A brief report on the CDT Showcase Event: Professor Chris Mitchell


The CDT recently hosted a hybrid engagement event at Cumberland Lodge in Winsor Great Park. This was an exciting event for us to host as it provided an opportunity for us to bring together students from across the cohorts (many meeting for the first time), to reconnect students and staff, and for everybody to share what they've been up to.

We had great attendance at this event with many staff and students choosing to join us in-person (following covid measures), and others joining in online. There was a packed programme, full of student talks to update us on their research, some interesting presentations from students who have recently returned from internships, and some engaging sessions from some of our recent graduates in which they delivered an inspiring message and words of wisdom to those who are just at the beginning of their CDT journey.

Below we hear from Professor Chris Mitchell, Head of Information Security Group at Royal Holloway with his thoughts on the event. 

I had the great privilege to attend and participate in the CDT showcase event on 25th and 26th November 2021, held at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor. This was a particularly welcome occasion, as it had not been possible to hold a corresponding event in 2020 because of the Covid-19 emergency. It was well-attended by both CDT students and academic staff; I would estimate that at least 50 people were present during the two days. In additional, a number of current and former CDT students attended online, e.g. from where they were engaged in internships.

This was the first time that many of the CDT students had been able to present their research in person to a large audience because of Covid-19, and a large number of informative and entertaining presentations were packed into the two days. Of particular note was an impressive team presentation by the newest cohort of students on a group project they have performed involving a technical, ethical and privacy-related analysis of a novel Apple scheme to try to detect and mitigate the use of iCloud for storage and sharing of illicit child-related images. More generally, the presentations were lively and provoked more questions than could be fitted into the time available. The CDT clearly remains able to recruit widely varied cohorts of extremely talented young people, and is able to stimulate their research interests in many different ways.

Cumberland Lodge, as always, looked after us all extremely well; thanks to excellent organisation of the event by the CDT team, we even managed to squeeze a brisk organised walk in the park between sessions – indeed, it needed to be brisk, as although it was sunny it was also bitterly cold. I certainly greatly enjoyed the entire two days, which I found both educational and entertaining, and I hope to be invited back for the next showcase event.

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