 
I'm Clemens Kaminski and I'm the
director of the Sensor CDT for sensor
technologies. This is an exciting time
for us now because we are in the second
phase of the CDT and what we do in this
new CDT is we want to see how we can use
sensor technologies to really make a
change and to address global challenges
that will become pertinent
things of the future. So, we are fortunate
to be able to attract top talent,
fantastic students who come from
different cultures and with different
skills and the different expertise and
together they really achieve amazing
things. They travel out into the world
and they make technology and apply it in
ways that really make a difference to
the future.
My name is Farah Alimagham. My PhD
focuses on the development and design of
mid infrared sensor systems and devices.
Some of them involve volatile organic
compounds sensing and continuous
monitoring of biofluids which has
great potential in the medical field.
A key aspect of the Sensor CDT and
something that I find is wonderful is
that you are automatically involved in
this fantastic network of people.
My name is Sebastian my research is about bio
and electrolyte sensing and using the
fringe fields of a capacitive sensor
what I like about the Sensor CDT is I
think it enables us to explore research
in a more multidisciplinary way.
I've really enjoyed talking to the new students
and seeing the diversity of the students
that we can attract to the CDT.
What I really like is the idea of this sort
of a group of mind so we get students
from all kinds of disciplines all the
way from biology through to computer
science and when they tackle a problem
then they tackle it together and so you get
some very creative solutions to some
problems that we pose them. The unique
feature of the CDT is the idea that they
are thinking about sensors as an
underlying technology but the
application can be in all kinds of
really diverse ways. So thinking about the
idea of sensors as a sort of a commodity
almost but thinking about how to deploy
them. Now we're bringing in responsible
innovation, so thinking from the outset
how am I going to deploy these sensors
in a way that is going to have a
meaningful impact not just economically
but also to society and to the environment.
So we have students come in to do a
masters of research in the first year
and then they embark on a three-year PhD
the nice thing is, is that they come in
and they get to explore all kinds of
different subject which means that they
can really make it a form decision about
what kind of a PhD they'd like to do. We
have over 40 different departments
around Cambridge in all kinds of
different disciplines including Social
Sciences and things like philosophy and
so you could really do an interesting
PhD in a subject that you might never
have thought about before you came here.
Hello I'm Johanna.
I'm a PhD student working on terahertz
spectroscopy. The first year of my PhD
programme was actually a master's year
that was done as an MRes with the
Sensor CDT so we had lectures about all
kinds of sensing and how that applies to
almost every aspects of science. That was really interesting and it allowed
to explore directions and disciplines that
we hadn't heard about before.
The Sensor CDT programme starts with the master of research in your first year which is designed to
teach you all the skills and knowledge
that will support you and make your PhD,
the second phase, succesful.
So what we want to teach in the first
year is that students understand how to
make sensors from physical principles
integrate them into bigger systems and
understand the applications that they
can be used for. The Sensor CDT is looking for a broad range of backgrounds
mostly from the STEMM subjects so we're trying to we have in the program people from
electronic engineering, chemistry, physics
biochemistry, all of these different
fields. The type of people we are looking for are committed, engaged, motivated to
go outside their comfort zone to engage
with topics that you might not have
engaged with during your undergrad
degree and also people who love to work in
teams we have quite a strong team aspect in the Sensor CDT. When you join the
Sensor CDT be unafraid we trust our
students we trust them to be able to
run projects by themselves and we
trust them to to run their initiatives
after that and that trust we've seen
building confidence in the students to be able
to be change makers.
We've got a lot of
industrial contacts that we're bringing
to the students that we open the dialog
between industrial partners to pitch
problems to students but also where we
allow students to go out explore problems
that industry is presenting
in the format of short talks or
presentations that industrialists
provide and then give them the
opportunity to work together on a
research project.
My name is Chris I'm a second year PhD student.
My research project is about formulating new nano
carriers for DNA vaccines and I do that
together with Astra Zeneca. I think the
CDT is all about diversity and
different backgrounds bring people
together from different nationalities we
all benefit from that in particular in the
scientific context because we work
together with physicists biologists
chemists and they're all mixed up together
in the CDT and I already had a few
collaborations coming from being in the
CDT.
I'm Lara Allen I'm the CEO of the
Centre for Global Equality which is a
not-for-profit based in Cambridge that
focuses on inclusive innovation. We
define inclusive innovation as
innovation by, with and for the rising
billions or another way of saying that
is the bottom half of the world's
population lives on less than $4 a day.
The reason to go to developing countries
and to co-create to make a new version of sensors
with people on the ground is to make sure
it's appropriate for context. We are
working on a co-creation process of
iteratively testing sensors with
end-users so with scientists and
technologists in-country. We have a
global network of international
development practitioners small
grassroots organizations and big
multilaterals and we spend a lot of time
sourcing challenges. We look for problems and then
try to match those problems with the
interests and capacities of particular
groups. I'm also really excited about
last year's CDT project SoliCamb.
They've been working on the really very
difficult project of soil quality. Turned out to be be much more complicated than any
of us thought it was going to be but
they've evolved a very good interesting
soil moisture sensor and working on that
continued to working on that we hope are
going to be testing it with colleagues
in Ethiopia I just wanted to say that the logo
which is an echo of the colors and the wheel of the UN sustainable development goals
that logo really is for real.
The people who are involved are really commited to this
I'm very excited about the possibilities
what's gonna come out of the CDT
over the next five years.
As an environmental organization we depend on
sensors in order to collect the data
about environmental change and then work
with that data for interpretations that
help us to adapt to what the future will
bring so we have a great interest in
working with the early career
scientists and the Sensors CDT. It's a
fantastic group of people from so many
different backgrounds who have come
together to learn as a cohort and that
diversity of backgrounds is a real asset
because the cross fertilization between
these different disciplines means that
you can make real step changes what the
CDT offers is a rounded learning
experience and the students who have the
the privilege of working in it come out
as as people who have not only got a
very narrow set of expertise that they
bring to the workplace but they bring a
much much broader picture with them. The teams have achieved through measuring
air quality first here in a local
context and on a European scale and
taking that to Africa and into South
America as well
truly astounding and I'm particularly
grateful for the aspect that the focus
is on using that expertise to ensure
that we are able to tackle their
sustainability goals and use this tech
for good indeed. I'm particularly excited
to know that this fantastically diverse
and creative cohort of students is
able to use that creativity and that
skill to think about solutions for the
big challenge that we face as a planet
to meet zero carbon 2050 goals and to
stay within 1.5 degrees
global warming and so it is absolutely
essential that each and every one of us
look at what we can bring to the table
and the subject matter that the students
are dealing with is extremely helpful
and again that rounded approach of
looking at many different disciplines
and bringing increasingly also social
science into it and citizen science and
interacting with very tangibly with
real-world problems as the team
challenges have done is a fantastic
platform so I very much look forward to
what will come out of the interaction
between this CDT and Cambridge
University's zero carbon initiative and
with the broader moves towards making
sure that each and every one employ our
creativity our skills to become part of
the solution.
So we are looking for students who are really driven
to address global challenges with
technology. If you are motivated if you
like working in team if you are excited
about sensor technologies and how they
can be used in the responsible novel
context then this program is for you and
I would be very very pleased to welcome
you into our programme.
Come and join us next year.
