Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2019

Our team of scientists, researchers, clinicians, and students all joined hands to help out at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition over the course of 7 days from 1-7 July 2019, to teach the general public what our research is all about, and how we can use functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) in the hospital to save the lives of babies!

From our Gummy Bear challenge that focuses on teaching young children how light reflection and absorption works, to the handscanner that demonstrates and visualizes how we can use red and near infrared light to see blood vessels in our hands, and of course our miniCYRIL system, which is the miniaturized version of the system that we use in the hospital – all of these exhibits were filled with enthusiastic people hoping to learn more about our research, and how this is used in the hospital!

We also had a lot of help from UCL Hospital, where clinicians used our CYRIL system for the past 4 years. Doctors and nurses from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) came to help out in our mock-up of the NICU, which had devices such as the ventilator, EEG, and incubator, to explain what medical devices are used to stabilize the baby.

All in all, this was an extremely fruitful event that everyone enjoyed, even though it was rather exhausting! We hope everyone who came to visit had as much fun as we did!