The Ideas Exchange

Date:: Monday 29th April 2019
Time:: 1pm-2.30pm
Venue:: The Exchange, 75 London Road, Twickenham TW1 1BE

Following the successful pilot of the ‘Ideas Exchange’ last December, St. Mary’s University will be hosting its second event on Monday, April 29^th, 2019 at ‘The Exchange’ theatre in Twickenham. ‘The Exchange’ is an arts and community theatre managed by the University.

The ‘Ideas Exchange’ provides a platform for St. Mary’s University academics to talk about a specific subject and what the University can offer potential students from an academic and a sports perspective across its under graduate and post graduate programmes.

Seven speakers covering sports psychology, law and drama have been confirmed to date with more to be announced in due course. Each speaker is given an 8 minute slot to talk through their chosen academic specialism to an audience comprised of members of the public, academics and local school children.

The following speakers have been confirmed for the ‘Ideas Exchange’ on April 29th, starting at 1.00pm (2.30pm close).

Our speakers

His Honour Judge Peter Lodder QC

His Honour Judge Peter Lodder QC will be talking about the changing face of our Courts. This will be an examination of how the courts and those who work in them have changed in recent years: to more accurately reflect the diversity of our society and to make better use of modern technology.

Fiona Wilson

Fiona Wilson will explore how emotions impact on learning identity. She will identify strategies to create positive learning identities and create a culture of possibility to ensure progress.

Dr Carla Meijen

Dr Carla Meijen’s talk is entitled “My mind is making me think my legs are tired': Psychological strategies for endurance performance.” She will be discussing how endurance athletes from all levels may recognise the impact of psychological factors such as motivation, feeling nervous before a race, worries about sticking to a pacing strategy, or having the urge to slow down or quit. Carla will draw on examples related to these psychological factors to help explain how endurance athletes can use psychological strategies to help them get and keep their head in the 'race'.

Mark Griffin

Mark Griffin, Head of Drama, will be discussing how every society, every culture at every period of history has relied on some form a theatre to tell stories, resolve disputes and rehearse the future. In this presentation Mark suggests that theatre not just informs our social and cultural understandings but also enables us to understand our own humanity in all its limitation and potential.

Dr Judith Bourne

Dr Judith Bourne, Programme Director for Law and her talk on Helena Normanton and the opening of the legal profession to women. Did you know that women have only been able to become barristers in England and Wales since 1922? Find out about determined pioneer Helena Normanton, the first ever woman to practise as a barrister, and how her struggle led the way in opening the legal profession to women.

Dr Chris Steer

Dr Chris Steer will be discussing cosmic rays which are a naturally-occurring background radiation that has fascinated many since they were first identified in 1912; hold your hand out and around 1 cosmic ray particle per second is passing through it. In this talk, Chris will introduce what cosmic rays are, then outline the areas that cosmic rays influence - from their role in the early Earth and long-distance space travel effects, to their science and engineering applications.

Bruce Rigal

Bruce Rigal, Head of Department for Business, Law and Society is talking about “The illusion of control“. How do you think you make every day decisions? Are your decisions based on your deep values? Do you go by gut-feel? Or do you have control of your decisions at all? Bruce will explore these questions and how the answers illuminate scenarios of human behaviour from the 2008 financial crisis to shopping.