Hot on the heels of my visit to Limerick in the summer came another academic conference that was much closer to home, as it was hosted by my own department (Computer Science) at the University of Chester.  This was the Cyberworlds 2017 conference, which was organised by my colleagues Prof. Nigel John & Dr. Serban Pop, in collaboration with Dr. Alexei Sourin from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore).  Academics arrived in Chester from all over the world to share the results of their latest research, make new contacts, and renew old ones.  Many research students and members of staff in the department were pressed into service to help with the never-ending list of tasks that are required to make a conference happen; my own contributions included shepherding delegates on and off of buses between Chester city centre and Thornton Science Park, chopping up large amounts of cheese, and arranging for two guitarists to provide some evening entertainment.  I also collaborated with department lecturer Lee Beever and research student Peter Butcher to submit a poster for the conference, based on data gathered for my Ph.D. thesis, which happily was accepted.  I must admit I didn’t realise until rather close to the deadline that a short paper was required as well as the poster, which led to a few days of rather concentrated and intense work, but it was very satisfying to see the results in the final conference proceedings.  Within a week of the conference finishing we were welcoming this year’s new intake of Level 4 students.  Whatever else it may be, my job certainly isn’t boring!

‘Traversing social networks in the virtual dance hall: visualising history in VR’