The May Festival is one of the Aberdeen Festivals that takes place each year. Locally known as May Fest, this one is my favourite of them all. The University opens its doors and showcases the best research across every discipline you can imagine, there are always brilliant guest speakers and events, and it never fails to bring in huge crowds. Last year’s May Fest brought 14,000 people to the University’s campus, and with this year’s line up looking bigger and better than ever, I’m sure we’ll see even bigger numbers this year.
A few weeks ago the May Fest brochure landed on my door mat, and I was genuinely a bit overwhelmed by just how many events are scheduled for between Friday 25th and Sunday 27th May. I’ve had some time to dig through it, and thought it might be useful to put together a list of the events I’m most looking forward to – read on to get a super condensed version of the May Fest programme with a feminist, science-loving slant 🙂 most of the events I’ve picked are free too, which is always a bonus.
Friday 25th May
Aberdeen (Uni’s) Got Talent
11am-12pm
Free/booking required
Linklater Rooms, University of Aberdeen
I’m gutted that I won’t be able to attend this one (I’ll have just landed back in the city after my Oregon trip, and I’m 100% sure that Friday is going to be a jet-lag-fuelled nightmare) – but hoping that there will be some good coverage on Twitter that I can catch up on once my brain wakes up.
This brilliant event is the local final for the Three Minute Thesis competition, where PhD students are challenged to communicate their research in just 3 minutes, and with only one PowerPoint slide (no animations, no music). There are a few fellow PhD students I know that are taking part, and I think their presentations will be great – keep an eye out for Alastair Irvine from the Health Economics Research Unit, and Shifa Sarica from the Epidemiology group.
Book Launch of Another Dose of Verbal Remedies
4.30pm-5.30pm
Free/booking required
Linklater Rooms, University of Aberdeen
This event is organised by the WORD Centre in partnership with University of Aberdeen School of Medicine, and it sounds brilliant. I think this type of event has been at the May Festival before, but this is the first time that it’s caught my attention. This is the launch of a book made of up snippets of creative writing from medical students, selected and edited by Helen Lynch – take a look at a previous edition here. At the launch, contributing writers will read from their work, and talk about the experience and benefits of writing from a medical point of view. Hoping that I can get out of my jet-lag-induced slumber for this one, it sounds right up my street and I’m glad to see medical students showcasing the need for creativity and writing to benefit their medical practice.
Saturday 26th May
Global Women’s Health
10am-11am
Free/booking required
Regent Lecture Theatre, University of Aberdeen
I’m really hoping that I can get to this event in the morning before Soapbox Science kicks off – it sounds like something that would build on the book ‘Doing Harm’ that I reviewed a few weeks ago. This event combines research from the Universities of Aberdeen and Cape Town, who will take us through the day of two women – one in Grampian, and one in South Africa – so that we can better understand the different challenges that women face in these environments, and how research is working to transform the lives of women for the better.
Scientists on the Spot
10.30am-11.30am
Free/booking required
New King’s 14, University of Aberdeen
Finally, an event I’ve booked! Saying that, I am going to have to dip out early because of Soapbox Science commitments, but I’m looking forward to it anyway. Scientists will be facing tricky questions from the shmu fm Youth Media Team, and we’ll also get the chance to see a short film made my the Youth Media Team about what science means to them.
Soapbox Science
12-3pm
Free/no booking required
King’s Lawn, University of Aberdeen
I’m obviously biased, but it would have been weird not to include Soapbox Science on this list – I’m going to keep this brief, but please come down and hear our brilliant line up of women in science talk about their research!
100 Years of Women’s Suffrage; Women Everyone Should Know About with Hannah Jewell
3.30pm-4.30pm
£3/booking required
Linklater Rooms, University of Aberdeen
(There is also a book signing with Hannah Jewell at 4.30pm in the May Tent, King’s Lawn)
I was first introduced to Hannah Jewell through Buzzfeed – she written some brilliant pieces that have had huge numbers of hits, and she’s since moved on to The Washington Post. I then listened to a podcast that she did with Emma Gannon (listen to the Ctrl Alt Delete episode here), and quickly became a fan. She writes in an accessible, funny and intelligent way with a sprinkling of sweary sarcasm; absolutely up my street . This is a brilliant booking from the May Festival team, and I’m so excited to hear Hannah talk about her book, ‘100 Nasty Women of History’ (left), and the remarkable women she researched for it. In true fan-girl style I’ll also be taking my copy of the book to be signed afterwards. No shame.
Sunday 27th May
Walk With Ease: From the US to the UK
12.30pm-1.30pm
Free/booking required
Regent Lecture Theatre, University of Aberdeen
(There is also a half hour Walk With Ease walking tour after this event, meeting at the Foyer of Regent Building at 1.30pm)
The Walk With Ease study is an American walking programme for people with arthritis – this talk details the process of implementing the programme in Scotland, and some early results from the study will be shared too. I share an office with the Walk With Ease team, so I’ve seen how hard they’ve worked on it – looking forward to seeing the results and finding out how we can all get a bit more active in Aberdeen!
Doing Science with Metaphors
3pm-4pm
Free/booking required
Regent Lecture Theatre, University of Aberdeen
From the May Fest brochure: ‘Surely science should avoid metaphors?! Not so, according to new historical and philosophical research. Dr Ulrich Stegmann will discuss how the ‘genetic code’ metaphor helped scientists like Francis Crick to think about a biological mechanism that nobody had encountered before.’
I’m really interested in this event because of the potential learnings and links with science communication and public engagement. For me, story telling is a really cool way to make science accessible, understandable, and ultimately more personal for non-scientific audiences. A lot of the time we as scientists from is difficult to let go of the tiny details that make up our work, and ultimately that can complicate the messages we’re giving out to the public, so it’ll be cool to hear about research that suggests the use of metaphors might actually benefit scientists’ understanding of their own research too.
I also have to give a little shout out to one particular event in the May Festival School’s Programme – ‘A Trial at Sea! How to Find out Which Medicines Work Best’. The Public Engagement group at the Health Services Research Unit are behind this one, our first foray into the May Festival School’s events calendar after 2 years of contributing events for the main May Fest weekend programme. I haven’t had much involvement with the development of this activity because I’ve been too busy with thesis writing/Soapbox Science organising/planning for Oregon etc, but I’m so excited to hear all about how this event has gone! The team have worked super hard to develop this new event from scratch specifically for classes of school children to come and find out all about James Lind’s pioneering clinical trial that ultimately found the cure for scurvy, and how we are still using parts of James Lind’s trial methods to find new medicines today.
You can find the full May Festival programme here, head along to the University of Aberdeen’s Old Aberdeen campus from Friday 25th to Sunday 27th May to get involved and attend some of these brilliant events!
Heidi R. Gardner 