SFB Conference and Graduate School Meeting 2020 via Zoom
The 2020 SFB conference and graduate school meeting took place from 28.09.2020 – 29.09.2020. Due to the Covid-19 situation it was not possible to keep up the tradition of meeting with all members of the SFB in Hohwacht, but the conference had to be held remotely via Zoom.
The focus of this year’s meeting was to summarize and highlight the key works within the SFB of the past year and to identify new ‘hot topics’ in the overarching research fields of the SFB. Similar to the previous non-remotely held workshops, the workshop was divided into three parts: highlight talks, discussions among the PhD students and joint discussions which were organized in parallel sessions this year. Additionally, on the second day the graduate school met.
The highlight talks were divided in two sessions, one on Monday and one on Tuesday. They provided a platform to present key publications in the last year and gave an overview of the successful work conducted in the SFB.
For the group discussions PhD students organized two separate discussion rounds focusing on presenting their own work within the SFB and discussing the goals of the SFB. The first discussion round grouped students of the same SFB area and the second round grouped students of different SFB areas into small meeting sessions.
Group A1 | Group A2 | Group A3 | Group A4 | Group A5 |
René Wagner, | Lorenzo Colaizzi, | Christina Bömer, | Nils-Oliver Wind, | Loenard Müller, |
David Schwickert, | Katharina Wenig, | Lukas Windgätter, | Michael Elbracht, | Simon Michel, |
Aljoscha Rörig, | Nora Schmitt, | Mohamed Abdelrasoul, | Guido Homann, | Lukas Broers, |
Matthias Ruppert, | Julius Schwarz | Henning Kirchberg | Philip Beck | Abhisek Kole |
Ching-Chia Cheng |
Group B3 | Group C1 | Group C2 | Group C3 | Group C4 |
Robin Quade, | Raphael Eichberger, | Yann Kiefer, | Tobias Klafka, | Koen Sponselee, |
Yingqiao Ma, | Benjamin Abeln, | Ilias Seifie, | Martin Schlederer, | Christoph Georges, |
Gunda Kipp |
Alejandro Romero Ros | Phatthamon Kongkhambut | Jie Chen | Leon Mixa |
Groups for the inter-area PhD discussion
In the past years this format has been well received among the SFB students and led to fruitful discussions. Especially working in small subgroups has created an environment which allows students to ask questions and discuss openly and therefore led to a common understanding of each person’s work and how it fits into the overarching topics of the SFB. Furthermore, this allows to find a common ground possible collaboration.
Due to the remote character of this year’s meeting it was not possible to have the traditional poster session. Instead it was substituted by one-slide talks which the PhD students gave during the inter- and intra-area discussion rounds and which provided an opportunity to present their work.
The third component of this year’s conference beside the highlight talks and the small discussion rounds, were several parallel sessions, where PhD students, Post-Docs and PIs joined to discuss various different topics which have been identified on the first day. These ranged from discussing current research trends over scientific time management to paper writing skills. These sessions provided a platform to either exchange ideas about the current state of the SFB and its related topics of research as well as the opportunity to profit from the PI and post-docs experience on how to deal with scientific problems or how to adequately transform ones research into written publications.
During the graduate school meeting the students were informed about the ongoing work of the graduate school, possible future seminars and could contribute ideas to improve the graduate schools’ work. This is especially important to be able to provide seminars and other offers specifically for the students’ needs. Furthermore, the election of their new student representative was hold.
In conclusion, the format and discussions at the conference were received well among its members, despite its remote character due to the Covid-19 situation, and the meeting helped preparing the SFB for more successful research work in the upcoming years.