Opportunity Knocks

The PhD student which I am assisting through this masters project has close contact with a subject matter expert (SME; an immunologist) located in a research institute over in San Diego. A most fortuitous turn of events occurred today, which I am glad to say I grabbed with both hands.

As previously stated, the PhD student has entered the end-game of his postgraduate research and will imminently commence writing up. He will be travelling to San Diego in late August to tie up loose ends on the project, put meat on the bones of a proposal for follow on research (a Post Doc), and in my opinion have a 'little' bit of a jolly to celebrate a job well done. I have been invited along to this final trip by my project supervisor, to show the SME the portion of the simulation that I have updated, and act as another pair of eyes and ears for discussions with the SME regarding future work. Although my PhD research will be modelling a different area of biology, I will nevertheless remain at this institution, and therefore will act as continuity should any transition period be required - a full-time research masters student is expected to arrive in the new academic year to develop the simulation further.

The trip is scheduled the week before my project report is due to be handed in. Should I accept the offer to travel to San Diego, a new project risk will arise regarding the timely submission of this report. Should I accept? I believe that I would be a fool not to, so this risk will therefore have to be managed through completing my project report 10 days earlier than the current deadline.

I can see a re-planning exercise on the horizon!