Achieving sporting and academic excellence

Simrat Sodhi is a Lucy Cavendish affiliate medical student, who is currently in her 4th year of medicine (1st year of clinical medicine).

Thanks to Sports Funding provided by the College (Dr L Traub), Simrat was able to play on the women's blues ice hockey team (CUIHC) for another year. They played in the Varsity match at the Cambridge Ice Arena, and triumphed over Oxford with a commanding 6-3 victory, claiming the Coyne Cup for the 39th Women’s clash and notching up their fourth Varsity win in a row. Simrat also won the 'Spirit of the Game' trophy.

Read more about the match here.

The team will be off to the nationals on April 9th to compete with the other women's teams in the UK. The nationals are run by the British Universities Ice Hockey Association (BUIHA) where teams from Universities all over the UK compete for the national title. In previous years, getting enough teams to register was tough but for the first time, this nationals will have 2 women’s groups which is an exciting step forward.

Simrat explains more about the evolution of the sport, “Prior to this year, there used to be two ice hockey clubs in Cambridge, one for the men’s blues and one for the women’s blues. During the pandemic, we initiated the merging of the clubs and this year was the first year we played under one club: CUIHC. As one of the Co-Presidents of the club, I felt honoured to be a part of this historic move forward, especially as the first female President of CUIHC.

This season has also been my best as a player and I plan to continue to grow and develop for the rest of my time here at Cambridge. As a Canadian, ice hockey is in my blood and I truly feel that when I play here. Playing on the team keeps me healthy, allows me to push my physical boundaries and connects me to home. 

In Canada, women who play at the varsity level tend to have plans to go pro. That was never my goal so I never dreamed of playing on a varsity team. Even when I came to Cambridge, I didn’t think I could make the team so just being on the team and playing with the crest on my chest feels like a dream come true. Now I’m motivated to continue to grow the club and the sport in Cambridge while also personally developing into a better player. We’ve won every varsity since I joined the team so I’m hoping we can keep that record alive until I graduate. GDBO!”

Simrat is successful in academia too. She was funded by Lucy Cavendish College to attend a conference and subsequently published a research article (available online). Simrat explains her fascinating research: “The retina is at the back of your eye and its job is to convert light into neural signals. When patients have retinal vascular conditions, such as neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nARMD), fluid builds up in the retinal layers and distorts vision. In previous studies, total fluid volume was used as a biomarker for visual outcomes; however, our group used optical coherence tomography (OCT) images and a novel deep learning-based, macular fluid segmentation algorithm to quantify the fluid into 3 types: intraretinal fluid (IRF), subretinal fluid (SRF), and serous pigment epithelium detachments (PEDs). We then correlated morphological features and fluid measurements to changes in best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) to determine visual outcomes at 1 year. Clinically, this means that a machine-learning approach to analysing fluid metrics may provide an advantage in personalising therapy and predicting BCVA outcomes.”