One computer science department, from first-years to doctoral medallists.
The CS@Manchester Podcast is the University of Manchester computer science department's interview show, featuring first-years, new graduates, medal-winning doctoral researchers and professors. The conversations cover teapots conjured in code, pseudocolour on heart readings, cybercrime and the shock of first-year workload.
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The CS@Manchester Podcast is the computer science department's own interview show at the University of Manchester, and it rarely strays from home. Its guests are the people who pass through the department: first-years, graduating students, doctoral researchers and professors. The student episodes are the most personal. Anna McCartain, a first-year from Brighton, describes how hard the workload hit after a gap year and her realisation that nobody would spoon-feed her the material. She also makes the case that maths, music and computer science are closely related, especially where musical software is concerned. Amelia Huang, an international student from Singapore, talks about settling into Manchester and how her opportunity at Skyscanner in London came about. Her account of graphics coursework is a highlight: code that conjures a teapot into a 3D scene, then more teapots, plus the observation that everything is built from triangles. The conversation also covers why her final year project was about the habits of bees. The research episodes come from the medals awarded at the PGR Research Symposium. Dr Henry Reeve, winner of the Prof Steve Furber Medal for best thesis, worked in machine learning with Professor Gavin Brown on learning in high dimensions with asymmetric costs. He also describes a problem from his work in Birmingham: what to do when the people paid to label data might be tired or not trying very hard. Alaa Alahmadi, who won the Prof Carole Goble Medal for best doctoral paper, is joined by her supervisor Dr Caroline Jay and by Dr Bijan Parsia, who sat on the selection panel. Their conversation is about colour. They explain how pseudocolour can make a serious ECG change stand out as a burst of red, even to people with only a couple of minutes of training. The clinical team behind the idea, which involved patients as co-scientists in a drug trial, comes up as well. Professor Daniel Dresner, the university's academic cyber security lead, brings a sharper edge. His starting point is that anyone with a device on the internet holds something a criminal can use, no matter who or where they are. From there he moves through money-driven crime, harms that turn physical, and the way films and news coverage flatten a complicated field, before joking that calling his door open would not be very secure. The 2019 graduation episode is lighter: quick chats amid the celebrations with new graduates and with Professor Simon Harper, one of the programme directors. The graduation roundup is billed as a yearly habit. The tone throughout is friendly, and interviews can drift into the weather, travel plans or which relatives made the trip.
Made for: Suits a listener weighing up a computer science degree at Manchester, or anyone curious to hear students, graduates and researchers in one department describe their courses, careers and research in plain conversation.
What sets it apart: Instead of covering the tech industry from outside, it stays inside one department. A first-year's workload worries, a graduate's route to Skyscanner and a medal-winning thesis on asymmetric costs sit side by side, told by the people who lived them.
The CS@Manchester Podcast features episodes with interviews with academics and their research, students and their studies and life at the University, Computer Science events across the community, such as the Pint of Science festival, and wider issues, such as the challenge of attracting women to STEM subjects.The podcast is aimed to be released monthly and you can subscribe to us via itunes or search “CS@manchester” in your preferred podcast app
An ECG turns red, and your idea of computer science suddenly has a pulse.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Singapore-to-Manchester story makes computer science feel personal, practical, and visible.
Amelia Huang's move from Singapore to computer science in Manchester gives the episode a clear spine. It starts with the pressure of a competitive education system, then opens into the quieter, practical business of finding a place in a new city and a demanding course.
A medal-winning doctoral paper turns ECG colour into a practical question about who can detect medical change.
Alaa Alamadi's medal-winning doctoral paper asks how pseudocolour and coordinate systems shape the detection of medication and ECG changes. The episode keeps that technical question grounded in a clear visual idea: serious ECG trouble may appear as lots of red, a cue that people…
A grounded graduation-day conversation about friendship, staff support, placement experience, and a first step into cyber security.
CS at Manchester's undergraduate graduation roundup is strongest when it stays close to the handover from university into work. Will Davison, graduating from the computer science industrial experience programme, reflects on four years of study, the friendships that carried him…
Prof Daniel Dresner reframes cybersecurity as a question of harm, resilience, and human judgment.
Cybersecurity comes through as part of everyday connected life: a mix of criminal incentives, public institutions, and the stories people tell about hacking.
A first-year view of computer science, independent study, and making music alongside a degree.
Anna McCartain's first year at the University of Manchester opens onto the place where computer science meets a busy musical life. The conversation follows her move from Brighton, her return to study after a gap year, and the shift into a course that expects students to…
Linux talk with hands-on scars.
Kubernetes changes, explained by the people who made them.
Ruby talk with the edges left on.
CS at Manchester Podcast interviews Amelia Huang, a Singaporean graduate now at Skyscanner in London, about studying computer science in Manchester.
["Alaa Alamadi's PGR Research Symposium paper uses pseudocolour and ECG layout choices to make QT-interval changes easier to spot for lay readers.", "Dr Caroline Jay says she has taught Alamadi since an MSc course, and Dr Bijan Parseer explains the medal panel that selected the paper.", "The project combines computer science, health, psychology, psychophysics, neuroscience, and HCI rather than treating ECG reading as a pure machine-learning task.", "The episode centers on long QT syndrome, medication-related risk, false positives, and whether home ECG self-monitoring can be trusted by patients and clinicians."]
CS@Manchester Podcast episode 33 is a graduation roundup from the undergraduate ceremony last month in Manchester, with interviews from Will Davison, Rita Shah, Ben Lister, Aidan, Hendrik Mulder, Danny, and Professor Simon Harper.
CS@Manchester Podcast episode 32 interviews Professor Daniel Dresner, the University of Manchester's academic cyber security lead and IASME co-founder/director.
CS@Manchester Podcast episode 31 follows Anna McCartain, a first-year University of Manchester computer science student from Brighton who also produces, sings, and DJs.
The CS at Manchester Podcast interviews Professor Angelo Cangelozzi about cognitive robotics, language grounding, humanoid robots, and human-robot interaction.
Tio Stoleru describes applying for the Google Women Techmakers Scholarship after initially postponing the application while organizing Great UniHack.
The CS at Manchester Podcast interviews Professor Andy Brass, Dr Caroline Jay, and Dr Iliada Eleftheriou about the University of Manchester course AI: Robot Overlord, Replacement or Colleague?
Episode 27 of the CS@Manchester Podcast follows Samuel Walsh and Christian Kinderman’s work delivering computer-science workshops in rural Malawi through Ripple Africa and the University of Manchester.
EP.26: UG Graduation 2018 Interviews from CS@Manchester Podcast follows graduates, families, staff, and school leaders during the University of Manchester computer science graduation period.
Josh Dawes discusses his path from programming as a teenager at Manchester to a PhD jointly connected with CERN in Switzerland.
Ghadeer Kurdi and supervisor Bijan Parseer discuss a PhD project that automates multiple-choice question construction and predicts question difficulty.
Seb Massaru and Josh Langley describe how hackathons, CS Society activities, quizzes, and social events shaped their final years in the University of Manchester's School of Computer Science.
Todd Davies, a 2016 University of Manchester computer science graduate, describes moving from two Google internships to a software engineering role in Munich.
CS@Manchester Podcast episode 20 features Dr Bijan Parseer and Dr Suzanne Embry explaining software engineering as the delivery of successful software products through successful projects.
CS@ Manchester Podcast episode 18 features Craig Dean, CEO of WebApplicationsUK, discussing how a BBC Micro Model B sparked his coding passion at age six in 1982.
John Parkinson describes moving from a telesales job and music production to a computer science PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The CSN Manchester podcast visits Student Hack V at Media City, with interviews involving organisers, students, mentors, and sponsors.
CS@Manchester Podcast Episode 14 interviews former teachers Dave Ames and Sarah Zaman about the Computing at School North West Regional Centre at the University of Manchester.
CS@Manchester Podcast's Episode 13 asks Caroline Jay, Gavin Brown, and Yolanda Lopez what computer science is and why Manchester matters.
Laura Howarth-Kirk, a University of Manchester computer science graduate, describes moving from HTML websites made at 13 to software development at the BBC.
The CS@Manchester Podcast follows undergraduate graduates from the University of Manchester's School of Computer Science as they reflect on completing three- and four-year degrees.
CS@Manchester Podcast interviews recent University of Manchester graduates Stephanie Cook, Mihai Ankar, Kazim Ashraf, and Zach Hamid about their first jobs and advice for current students.
The CS@Manchester Podcast interviews Professor Danielle George about how practical mathematics and physics led her from astrophysics into electrical engineering and academia.
CS@Manchester Podcast interviews Dr Simon Harper about human-computer interaction, accessibility, adaptive systems, and the security implications of personal devices.