Pedagogy 2025
Abstract
In our presentation we will discuss new training we have introduced at Imperial College London – two workshops in the Early Career Researcher Institute (ECRI) and one workshop in the Business School. These training initiatives aim to enhance the critical and ethical use of generative AI in the research process. One of the ECRI workshops relates to how generative AI can be used to assist programming, and the other relates to the critical assessment of generative AI outputs when writing a literature review. The Business School workshop, for MRes and PhD students, relates to the responsible use of AI for information searching and idea generation. We work with doctoral students and other Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and within these three workshops we explore how participants are already using generative AI in their research, and we challenge them to think more deeply about what may be gained or lost in the process. The programming course includes demonstrations of how to effectively integrate GitHub Copilot into programming practice. Given the rapidly changing landscape of available tools, offering specific advice can be difficult. Instead, these workshops provide ECRs with lifelong learning: how to critically evaluate generative AI outputs in the context of their own needs, values, and constraints. All three workshops are based on activities and follow up discussions and reflection, to allow the knowledge sharing and enable participants to connect the learning with their own specific needs.
Senior Teaching Fellow. Elena Forasacco leads the Research Communication Programme at the Early Career Researcher Institute (ECRI), which includes courses for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) to enhance the communication of their research projects. She co-leads the AI-Assisted Research Programme with the co-authors of this presentation, which includes courses and resources to support ECRs using generative AI tools. Elena has 20 years’ international research experience in freshwater ecology and ecology applied to microgravity.
Chris Cooling: Senior Teaching Fellow. Chris is the programme leader for the Programming programme in the Early Career Researcher Institute (ECRI) at Imperial College London. He delivers courses on Python, Fortran, LaTeX and AI-Assisted Programming. Chris delivers courses aimed at students at several different levels of experience. He is keen to support researchers in learning the skills and tools that will best help them conduct impactful research in a professional and efficient manner. Earlier in his career, Chris spent the best part of a decade as a researcher in nuclear engineering.
Jay DesLauriers: Senior Teaching Fellow and AI Futurist in Education. Jay leads the Software Engineering programme at the Early Career Researcher Institute (ECRI) at Imperial College London and teaches introductory programming at the Business School in Finance, Management and Data Science programmes. He co-leads the AI-Assisted Research programme with the co-authors and delivers workshops and short sessions on AI fluency at the Business School.
John Pinney: Senior Teaching Fellow. John leads the Data Science programme at ECRI, with a focus on applicable training in data processing, statistics and machine learning for Early Career Researchers. His research background is in computational biology.
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Friday 21st November, 2025