and elimination from the bottom
division of the Football League. Now the
Swans play amongst the elite in the Premier
League, the first Welsh team to do so. Win,
lose or draw at Wembley, the club is already
making history.
Swansea Town fans from the 1920s
This rollercoaster
history, and the
way in which it has
been experienced
and remembered
by generations of
fans, is the subject
of a fascinating
research project
based in Swansea
University’s
Department of
History and
Classics. Swans
100 is a community history
project, which is gathering fans’
memories of the Swans to create
an online archive. The project,
carried out in collaboration with
the Swans’ Supporters’ Trust, with
funding from the Lottery, was set
up in 2012, which marked the
centenary of the club’s foundation.
The project team, including
volunteer researchers, have been gathering
memories and memorabilia from fans of all
ages across the region, using questionnaires
and holding open days and stalls in
community settings. The earliest memory
recorded was from a man who remembers
attending his first game as a very young
child in 1924-25. The team also unearthed
the first recorded Swansea fans song, from
1913 and called The Swans War Song,
though it’s not known whether it caught on on
the terraces.
The project is led by Dr Martin Johnes, head
of history at Swansea
University,and an expert on
the social history of sport,
especially in Wales.
Together with Professor Huw
Bowen, Dr. Johnes provides
the academic support for the
project. Phil Bethell, Swans
100 project officer, has
been conducting much of the
research, meeting fans, and
capturing their memories.
He explains:
"The project has brought
Swansea Town cup tie side, 1921
together stories and memories from Swans'
fans from 8 to 80 years old. It has been a
pleasure to talk to people and read the stuff
they have sent in. It makes you realise how
much passion there is for the football club,
and how the supporters have kept it going
through the dark days when things were
definitely not Premier League.
More information: www.swans100.org.uk
As well as the online archive, fans’
memories are also gathered in a colour
hardback book, “Swansea ‘til I Die – a
century of supporting the Swans”.
Cleverley, one of the 1912 Swansea Town team

6 Momentum | Issue 9 | February 2012
From “miracle material” to
health data – supercomputing
High performance computing is supporting the work carried out by Swansea University researchers.
Computing was once used by only the largest
companies; today it is used by pretty much
everyone. Now high performance computing
(HPC - also known as supercomputing) is
moving the same way.
High Performance Computing (HPC) Wales is
a partnership between Universities in Wales,
and offers supercomputing services for
researchers and businesses. As well as
providing access to world-class distributed
supercomputing technology – three of its
systems are located in the Swansea area -
HPC Wales offers a full consultancy and
support service, and training to enable users to
get the maximum benefit from this increasingly
important technology.
Biagio Lucini and Simon Hands are
professors of Physics at Swansea University.
They’re using HPC Wales to carry out
world-class research within the field of
theoretical physics to develop a better
understanding of the newly discovered and
recently dubbed
‘miracle material’,
“
graphene. In
collaboration with a
Swansea-based
business, the results
are expected to have
big benefits for
industry in Wales.
Simon explains:
“Supercomputers enable
us to carry out millions of and disease.
calculations very quickly
to arrive at solutions to
problems. Graphene is the strongest material
discovered to date, a sheet of graphite one
With the help of HPC
Wales, we can use
powerful computer
systems to analyse the
huge volume of data
collected by the NHS and
public sector, turning it
into research findings that
help us understand illness
atom thick that conducts electricity at an
incredible speed. Its novel electronic properties
have enormous potential in many applications,
but have not yet been
exploited on a large scale.
Using supercomputers we
will be able to develop an
understanding of its
theoretical properties using
numerical simulations.”
The research leads to
commercial opportunities,
as Simon explains: “By
”
developing a good
understanding of the
theoretical properties of
graphene, we will put
businesses in Wales in a great position to take
advantage of our results in their product
Professor David Ford

Issue 9 | February 2013 | Momentum 7
Professor Simon Hands (right) with Professor Peter Higgs, at Swansea University, where Professor
Higgs was speaking, days after the discovery of the Higgs Boson
development, building stronger products at a
cheaper cost.” One business has already
been set up in Swansea with the intention of
commercialising the results in their forthcoming
product developments.
As for many researchers and businesses, speed
of calculation and the ability to access large
data and datasets quickly are fundamental for
the team’s research.
“HPC is essential. I
wouldn’t be doing what I
am doing without HPC –
it simply wouldn’t be
competitive,” Biagio says.
“Our field of research is
continually evolving - new
breakthroughs come
roughly every other year.
You have to be quick in
understanding them and
getting on board.”
“
By developing a good
understanding of the
theoretical properties of
graphene, we will put
businesses in Wales in a
great position to take
advantage of our results in
their product development,
building stronger products
at a cheaper cost.
HPC Wales makes this
technology more
accessible than ever
before. “I can say in all honesty that HPC
Wales has been the most professionally set up
system that I have used so far. It’s really a
pleasure to use, because it has taken very little
time to get to grips with,” says Biagio.
“Following a few emails between myself and
the technical team, I had uploaded our data
and was running my code within 1 hour of
being set up on the system”.
In terms of advice for others wondering if
supercomputing could be relevant to them,
Biagio says, “It’s less scary than it looks at first
sight. For those with basic computing
experience you could go
from using a desktop to a
HPC system in next to no
time.”
In addition to providing
access to the UK’s largest
distributed supercomputing
network, HPC Wales also
offers access to a
Biomedical Analytics
system, based at
Swansea University.
”
HPC Wales’ IBM
POWER©7 DB2 RDBMS
Data Warehouse system
enables academics and
businesses to carry out data mining on
anonymised medical and social data. The
data has been collated under the Secure
Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) system
Professor Simon Hands
explains his research
operated by the Health Information Research
Unit (HIRU) at Swansea University.
One body that will benefit from this new
development is CIPHER, the Centre for
Improving Population Health through E-Health
Research, funded by the Medical Research
Council and a consortium of other funders.
They will be using the SAIL system to
investigate a wide range of conditions that
place a huge burden on the UK population,
including injury, mental health and infection.
Professor David Ford, Professor of Health
Informatics and Deputy Director of CIPHER, says:
“CIPHER represents a serious step forward in
the way health research is conducted. At
Swansea, we have a history of using
advanced high powered computing and with
the help of HPC Wales, we can use powerful
Professor David Ford, Deputy Director of CIPHER
computer systems to meet the challenges of
analysing the huge volume of data collected
by the NHS and public
sector, turning it into
research findings that
help us all to
understand illness
and disease and to
improve health
policy making.”
To find out if you could benefit from
supercomputing contact HPC Wales
Swansea based Will Krawszik on
will.krawszik@hpcwales.co.uk
or call 07850 771288
HPC Wales is a partnership between
Universities in Wales and Fujitsu, and is
funded by the European Regional
Development Fund through the Welsh
Government, the UK Department for
Business, Innovation and Skills and the
Higher Education Funding Council for
Wales.

8 Momentum | Issue 9 | February 2013
Research Round-up
Forecasting flood impacts
and prevent future risks
Engineering researchers from Swansea
University are starting work on a £2.2
million project to investigate the effects of
floods on defences, urban areas,
communities and businesses, to help
mitigate against future flood risks.
The three-year project, called Flood Memory,
will look at the most critical flood scenarios
caused by sequences or clusters of extreme
weather events. It involves around ten
universities across the UK, as well as the
National Oceanography Centre, and has
received funding of over £1.7 million from the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
Council.
FloodMEMORY will analyse and simulate
situations where a second flood may strike
before flood defences have been reinstated
after damage, or householders and small
businesses are in a vulnerable condition
recovering from the first flood.
Dr Harshinie Karunarathna, senior lecturer in
coastal engineering at Swansea University,
said: “We are very excited to be part of this
challenging project, which aims to deliver a
major advance in the ability to forecast flood
impacts. Swansea will be leading the work
on Coastal Flood Systems, which will employ
coastal area models with the aim of
forecasting beach change and coastal
flooding from extreme events at long term
time scales.”
The aim of their research, which has been
sponsored by Arthritis Research UK, is to
repair damaged joints of younger patients,
so they do not require surgery until later in
life, if at all. The scientists have received
further funding from Orthopedic Research UK
to trial the procedure using human cartilage.
Dr Khan said: ‘‘We were amazed at how
powerful our approach has been in making
cartilage stiffer; not only that, but it also helps
regenerate osteoarthritic cartilage. These
highly exciting findings are relevant to
everybody, as many of us will suffer from
some form of joint disease later in life. We
Swansea’s rich history
explored
A Swansea University project on the history and
heritage of local communities has been awarded
a grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
‘’Cymunedau Cysylltiedig: Researching the
Industrial and Post-Industrial Communities of
the Swansea Valley”, is led by Professor Huw
Bowen and the Research Institute for Arts and
Humanities (RIAH), at Swansea University. It
forms part of the Connected Communities
programme, funded by the Arts and
Humanities Research Council.
The HLF grant will support six local projects,
involving people from communities in the
Swansea Valley.
A project entitled ‘The Hafod Walk: an Oral
History’’ - run by a local branch of the
would like to thank Arthritis Research UK and
Orthopedic Research UK for their support,
which will enable us to work towards finding
a cure for the disease in the near future.”
Historical Association - will create a digital
trail around the Whiterock site in Landore
using oral history recordings to tell the story of
the former Hafod Copperworks.
Maesyrdderwen School will conduct a project
with local school children about their
community mining heritage and legacy.
Clydach Heritage Centre’s project entitled
‘Old Clydach’ will explore the transformation
of the village through the decades, while the
Chinese Co-operative will research the history
of Chinese immigration in Swansea.
The group ‘Swansea Your Story’ will digitally
preserve photographs and memories of
Swansea’s past, and Treboeth Historical
Society will work with local school children to
research the life of a famous poet Daniel
James, composer of famous Welsh hymn
“Calon Lan”.
Joint effort makes
progress on osteoarthritis
Research by Dr Ilyas Khan (pictured above
left) and Dr Lewis Francis (right) from
Swansea University’s Centre of Nanohealth
has shown that the progress of
osteoarthritis, the number one cause of
physical disability in the world, can
potentially be stopped, and even reversed.
When cartilage in our knees or hips is
osteoarthritic, it is softer and cannot carry the
same load, which leads to loss of cartilage.
According to the research, the condition can
be reversed by using a specific combination
of growth factors that make the cartilage
stiffen and grow back.
The historic Hafod Copper Works

Issue 9 | February 2013 | Momentum 9
“Simply stunning” - Royal
Institution exhibits images
of Swansea research
The Royal Institution in London, one of the
world’s most prestigious science
communication and research organisations,
where Sir Humphry Davy worked on his
miner’s lamp, and where Michael Faraday
did his pioneering work on electricity, has
recently been hosting a special exhibition of
pictures submitted by Swansea University
researchers for the Research as Art
competition.
The competition, which has been running for
three years, is for researchers across
Swansea University. Entrants have to submit
images that are inspired by research or
inspire research. A high-profile judging
panel was assembled for the competition,
including Dr Gail Cardew, Director of
Science and Education at the Royal
Institution.
Dr Cardew said: “I felt that more people
should be given the opportunity to have a
peek at the pictures. Not only are some of
the images simply stunning, but the beauty
also lies in the fact that they are combined
with a narrative that explains the work and
puts it into context. The result is a collection
of images that have wide appeal beyond
the usual scientific circle. Visitors to the Ri
certainly had a treat in store”.
Breakthrough – research
publication launched
A new edition of Swansea University’s chief
research publication – Breakthrough – has
been published, which showcases the
breadth, quality, and impact of the
University’s research across its six
academic Colleges.
The 160-page volume was launched by the
Minister for Education and Skills, Leighton
Andrews, in the presence of Wales’ Chief
Scientific Officer, Professor John Harries, at
the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay
on Tuesday, February 5. The publication is
also available to download online.
Swansea University Vice Chancellor
Professor Richard B Davies said: “These are
exciting times for Swansea University, as we
continue to progress towards our aspiration
of being one of the top 200 universities in
the world and our immediate goal of
becoming a top-30 research-led university in
the UK by 2017.
Breakthrough provides an overview of the
scale and impact of research being
undertaken at Swansea, and captures the
vitality of the research environment now
firmly established at the University.”
www.swansea.ac.uk/breakthrough
Research as Art entries on display in the Royal Institution in London

10 Momentum | Issue 9 | February 2013
Graduates in focus
Nia Bryer (Geography 1996), Director, Old Bell 3 Ltd, research and evaluation
Why did you decide to study at Swansea
University?
The Department of Geography had an
excellent reputation and I wanted to
concentrate upon human, social and
economic geography, which were well
covered by the department.
What did you enjoy most about your
course at Swansea?
Lectures were delivered by professional
academics who were well-researched in
their specialist fields.
What are you doing now career-wise?
I am currently a Director of a small research
and evaluation company, Old Bell 3 Ltd. We
have offices in Llandeilo and Ludlow and
employ six consultants. Old Bell 3 provides
research, evaluation and advisory services to
public, private and voluntary sector
organisations working mainly within Wales.
Since 2000, the company has built an
extensive track record of carrying out major
research, evaluation and advisory
commissions for Welsh, UK and European
clients. We have experience across a wide
range of policy areas including learning,
skills and employment, economic
development, community regeneration, social
and financial inclusion, business support,
social enterprise, ICT, equalities and the
Welsh language.
Our client list includes various Welsh
Government Departments, the BIG Lottery
Fund in Wales, local authorities, the Welsh
Local Government Association (WLGA),
Higher Education Funding Council for Wales
(HEFCW), the Wales Council for Voluntary
Action (WCVA), the Wales Co-operative
Centre, and various local authorities,
Universities and Sector Skills Councils.
How has Swansea University and your course
helped you with your chosen career path?
The course at Swansea University provided
me with a thorough grounding in research
methodologies which I apply on a daily
basis at Old Bell 3. In particular my studies
covered both qualitative research methods
such as those applied in my dissertation, as
well as quantitative research methods.
Furthermore the course fuelled my interest
across a range of policy areas such as
economic development, rural geography,
social justice and industry.
What are the most challenging parts of
your job?
Ensuring that contracts are delivered to the
highest possible standards, are based on
rigorous research methods, and are completed
within often very tight timescales and budgets.
And the most rewarding parts of the job?
The key reward is witnessing the growth
and success of a small business, particularly
within the current economic climate.
Secondly, the vast majority of our research
and evaluation contracts require the
preparation of reports which provide
detailed feedback on the findings of our
fieldwork. These reports usually contain a
set of recommendations for the client to
consider and implement. It is always
rewarding to see such recommendations
being put into practice.
What was the best careers advice you
were given?
I’ve heard several words of wisdom along the
way: You’ve got to create your own
opportunities in this world rather than respond
to what others are offering. On graduating
my father told me to contact organisations I’d
like to work for asking for work experience
just to get my foot in the door rather than wait
for jobs to be advertised.
Concentrate on what you can do, rather than
what you can’t. This was my husband’s
advice to me when I considered applying for
a job which I thought was too ambitious at
the time – but got it!
What advice do you have for current
students and new graduates?
When you apply for a job make sure your
application is correct and has no spelling or
grammatical errors. I can’t overemphasise the
importance of this – as an employer, mistakes
reflect badly upon the applicant and it
demonstrates a lack of basic skills and attention
to detail. Also any potential employer can
easily do some further research on applicants
via social media, so make sure that the image
you portray is positive and professional.
What are your plans for the future?
Continue to develop Old Bell 3,
concentrating on providing excellent quality
services for our clients and maintaining a
good work-life balance.
What are you most proud of?
Raising two wonderful children
What are your favourite memories of your
university years at Swansea?
Getting to know people from all walks of life.
The Welsh Society and the Mumbles Mile!
Stay connected
Graduates of Swansea University
become members of the Alumni
Association, a network of past students
who support each other professionally
and socially around the world.
Alumni have an important role in helping
the next generation. If you would like to
feature in future publications, or indeed,
if you can offer work placements or
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please email alumni@swansea.ac.uk
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Issue 9 | February 2013 | Momentum 11
Great minds - Tavi Murray
Tavi Murray doing field work on glaciers
Tavi is professor of glaciology, head of
Swansea's glaciology group, and a deputy
Pro Vice Chancellor at Swansea. In 2007 Tavi
was awarded the Polar Medal by the Queen
for outstanding service to polar research.
A world authority in glaciology, Tavi Murray is
at the forefront of research that informs the
debate on one of the most pressing issues of
our time: climate change.
She is particularly interested in glacier flow
and instability. With her colleagues in the
glaciology group, she studies the extent to
which glaciers are contributing to rises in
global sea level, both now and looking into
the future. The group uses a wide variety of
techniques including geophysics, numerical
modelling and remote sensing. Current field
projects span the Arctic, Antarctic and most of
the world’s glaciated regions.
Greenland has been the location for one of
the group’s major projects, called GLIMPSE,
over the past few years.
In an interview – available to view in the
Breakthrough section of the University website -
Tavi explains the purpose of the GLIMPSE
project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
“What we really want to know is how much
water the Greenland ice sheet is going to
contribute to sea level in the future.
Snow falls in the centre of Greenland and is
transported slowly outwards to the edges.
About half of the snowfall runs off as water,
and half comes out as icebergs. That
proportion has been changing over recent time
and more of the snow has been discharged as
icebergs. That seems to be one of the keys –
if we can understand the rates of discharge
through the glaciers
of Greenland, then
we can understand
future sea-level rise.”
What we really want to know is
how much water the Greenland
ice sheet is going to contribute to
“sea
”
level in the future.
Born in Oxford, Tavi
has been at
Swansea since 2005. She was previously
chair of glaciology at Leeds University and has
held a visiting professorship in Waterloo,
Canada. As well as Greenland, her work has
taken her to the Arctic, especially Svalbard in
Norway, and the Antarctic, with funding for
several of her projects awarded by the
Leverhulme Trust. In 2007-8 Tavi was invited
to deliver the Bullerwell Lecture, run by the
British Geophysical Association.
Tavi is committed to ensuring researchers’ work
extends beyond the boundaries of their own
specialist areas. At Swansea she is responsible
for maximising the wider impact of our
research. She is also director of SURF,
Swansea University Research Forum, which
aims to foster links and collaborative work
between researchers from different subjects.
Fieldwork is the foundation of research, and
glaciologists face their own own unique
challenges when out in
the field, as Tavi
explained to National
Geographic:
“I woke up in my tent
one morning to hear
loud growling! We were camped on a glacier
in Svalbard and there was a tripwire around
our tents to warn if a polar bear came”.
“A bear had its feet on either side of the wire,
and it wasn't happy. I grabbed my glasses,
wiped them clear, and then loaded a gun
before opening the tent door, all the time
shouting warnings to my companion. That
bear encounter involved me firing a warning
shot, and I'm pleased to say I've never needed
anything more than that. The most challenging
part of that encounter was probably actually
managing to sleep the night afterward in the
same tent. In fact, each time the tent rustled
slightly in the wind I was instantly wide awake
and alert!”
Swansea University Research Forum
www.swan.ac.uk/research/surf/
Broken Reflections – Greenland glaciers
Tavi entered this picture for the 2012 Swansea University Research as Art competition.
“A landscape like this talks directly to my soul. The almost perfect
reflection of the mountains and sky are broken by the icebergs melting
in this Greenland fjord. The icebergs introduce cool and fresh water
and drive the deep circulation delivering deep warm waters to the
glacier front, accelerating the glacier’s flow and increasing sea -level
rise. These are the true colours of the Arctic”.
Research as Art

12 Momentum | Issue 9 | february 2013
Postgraduate Q and A – food festivals
What did the research demonstrate?
Kate Stacey has just completed her PhD in
business management, in the College of
Business, Economics and Law. Her subject
was food festivals, and the ways in which these
are experienced and remembered by visitors.
Why food festivals?
After completing my MRes here at Swansea I
was inspired by the world of research. I
moved on to become a Research Officer in
rural development, but my passion for local
food left me asking more questions and I
wanted to focus on my own project. I had
completed my undergraduate degree in the
Business School at Swansea so I developed
a proposal which incorporated my interest in
local food with the emerging academic field
of customer experience and consumer
behaviour in the business context.
Food festivals have become very popular in
the past few years and, of course, the food
industry is a major sector of the economy:
• 80% of the area of Wales is farmland
or common land
• there are over 27,000 businesses within
the agri-food sector in Wales,
employing 18% of the Welsh workforce
• in 2012 the Welsh Government
invested £339,280 in over 30 food
festivals across the country
What did your project focus on?
I looked at the long-term experiential value of
food festivals. In other words, how people
who visited the festivals remember feeling
about their visit. Remembered experience is
the important thing in marketing: what is it
that people remember, and how can you
spark that memory after the event to promote
positive behaviour in the future?
It’s a project that draws on psychology and
marketing, and I am very grateful for the
support of my supervisors in the College, Dr
Jane Probert and Dr Nicole Koenig-Lewis.
How did you do the research?
Getting the data was a big and complicated
job! The research included 800 visitors to
10 food festivals across Wales, from Ll^
yn in
the north-west to Abergavenny in the southeast.
They completed a visitor survey, which
asked them what they did at the festival,
what their prior interest in local food had
been, and what their response was to the
festival in question. I was interested in their
overall perception of the experiential value of
the event; in other words their emotional as
well as cognitive satisfaction.
I then conducted a follow-up survey six months
later with the same people, asking them
virtually identical questions, to see how they
remembered the experience several months
after the event. I was also interested in their
behaviour in the intervening months: for
instance, had they bought any of the products
that they had sampled at the festival?
As well as visitors to the festivals, I also
spoke to producers with stalls at the festivals,
chefs, and other relevant stakeholders.
Visitors’ responses show that factors such as
convenience and availability have a big
impact on whether they follow up their visit to
the festival by buying the products.
The Welsh Government, food festival
organisers and producers all have a role to
play in making sure that products are
available as widely as possible after the
event, to help sustain the benefit.
Another key finding was how important it is
for producers to build an ongoing
relationship with food festival visitors. We
know that one of the things visitors like about
food festivals is the sense that they have a
direct relationship with the producer, in the
way that it used to be with local butchers or
greengrocers for example. Keeping this
relationship going after the event is therefore
essential, but unfortunately at the moment
many producers don’t follow up as much as
they should.
The project provides useful market research for
food festival organisers and for individual
producers. It’ll hopefully help them understand
their customers better, and see what works
well and what could be improved.
What’s next for you?
I’ve moved from food to water! I’ve just
begun a new project on sustainable water
consumption, which is a collaboration
between the College of Engineering and the
College of Business, Economics and Law,
funded by the Bridging the Gaps
programme.
Thank you.