Early-career CQT scientist wins spot at prestigious events

CQT's James Grieve was invited to join the cohort of bright young minds attending the Global Young Scientists Summit 2017 in Singapore.

From 15-20 January, Singapore hosted the Global Young Scientists Summit (GYSS) 2017. CQT Senior Research Fellow James Grieve was one of the "the world’s outstanding PhDs and post-doctoral fellows under the age of 35" in attendance. This is how the event, organised by Singapore's National Research Foundation (NRF), describes its some 250 delegates.

James has also won a place at the Commonwealth Science Conference 2017, an event organised by the UK's Royal Society and NRF, which will be held in Singapore in June this year.

Participants in both events had to be nominated by their host institutes then enter a competitive selection process.

James has been working at CQT on quantum optics in the group of Alexander Ling since 2012. He has worked on integrated photonic platforms, random number generators and detectors for the group's satellite project.

As he ended his week at GYSS, James said: "The meeting has been really varied, with topics ranging all over the STEM spectrum. We have heard talks from Nobel laureates, as well as Fields Medal and Millennium Technology Prize recipients. This has been mixed with small group activities and opportunities to network with other early career researchers."

Altogether, says James "this has been a great format for finding new perspectives on my existing work, as well as opening up a lot of new ideas for future directions.A very stimulating and hopefully productive week!"

The Commonwealth Science Conference is also a multidisciplinary meeting. It will host around 400 delegates, not limited to early career researchers, with the goal of promoting awareness and cooperation between scientists working in the Commonwealth countries. The last event took place in Bangalore in 2014.

James is a British-Canadian citizen but he was born in Singapore. He grew up in the Middle East then studied in the UK, completing his PhD at the University of Bristol in nanotechnology before returning to Singapore as an adult. He found a position at CQT advertised online. "I came out to see what it was like and once you've seen this place, how could you not want to work here?" he says.