Category: Alumni

Bristol alumni set up to help new medics during COVID-19

Posted on by sophie.davison

Junior doctorsIn response to COVID-19 our 2020 MBChB students graduated early to begin their medical careers and help during these unprecedented times. The Development and Alumni Relations Office (DARO), together with the Bristol Medical School, reached out to the doctors in our alumni community to see if they could offer their support and advice during this time, we had an overwhelming response and some truly inspiring and encouraging offers of help.

An incredible 40 alumni offered their time to support our newly graduated MBChB junior doctors, and from those we were able to match 25 students to alumni. These included alumni working in hospitals such as the; BRI, Swindon, Southmead and Taunton. We even had offers of remote support from doctors working outside the Severn Deanery hospitals which was fantastic to receive.

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Bristol Memories: ‘We had masses of fun together and forged lifelong friendships’

Posted on by Sarah

We love hearing your stories from your time at Bristol, especially when they’re accompanied by great pictures like these from David Dance (MB ChB Medicine, 1979).

David regularly meets up with other University of Bristol cricketers of the 1970s and would love to hear from other team-mates who are interested in meeting up. If that’s you (or someone you know!) get in touch with us at alumni@bristol.ac.uk.

Take in Adelaide in 2017. Mark Winter, Andy Blaxland, David Dance and Nick Birchall.

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Alumni interview: Izzy Obeng (BSc 2014), Managing Director of Foundervine

Posted on by Ellie

After graduating from Bristol in 2014 with a politics degree, Izzy Obeng worked at KPMG before starting her own company – Foundervine. This award-winning social enterprise helps diverse founders build start-ups from scratch and specialises in delivering digital start-up and scale-up acceleration programs.

Since launching in 2018, Foundervine has helped over 2,000 future leaders from diverse backgrounds to create and build their own ventures. 27-year-old Izzy is now based in Accra in Ghana, and her team of twelve work remotely in locations up and down the UK. As well as sitting on the Alumni Association Committee, Izzy has been involved in alumni events – including a recent Bristol Connects Live event focused on entrepreneurship. We spoke to Izzy to hear more about Foundervine, her time at Bristol and what it was like to meet the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

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Alumni interview: Natalie Podd (BSc 2011), Co-creator of Board Game, ‘Confident?’

Posted on by Ellie

After graduating from the University in 2011 with a Maths degree, Natalie Podd spent five years working as an actuary before taking a career break and going travelling with her partner, Ceri. They spent a year climbing mountains, exploring salt flats and trekking through rainforests. As well as coming home with a whole host of incredible memories, the pair also managed to return to the UK with a fully formed idea for a new boardgame.

The couple launched the game, entitled Confident? in 2018 and, after receiving positive reviews, were quickly noticed by John Lewis and Waterstones. Here, Natalie explains how the game works and talks about the reality of balancing a more traditional career alongside running a small business.

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Alumni Interview: Rebecca Hellen (BA 1994), Specialist Advisor for Paintings Conservation at the National Trust

Posted on by Grace

As final-year Bristol students prepare to mark the end of their time at the University through online ‘Summer Celebration’ events, we caught up with Bristol alumna Rebecca Hellen (BA 1994), to reflect on her own time at the University. A graduate of the Faculty of Arts, Rebecca worked as Senior Paintings Conservator at Tate for 18 years, and has recently taken up a new role as Specialist Advisor and Paintings Conservator at the National Trust. She shares her career story and lends some tips for how to stay creative in lockdown.

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Renowned speakers to join Class of 2020 in Virtual Celebrations

Posted on by Ellie
Top row L – R: The Right Honourable the Baroness Hale of Richmond, Vanessa Kisuule, Sir Paul Nurse. Bottom row L -R: Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Jenny Griffiths MBE, Dame Julia Slingo.

From final-year medics graduating early to work on the NHS frontline, to groups organising foodbank donations, throughout this year Bristol students have been stepping up to assist those impacted by the pandemic. Many of our final-year students have been taking part in such activities, all whilst working hard to complete their degrees.

For these students, their time at the University is almost at an end. So, to mark their incredible achievements and commemorate their final year, the University is hosting a series of virtual celebrations for the class of 2020. The events will be hosted online and will see Bristol students from all over the world signing in from home to watch with their friends and family.

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Alumni entrepreneurs share their career insights with students

Posted on by clare.young

On Tuesday 16 June, over 150 students and graduates joined us for the first Bristol Connects Live – our series of online career and professional development events. With a focus on entrepreneurship, our alumni experts shared their career stories and experience to inspire students and recent graduates to help them understand more about starting up their own businesses, opportunities and pitfalls, and the different routes to entrepreneurship.

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Help to welcome our Sanctuary Scholars

Posted on by Ellie

Every year, just after welcome week, the University hosts a welcome event for our Sanctuary Scholars, an incredible group of students who all come from asylum-seeking or refugee communities.

The welcome event is always a really special day, where the newest cohort of scholars get to meet each other, as well as staff and students from the University.

This year, as you can imagine, we can’t welcome our scholars in quite the same way. But whilst we might not be able to be together in one room, we can still do our very best to let these students know that they are a valued part of the Bristol community. We hope you’ll join us in doing so!

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Alumni interview: Sally Earthrowl, Mission Leader at eXXpedition and Environmental Advocate

Posted on by Clare

Image credit: Eleanor Church, Lark Rise Pictures – eXXpedition North Pacific Leg 1 Hawaii to Vancouver

Sally has always had a passion for our planet, graduating in 2004 with a BSc (Hons) in Geography and then continuing her studies to qualify as a Geography teacher. Over a 12-year teaching career Sally has been department lead and had whole-school responsibility for Teaching and Learning. Whilst teaching in Indonesia Sally led the charge on environmental action, facilitating the school becoming single-use plastic free, and working with the local community to raise awareness about the upstream solutions to this environmental challenge. Sally has since swapped her classroom for a sailing vessel and now leads all-female sailing voyages with eXXpedition, carrying out scientific research into plastic pollution and educating about the issue, the solutions and the role that everyone has to play in overcoming this environmental challenge.

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Alumni interview: Jane Duffus, author of The Women Who Built Bristol

Posted on by Ellie
Image credit: Jon Craig

Jane Duffus (MA 2010) is on a mission to celebrate the incredible women who have made Bristol brilliant. The first book in her The Women Who Built Bristol series was published in 2018 and includes the stories of 250 inspiring women from Bristol’s history. From a heartbroken barmaid from Easton, to an abducted heiress – each story tells the tale of a vibrant woman who changed the city of Bristol in her own unique way.

After the success of her first book, Jane went on to publish The Women Who Built Bristol: Volume Two and she’s now hard at work writing Volume 3. We caught up with her to find out more about her time at the University and her writing process.

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