Vice-Chancellor’s Colloquium: Doctoral students champion cross-disciplinary dialogue

Designed to foster critical thinking and cross-disciplinary dialogue, the Colloquium brings undergraduate students together to explore some of the most pressing issues shaping society today. This year’s strands are Artificial Intelligence and Climate.

This year, Education DPhil students are serving as facilitators across both strands. In the AI strand, facilitators include Dongxia Nie, Ivan Au, Meruyert Bizhanova, Milo Edwards, Rameen Iftikhar and Zhuohan Chen, while Larissa Kennedy is contributing to the Climate strand.

As facilitators, these doctoral students lead college-based discussions, guide activities, and create spaces where students from diverse academic backgrounds can engage in thoughtful, structured debate.

We spoke to three Doctoral students about their experience:

For Milo Edwards, facilitating the AI strand has been a highlight of their time at Oxford. They reflected on both the challenge and the opportunity of working across disciplines: “Facilitating seminars with students from a variety of disciplines has given me insight into the opportunities that could be had if there were more interdisciplinary collaborations in research. I am keen to apply this insight to my own future research collaborations working to improve LGBTQ+ experiences.”

Zhuohan Chen highlights the creative, student-centred aspects of the programme. She said: “I have particularly enjoyed co-designing activities that encourage students to think critically about AI. Seeing their enthusiasm and depth of engagement has been especially rewarding. Discussions around different AI scenarios and the perspectives of multiple stakeholders have been particularly insightful.”

Meruyert Bizhanova reflected on the benefits of facilitating for her own development: “The most rewarding aspect has been the mutual learning environment. While guiding discussions on AI, I have deepened my own understanding of the field and learned just as much from the undergraduates as they have from us. It has also been wonderful to see our group evolve into a genuine intellectual community built on curiosity and trust. It has significantly strengthened my teaching and mentoring skills, particularly in facilitating complex, interdisciplinary discussions with clarity and structure.”

To read more about the Vice-Chancellor’s Colloquium, visit the University website.