Old Members’ Trust Graduate Conference and Academic Travel Fund report – Matthew Luney (2023, Medicine)

During the second year of my DPhil at University College I was fortunate to be supported by the Old Members’ Trust Graduate Conference and Academic Travel Fund. The grant allowed me to travel to Lucca, Italy to attend and present at the Gordon Research Conference on Consciousness, Anesthesia and Evolutionary Biology.

This is a particularly unique conference in my field of research – only held every two years, and the first time it was held in Europe. The meeting brings together an interdisciplinary group of conferees from different neuroscience backgrounds including wet lab scientists, computational biologists, clinician scientists and ethicists.

The conference is a unique opportunity to spend a dedicated time in small group discussions with academics across the career spectrum and is intentionally held in a remote location to facilitate focus on the exchange of ideas and foster a sense of community. The ethos of the conference includes presenting hitherto unpublished and cutting-edge research, generating lively discussion and challenging existing paradigms. I particularly enjoyed being able to reconnect with previous collaborators and meet in person many eminent research leaders in my field. The discussions have shaped the future direction of my research and helped further develop my thesis. The networking opportunities were especially productive and may facilitate visits to other labs in the future.

The diverse range of lab and computational techniques presented have helped both my understanding of the field of consciousness research in general and helped to generate new ideas for my research too. It was grounding and inspiring to meet experienced researchers to learn about their journeys in science (the successes and challenges) as well as make new connections with peers from around the world.

I am grateful to the Old Members’ Trust for their generosity to make attending this conference possible and without which it was highly unlikely I would have had this great opportunity.

Published: 25 April 2025

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