In recognition of the limited spaces where we can celebrate the innovative, exciting and impactful research being undertaken by Black postgraduate students at the University of Cambridge across various fields, we have scheduled a new Black Postgraduate Symposium series, with three separate events across this academic year.
These will be relatively informal events with a friendly audience, along with an expectation that presenters adapt their delivery for a non-disciplinary audience.
Lent Term Symposia Programme
- Date: Monday 10 March
- Time: 5-7pm
- Venue: Student Services Centre (Exam Hall D - ground floor, entry from main reception via Bene't Street)
If you would like to attend, please confirm here. Refreshments will be provided (please RSVP before midday Monday for catering purposes). Please email if you have any questions about attendance or access to the venue: contact@blackadvisory.hub.cam.ac.uk
Presentations
Darnell Cadette (Sidney Sussex, Education PhD candidate) “Denied tears and emotions: Black boys' in schools.”
Infancy and early childhood are the most dramatic periods for child development and it is a fundamental period of environmentally (epigenetically) triggered social, emotional and cognitive growth and plasticity, as well as of vulnerability to mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety (Immordino-Yang, et al, 2018).
Can it be illustrated that poor emotional development among black students is linked to disproportionate numbers of school exclusions and prison populations ? Can research support future policy and working practices in school and other institutions? Findings suggest it can.
Philip Oneal (Christ’s, Land Economy PhD candidate) “The effect of climate, culture and vulnerability on LEED scores in Barbados.”
While economic stability begins to return in Barbados, residual, post-pandemic uncertainty lingers, combined with the threat of more frequent and destructive natural disasters with the potential to disrupt supply and demand in multiple sectors (IMF, 2022). Barbados’ resource constraints ensure its vulnerability (Lewis, 2022); to avoid further dependence, the socio-economic aspects influencing instability in neighbourhood development are discussed (Chamberlain, 2010).
The country’s rising energy consumption levels may require a transformation of its neighborhoods, their infrastructure and an evolution of institutional and stakeholder relationships to facilitate its energy transition. The research firstly develops an analytical framework to investigate the sensitivity of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria and the effect of culture and vulnerability on its scores using dependence theory and a systems approach to discover synergies, inefficiencies and unexpected issues arising from complex interactions between factors.
The findings explain the concept of LEED and international rating systems as borrowed knowledge that may not be suitable yet, if implemented using a localised framework and systems approach, can reveal opportunities for new markets and growth dynamics while avoiding unexpected problems. The findings call for continued place-based innovation and learning within institutions and enterprises to facilitate a more rapid energy transition.
Hannah Claus (Robinson, MMLL/TAL PhD candidate) “Empowering low-resource languages: Addressing socio-technical gaps in LLM development."
Current LLMs work really well in English and several other European languages. Most languages in Africa, Asia, and South America though have less representation on the internet, thus less available training data. This leads to language communities with lower resources either having to accept the status quo or using models in English. However, these language communities are also being forced to adapt Anglo-centric views to attempt to compete with the rest of the better-represented language communities. The solution is not just to collect more data and retrain the models, there needs to be a far more complex approach, which also includes socio-technical aspects and empowering low-resource language communities to claim scientific ownership over their own language and connected identity.
Chike Pilgrim (Darwin, Archaeology PhD candidate) “Egypt, Africa, and archaeology: an annotated reading of the First Hour of the Book of Gates.“
Ancient Egyptian funerary texts were writings used to help the spirit of a deceased person be protected and guided through the afterlife and toward resurrection. The Book of Gates, also more properly called The Book of Protecting Osiris among those of the Netherworld, is one such text. It dates back to the period of the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, around the 16th century BC. In it, the deceased must pass through 12 gates, coinciding with 12 hours, which represent the 12 hours of the night. Near the end, they will be judged and deemed either worthy or unworthy. If successful, they will return to the “daylight” or be resurrected. The First Hour of this text serves as an introduction to this nocturnal voyage. As an archaeologist and Egyptology enthusiast, my paper looks at the theological and cosmological themes that the Book of Gates discusses. However, by also by looking at the iconography and symbolism of the hieroglyphs used to produce this text, it proposes their possible religious and historical significance. By drawing on comparative evidence, this annotated interpretation seeks to understand cultural and intellectual interconnections between ancient Egypt and other African societies. By combining textual analysis with archaeological and historical perspectives, this reading of the Book of Gates argues for its internalization as not just a sacred and religious text, but as a symbolic one that is reflective of ancient Egyptian and indeed universal human themes. One of these major themes includes the human desire to live forever, and the means through which our quest for immortality might be obtained.