King’s PhD students Andrei-Bogdan Balcau, Chiara Di Bonaventura, and Elfia Bezou-Vrakatseli have been successfully accepted onto the Enrichment Scheme Placement Award delivered by The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.
This competitive scheme gives UK university doctoral students the opportunity to undertake a six- or nine-month placement at the Alan Turing Institute in London. Andrei, Chiara and Elfia will will take up their in-person places on the scheme in the 2024–25 academic year and join a cohort of data science and AI PhD students. They will have opportunities to learn from and collaborate with a diverse community of researchers at the Institute and will gain new research skills that will positively impact their PhDs.
Andrei is looking forward to the opportunity to network with the community of researchers. He said, “I hope to form academic relationships that turn into long-lasting collaborations…The Alan Turing Institute’s multidisciplinary research agenda would give me the chance to test my hypotheses in different domains. I hope to interact with the Turing’s industrial partners and the policy-making teams shaping the future of AI.”
Chiara feels the scheme will positively impact her PhD and said, “I am looking forward to joining the Turing for its interdisciplinary working environment which offers me a fantastic opportunity to broaden my research.”
Elfia is also looking forward to the scheme, particularly the opportunity for collaboration it offers. She said, ‘The Enrichment scheme presented an excellent opportunity to enhance my research both in terms of material resources and collaborative potential. I am very passionate about interdisciplinary approached to AI research… and I felt that my [research] would benefit from an interdisciplinary working environment with people from different backgrounds and working in different fields. Engaging with the Turing community is an opportunity I envision as instrumental in realising my aspirations, as collaboration is key to expanding one’s knowledge and thinking innovatively.”
We are proud of Andrei, Chiara and Elfia and look forward to hearing more about their experiences on the Turing Enrichment Scheme.