On 18 April, the organised the Annual Science Conference in collaboration with the and sponsors, through which S-Cubed provides a platform for science students to present their research carried out on campus as part of their course.
This year, instead of cancelling the conference altogether due to the COVID-19 pandemic, S-Cubed decided to shift the conference entirely online. By doing so, an important milestone was achieved, that of hosting Malta鈥檚 first ever virtual scientific conference.
While a virtual conference does not pose certain logistical problems such as choosing an adequate location to physically hold the event, it does come with its own set of problems; coordinating all participants through virtual communication alone, as well as preparing contingency plans to deal with issues including internet cuts.
Despite the unique set of challenges, S-cubed managed to organise this event with great success. They not only retained the high standard of quality set by last year鈥檚 conference, but also reached a record audience of 218 attendees.
Justin Cauchi, head of the organisational committee for the conference, delivered an opening address, followed by , Dean of the Faculty of Science, and James W. Caruana, President of S-Cubed.
This was followed by a series of talks from a variety of speakers.
These included two students from the ; Andrea Francesca Bellia presented her work about drone-mapping of shallow-water benthic assemblages, and Martina Cutajar, who presented her research about coastal vegetation assaying from an aerial perspective.
Guest speaker Dr Alexia Massa-Gallucci, a senior consultant at one of our co-sponsors AquaBioTech Group, presented her research as part of the BYTHOS Project, an international research collaboration aimed at valorising fish by-products from the fisheries and aquaculture sector.
This was followed by Renato Camilleri from the with his work on airborne fine particulate matter found in Maltese indoor environments. Representing the Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy, Andrew Finch presented his research on gravitational waves in alternate theories of gravity.
This year we also had two students from the at the University of Malta; Maria Aquilina with her work on the effect on E. coli mutation rates by radio irradiation and Mirko Consiglio with his study on decoherence effect on quantum information processing protocols. Another first for the conference was our international guest speaker, Nicky Evans from the University of Surrey, with his work on the optimisation of laser patterning of organic photovoltaic cells. Finally, another sponsor, PwC, closed off with a talk on opportunities available to mathematics and statistics students at their company.
The first ever online science conference in Malta would not have been possible without the assistance of the Faculty of Science, the speakers and sponsors: AquaBioTech Group, PwC, Atlas Insurance Limited, OpWall and Technoline.
