Postgraduate Study Guide 2012 - University College Falmouth

Meet SOMe CuRRent PhD StuDentS
—
Tavs Jorgensen
Full-time PhD student
PhD title: The development and
application of digitally enabled
reconfigurable tooling in new
models of design and production.
Tavs came to Britain in 1991 after
completing a four-year pottery
apprenticeship in his native Denmark
and later studied 3D Ceramic Design
at Cardiff Institute of Higher Education.
“My research interests are located
in the field of emerging digital design
and fabrication technologies, in
particular the potential these new
tools present for developing new
models of creative practice.”
Tavs has an impressive portfolio
of papers, talks, presentations and
exhibitions with more planned for 2012.
He is also a member of the research
group Autonomatic who were donated
a £30,000 rapid prototyping machine
from leading American company,
Z Corporation, in recognition of
the research being undertaken
by the group.
Sam Bleakley
Part-time PhD student, freelance
travel writer and professional surfer
PhD title: A new wave of travel
writing: surfing ‘other’ coastscapes
with jazz in mind.
Image: John Callahan
“I spent many years exploring various
avenues to fuse my practice in travel
writing and professional surfing
with a PhD. Dr Larry Lynch and
the Performance Writing Research
Group welcomed my PhD proposal
with great enthusiasm and an open
mind. The prime motivation for me
to research a PhD is to take risks
I cannot in freelance writing.”
Sam is the author of Surfing
Brilliant Corners (Alison Hodge
Publishers, Penzance), and is in
the process of completing a second
publication. Business start-up
surfEXPLORE, a Cornwall-led
international team including Sam,
specialising in researching changing
coastscapes, was awarded £5,000
from UCF’s KESC Convergence POC
Fund and piloted a project in Haïti in
June 2011.
Yang Fan
Full-time PhD student
PhD title: Testing and evaluating
user-centred design methods to realise
a new methodology for the development
of improved healthcare products.
“Studying at Falmouth has been
different from Nanjing, Shanghai,
Amsterdam, Rotterdam and many
other cities where I stayed before;
the UCF research community is
relatively small, but it is active, well
organised and well supported. The
PhD student training sessions, for
example, which are offered every
month for first-year students,
helped me manage my work and
learn to conduct research properly.
I feel lucky to have such great
supervisors, who have been
extremely helpful to me since the
beginning of my PhD study at UCF.
Their support and assistance has
given me the confidence to be able
to continue with my research for
the remaining two years.”
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reseArch Postgraduate Study Guide 2012 www.falmouth.ac.uk