Masters in Parasite Epidemiology and Control student Rachel Hopper has won ‘Best Poster’ at the MSc poster day on Friday, with Ben Rogerson as the runner up.
Staff and students throughout LSTM were given the opportunity to come along and view the posters, which will form part of the students’ assessment. They were each asked to produce a record of a virtual field study to carry out a parasitological survey of ‘Wallo’, a fictional rural area somewhere is sub-Saharan Africa.
The 12 students were all given the same data and they had to record how they would design their field study, explaining their methodology, looking at risk factors and sample size and setting out their objectives. The students put together their presentations using existing data from published studies with conditions similar to their own, resulting in a series of recommendations to the Ministry of Health on how to best mitigate the impact of tropical diseases including schistosomiasis, malaria and helminthiases on the general population.
As part of the exercise, students also had to provide a timetable for the study as well as a list of equipment that they would need to take with them to carry out the study, providing them with the valuable opportunity to plan a field study before many of them travel to undertake an actual study in the summer. Organiser Dr James LaCourse said: “It provides the students with a supported and safe environment to understand the detail required to plan a field study, which is important as many will base their dissertation on an actual study that they go on to undertake. The opportunity to present their conclusions with a scientific illustrated poster and short presentation will undoubtedly serve them well as they go on to present their future research to their peers at conferences.”