I have been known to make small contributions on matters of interest to me at University level, usually by means of some of the direct University mechanisms rather than through students’ unions (although when appropriate, I am also in contact with these). The material relating to this now lives on a separate University Politics page.
During the summer of 2005, I was a summer research student funded by Trinity College, and kindly supervised by John Lister.
During the summer of 2004, I spent ten weeks working for the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. I did some database-related programming and some statistical analysis of substorm-related chorus events, as part of the Magnetic Reconnection, Substorms and their Consequence programme. Their webpages give a good introduction to the area.