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Blog: Why University Matters – Follow your passion

By Lucie Langley, Faculty Education Manager, Humanities and Social Sciences

University can have a tremendously positive impact on people and communities in all areas of life. It provides opportunities to enrich expertise and allows students to find and build on their great passions. Here we take a look at two Queen Mary students who have made the best of the experience.

Blog: New evidence links insect population collapse to dams

In this article for the Conversation, Queen Mary PhD researcher Liam Nash shares the findings of a recent study that sheds new light on insect population declines in tropical regions. 

Blog: G7 summit - what to expect from Boris Johnson as Joe Biden visits the UK

Professor Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, with the School of Politics and International Relations has written an opinion piece for The Conversation on the G7 summit, Joe Biden’s first trip to the UK as US President, and what we can expect from his meeting with Boris Johnson.

Blog: COVID-19’s impacts on the brain and mind are varied and common – new research

Dr Cameron Watson, Junior Doctor and Dementia Researcher, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Queen Mary University of London has written an opinion piece for The Conversation on COVID-19’s impacts on the brain and mind.

Blog: Inflation might well keep rising in 2021 - but what happens after that?

Brigitte Granville, Professor of International Economics and Economic Policy at Queen Mary University of London has written an opinion piece for The Conversation on the recent concerns about serious inflation damaging the global economy. 

Blog: To what extent are we ruled by unconscious forces?

Dr Magda Osman, Reader in Experimental Psychology at Queen Mary University of London, provides her perspective on this question in an article for the Conversation's new series, Life’s Big Questions, co-published with BBC Future.  

Blog: WhatsApp’s controversial privacy update may be banned in the EU – but the app’s sights are fixed on India

Dr Philippa Williams, Reader in Human Geography at Queen Mary University of London has co-written an opinion piece for The Conversation about the roll out of WhatsApp’s new privacy policy, which critics warn will lead to more data sharing with its parent company Facebook. The piece was co-written with Dr Lipika Kamra from O.P. Jindal Global University.

Blog: TRIPS waiver - US support is a major step but no guarantee of COVID-19 vaccine equity

This piece by Dr Sophie Harman, Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary, was originally published in The Conversation and discusses the US agreement to support a waiver of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). 

Blog: Sadiq Khan re-elected: What London mayor’s priorities should be for second term

Farah Hussain, a PhD Researcher from Queen Mary's School of Politics and International Relations, has written an opinion piece for The Conversation about Sadiq Khan's re-election and his plans for the next three years.

Blog: Dirty protests - why Irish republican prisoners smeared their cells with faeces to make a political statement during the Troubles

Professor Seán McConville from Queen Mary's School of Law has written an opinion piece for The Conversation on the history of the so-called dirty protests which took place in some prisons in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Blog: Preprints: how draft academic papers have become essential in the fight against COVID

This piece by Dr Jonathon Coates, Postdoctoral Researcher at Queen Mary's William Harvey Research Institute, was originally published in The Conversation and discusses the advantages that draft scientific papers ('preprints') have brought to COVID-19 research during the pandemic.

Blog: Is Keir Starmer any good? Don’t ask Londoners

Dr Patrick Diamond, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Queen Mary University of London has written for The Conversation about how Keir Starmer recently celebrated his first year as leader of the Labour party. 

Blog: Sadiq Khan is on course for a big win – so what do Londoners want from their mayor in a second term?

Dr Patrick Diamond, Director of Queen Mary's Mile End Institute (MEI) has written an opinion piece for The Conversation on Sadiq Khan's chances in the upcoming Mayor of London elections. His analysis is based on recent polling commissioned by the MEI.

Blog: Virginia Woolf on the magic of going to the cinema

Dr Lucy Bolton, Reader in Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London has written for The Conversation about the work of Virginia Woolf and the impact that cinema had on her.

Blog: How we discovered a hidden world of fungi inside the world’s biggest seed bank

Rowena Hill, a PhD student at Queen Mary University of London and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has written a piece for the Conversation about  a newly-discovered hidden world of fungi inside the world's biggest seed bank.

Blog: St Patrick’s day - why so many US presidents like to say ‘I’m Irish’

Dr Richard Johnson, Lecturer in US Politics in Queen Mary's School of Politics and International Relations has written an opinion piece for The Conversation about Irish Americans and US foreign policy. He argues that US security interests will always come above personal identities.

Blog: Why promising results from a large clinical trial into vitamin D and COVID-19 may not be all that they seem

Sandra Eldridge is Professor of Biostatistics and Director of the Pragmatic Clinical Trials Unit at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London. In this blog post, Professor Eldridge discusses the recent excitement around some promising clinical trial results that suggest that vitamin D improved the recovery of hospitalised COVID-19 patients, and she explains why the trial may be flawed.

Blog: Fake letters to politicians - the timing may be bad but it’s OK to test whether MPs reply to constituents

Professor Philip Cowley from Queen Mary's School of Politics and International Relations has written an opinion piece for The Conversation in which he argues that the work that MPs do in their constituencies is important and deserves proper study.

Blog: How reading aloud can be an act of seduction

Professor Kiera Vaclavik from Queen Mary's School of Languages, Linguistics and Film has written an opinion piece for The Conversation in which she argues that reading aloud can be a seductive act. Kiera Vaclavik is Professor of Children's Literature & Childhood Culture in the Department of Comparative Culture and Literature.

Blog: Covid coup: how Myanmar’s military used the pandemic to justify and enable its power grab

Dr Ronan Lee, Visiting Scholar at Queen Mary's International State Crime Initiative has written an opinion piece for The Conversation in which he explains how the Myanmar military have been able to take advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Blog: Could a wristband or certificate allow you out of lockdown after a negative coronavirus test?

Dr Magda Osman, Reader in Experimental Psychology at Queen Mary University of London has written an opinion piece for The Conversation exploring whether freedom passes based on negative test results could offer a way to avoid placing restrictions on everyone.

Blog: Keir Starmer’s dilemma: should Labour vote in favour of a Brexit deal in parliament?

Dr Karl Pike from Queen Mary's School of Politics and International Relations has written an opinion piece for The Conversation where he explores the options facing the UK Labour Party when it comes to a future deal on Brexit.

Blog: Sir Roger Penrose: The groundbreaking discoveries more than worthy of a Nobel Prize

Last month Sir Roger Penrose was announced as the joint winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. Sir Roger Penrose previously held a visiting Professorship at the Centre for Research in String Theory (CRST) at Queen Mary University of London. In this blog, Professor David Berman and Professor Malcolm Perry from CRST discuss some of Penrose’s revolutionary ideas and how they have and continue to shape the field of particle physics.

Blog: Poland’s abortion ruling amounts to a ban – but it will not end access

Dr Sydney Calkin, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow and Lecturer in Human Geography, has written an opinion piece for The Conversation in response to a new law relating to access to abortion in Poland.

Blog: Honouring the slaves experimented on by the ‘father of gynaecology’

As part of our series of articles and profiles for Black History Month, Heidi Downes, Antenatal Screening Counsellor Midwife at Queen Mary, writes an opinion piece about the role of young, black, enslaved women in a series of experimental surgeries in the 19^th century, and why she is calling for their contributions to be formally recognised. This was originally published on The Conversation.

Blog: Women in work: how East Germany’s socialist past has influenced West German mothers

Dr Anna Raute from Queen Mary's School of Economics and Finance has co-authored an opinion piece for The Conversation. Based on brand new research, it sheds light on the impact of the reunification of Germany.

Blog: Shipping asylum seekers offshore may boost Priti Patel’s hardline image, but Australian example shows it’s not a policy that works

Andonea Jon Dickson, a PhD candidate from Queen Mary's School of Politics and International Relations has written an opinion piece for The Conversation about the latest plans to offshore asylum seekers. She argues that tougher options for asylum seekers means that the UK government risks breaching multiple conventions on human rights.

Blog: When women bear the brunt of lockdowns, is it feminist to support another?

The UK lockdown in March saw rises in domestic violence, increased childcare and domestic burdens on women, limits on paid employment and potentially career reversals. Professor Sophie Harman from Queen Mary's School of Politics and International Relations questions whether it is feminist to support another lockdown.

Blog: Why AstraZeneca and others racing to make a Covid-19 vaccine should be more open about the process

Professor Duncan Matthews has written an opinion piece for The Conversation in which he argues that the Covid-19 pandemic has been a game changer and biopharma companies need to face up to a new reality.