Travel report for attending IUSSI conference 2014
K.H. Rohitha Pradeep Kumara Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of the Ryukyus,
Okinawa, Japan. 04th September, 2014.
It was great honor to attend the congress of IUSSI (International Union for the Study of Social Insects), which was held at Cairns Convention Centre, Cairns, Australia from 13th July to 18th July, 2014 . First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Gaku Tokuda to giving me such a great opportunity. Without his help, as a postgraduate student from Sri Lanka, I wouldn’t have been able to get the travelling support from JIUSSI and afford my travelling expenses. The conference was the ideal opportunity for me to present my work to an audience of international stature and was of great benefit to me at this point in my career. I presented a poster outlining the main findings of my PhD in the physiological roles in the mixed segment of the wood-feeding higher termite. Several international academics within this field and other fields were present and available during poster sessions to comment and question my data, helping to identify future questions, which need to be addressed in order to complete part of the research. I also attended oral presentation sessions on cutting edge research belonging to termites and other social insects and have gained latest advancements in the social insect research.
I also had opportunity to meet and network with many researchers during the conference. I met many famous termite research giants such as Andrease Brune, Nathan Lo and David Bignell, whose topics greatly attracted my attention.
The location of the conference was awesome, and allowed me to experience a new country and culture, which is always a benefitted me to gain new experiences. In the seven days in Cairns, I lived in the Rainbow Hotel, which located near the Convention Centre, I managed to walk everyday to go to the conference. In addition, I also had opportunity to visit Skyrail, and famous Kurunda train. It was a marvelous trip, I indulged myself in enjoying the beautiful view around the Cairns.
Overall, the conference was a very good opportunity to present my work and receive feedback from a multi-disciplinary audience. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the organizers for running this event, and also the JIUSSI for providing me travel support. Finally, it is influencing the final parts of my PhD and my future career in Science.
Yours sincerely,
Rohitha Pradeep Kumara
