Lorenzo Desideri being congratulated by Mark Hawley |
I am writing this blog post on the train
returning from Maastricht to Schippol airport en route to Manchester and home.
I was in Maastricht to act as an external examiner for a PhD.
The Dutch PhD ‘defence’ is very different
from the British viva voce. It is a public event, which anyone can attend, and
there are a number of examiners (or ‘opponents’) – on this occasion, for
Lorenzo Desideri’s defence, there were six. It is a strangely formal affair,
involving the examiners dressing up in gowns and hats (what a colleague called
‘academic fancy dress’ – see picture) and processing to the examination room
(the aula). The presentation by the candidate and the questioning by the
examiners then lasts exactly an hour – at which point an official enters the
aula and bangs a staff on the ground, pronouncing “Hora Est” (time’s up). The
committee then retire to deliberate. On this occasion, the defence was deemed successful
and we processed back into the aula to present Lorenzo with his PhD
certificate. Unlike the UK, there is no waiting for the next degree ceremony.
Lorenzo’s thesis (‘Assistive Technology
Service Delivery for Children with Multiple Disabilities’) was an excellent
piece of work, describing research with the aim of improving Assistive
Technology services for children with multiple disabilities. Five of the
chapters have already been published or accepted for publication in
peer-reviewed academic journals. His supervisors were Luc de Witte and Uta
Roentgen from Zuyd University and University of Maastricht. Gert-Jan
Gelderbloom was also a supervisor at the start of the research, but sadly died
before he could see Lorenzo receive his degree. Lorenzo works at AIAS Bologna,
now the largest Assistive Technology provision centre in Italy, and has
combined carrying out his PhD with his clinical work.
The day continued with a seminar describing
the research being carried out in Maastricht and Zuyd into the use of robots
with children with disabilities. During the evening’s discussions, I also
learnt about other work taking place at Zuyd University. I was very impressed
with the breadth and quality of the research and I’m pleased to say that Luc
and I agreed to form a collaborative link between his research centre at Zuyd
and CATCH.
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