On our webinar on December 9 Lucia Rotheray from Dragonfly Mental Health gave a comprehensive introduction into the mental health. The recording of the webinar, which has been jointly presented together with “The International Association of Physics Students (IAPS)” is now available on our youtube channnel.
Next edition of “From PhD to CEO”, October 28
Strongly aligned with the agenda of the current EPS presidency to strenghten the relations and the exchange between the EPS and business, EPS Young Minds is delighted to announce the next session of “From PhD to CEO”, the joint webinar series on young entrepreneurship in the European photonics community, jointly hosted by EPS YM and Optica.
Meet Michele from Milano
In the session on October 28 Michele Lacerenza will share the story of PIONIRS. This young and innovative company is based in Milano, Italy, and is working towards developing next generation devices for near infrared spectroscopy in biomedical applications. More details on Michele and the mission of can be found in the flyer below.
As in previous editions registration is possible via the Optica website
The EPS Young Minds community gathered for a virtual Leadership Meeting in May
On 7 May 2021, the EPS Young Minds Leadership Meeting took place online. It was the first gathering of the whole YM community since the leadership meeting 2019 in Erlangen. 55 section delegates, representing 21 countries and vastly different career levels ranging from bachelor students to postdocs, attended the meeting and made it a large success.
The meeting included two parts, the first taking place on Zoom and the second on the virtual interaction platform Gather Town. On Zoom EPS YM programme manager Ophélia Fornari welcomed the participants and provided an overview of new functionalities for section management on the EPS website to the participants. She was followed by Richard Zeltner, YM Action Committee Chair, who gave a wrap-up on the years 2020 and 2021 from the YM perspective and highlighted the numerous section activities that were carried out despite the ongoing pandemic. He also gave an outlook on the plans for the rest of the year and 2022 and thanked the members of the Action Committee that left the programme over the course of the last two years, in particular Petra Rudolf who handed over the EPS presidentship, and thus the position in the YM Action Committee, just in April. As the third speaker, Luc Bergé, current EPS president, presented his agenda and his plan to establish the EPS Forum to the YM community. The first part of the meeting was concluded by a panel discussion on career advice for young scientists. The discussion on topics ranging from the role of professional media platforms for personal branding over the difference of working in academia and industry to the importance of aligning career choices with individual aptitudes and talents was very much appreciated by the young minds and certainly a highlight of the event.
After the panel discussion, the meeting transitioned to Gather Town, where the participants could engage in more informal activities. During a speed networking event, the participants had the opportunity to refresh old connections and to establish new ones within the YM community. This was followed by a Physics Quiz, in which the participants teamed up in small groups and tested their knowledge, not only on physics but also on Trivia and on questions of popular science.
Considering the large number of participants and the very positive feedback that we received during and after the meeting, the event was a large success. Moreover, for the sections that started their activity in 2020 and 2021 the meeting was a great opportunity to gain more insights into the programme and to connect with the network. Even though, we are very much looking forward to connect with the YM community physically again in 2022.
Finally, we would like to warmly thank our panelists Gabrielle Thomas, Lucia Santamaria, Luc Bergé, Chang Kee Jung and Petra Rudolf for their contribution to the panel discussion. We also thank Florian Schorn and Dominik Rattenbacher from the Erlangen section hBar Omega for providing the Gather Town Environment and their contribution to the Physics Quiz.
Webinar on mental health of students young and researchers
Recents years have seen increasing awareness of the stress and strain that, in particular, the early stage of an academic career can put on students and young researchers. To address this problem and to contribute to the further dissemination of knowledge and awareness EPS YM organized a webinar featuring Dr. Andrea Welsh, Postdoctoral Fellow & Instructor at the University of Pittsburgh, and advocate for this important topic. In her talk she discussed the current situation, provided a review of the scientific literature and sketched solution tools for both the community and individuals. With more than 30 participants in the webinar, and many more following the live stream on social media, the event has been a great success. Many thanks to Andrea for her time and effort.
Webinar series on young European entrepreneurs
EPS YM is delighted to announce the webinar series “From PhD to CEO – Making an Exciting Leap into Business”. In each of the six sessions a young researcher will share his story on how he set up a business. The event is a collaboration with The Optical Society . Registration for the individual sessions is possible via the OSA website
How to create appealing media content – a webinar organized by Young Minds
The current pandemic has impacted many organisations, leading to decreased productivity of many fields and delay in projects. Naturally, the Young Minds project has been affected as well. However, it has also opened the possibility to experiment with novel ways of communication and exchange, for instance webinars.
We are glad to share our positive experience with the very first webinar organized by the Action Committee: “Bringing visibility to your event though photos: DOs & DON’Ts” hosted on June the 9th covered aspects on creating media content that attract and tells stories, especially focusing on the connection between science and people. The event was moderated and hosted by Hripsime Mkrtchyan, YM Action Committee member, and the speaker was Francesca di Franco, PhD student at Leon Berard Cancer Center in Lyon and former member of the Naples YM section PONYS. Francesca has an extensive experience as a photographer, especially in scientific events such as science fairs, congresses and workshops. During the one hour long webinar she shared her know-how on the production of multimedia contents to maximize the impact of science-related activities on social media. The webinar and its record has been viewed by more than 100 followers, and is now uploaded in our YouTube channel, making it available for the wider community.
Webinar on creating appealing media coverage
Francesca di Franco, former member of the YM section Naples, will discuss how catchy media content can be created without the use of professional instrumentation.
The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected also the YM program in several ways, among the others the annual Leadership Meeting had to be postponed. This does not mean, however, that our yearly appointment will be skipped. For the rest of the year, we are planning a number of online seminars covering a range of topics from outreach to professional development and networking, with speakers coming from different backgrounds all over Europe.
First up is Francesca Di Franco, PhD student at Leon Berard Cancer Center in Lyon, and former member of the Naples YM section PONYS Physics & Optics Naples Young Students. Francesca has an extensive experience as photographer, especially for scientific events such as science fairs, congresses and workshop. She will share her know-how on the production of multimedia contents to maximize the impact of science-related activities on social media.
Arduino tutorial organized by Young Minds Section Aveiro
The Young Minds Section in Aveiro has organized a seminar on Arduino programming. Photo credit: YM Section Aveiro
This February the Young Minds Section of Aveiro has organized and hosted a course on Arduino programming. It was held by two local students of the Electronic, Telecommunication and Informatic Department (DETI) of the University of Aveiro. In four sessions, each 2 hours long, the participants were introduced in several topics concerning the electronic prototyping platform Arduino. The course attracted nineteen participants from different departments, and each of them received a kit with electronic components, necessary to learn and develop the Arduino projects proposed by the teachers. At the end of the course, each participant could keep the kit to themselves and continue to learn and test the new knowledge acquired. The course can be certainly considered a success, as it did not only enhance the knowledge of the participants, but also strengthened the connection of the Aveiro sections to other organizations from University of Aveiro.
Open Readings 2018
This year “Open Readings 2018” gathered above 306 presenters from more than 13 different countries: Norway, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Austria, Latvia, Serbia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Romania and Russia. Participants presented 11 different topics from Astrophysics and Computational Physics to Optoelectronics, Materials Science, Biomedicine, Chemistry, Nanoengineering etc.. Important statistics of participants: 96 Bachelor students, 97 Master students, 93 PhD students and 6 Postdocs. Through 4 days of the conference audience has listened to 56 oral presentations and watched over 250 poster presentations. This year we had equal ratio between female and male students. “Open Readings” invited 8 incredible lecturers from the World’s Top Scientists (USA, United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Lithuania): Richard Brice Hoover – internationally known authority from NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Andrea Alù – inventor of novel waveguides, scattering devices and a cloaked sensor device (University of Texas at Austin), Peter Uhd Jepsen – leading scientist in the Terahertz Technologies & Biophotonics research group, Julija Krupič – developed a fascination with the way the brain maps the environment (University of Cambridge, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience), Rasuolė Lukošė – is developing new sensing possibilities in graphene, Andrius Baltuška – alongside two colleagues, shared a world record for creating the shortest blip of light in history. They produced a flash of light lasting only 4.5 femtoseconds (0.000 000 000 000 004 5 seconds), Roel Baets – has led major cooperative research initiatives in silicon photonics in Europe, Audrius Alkauskas – works with point defects in 2D materials for quantum technologies.
“Open Readings 2018” took place from March 20-23rd, in the largest scientific research institution in Lithuania Center for Physical Sciences and Technology. It is the most advanced base for physical and chemical sciences, technology not only in Lithuania but in all Baltic States. It is currently headquartered in a state of the art four-stories building of 27 thousand square meters. Here not only the innovative science but also high technologies expedient for business and society needs are developed. European Physical Society Young Minds Section of Vilnius (EPS YM Vilnius) has contributed to organization of this conference. During the conference “11th Lithuanian Π day championship”, which gathered one hundred of students and University workers, was organized. This year Lithuania Guinness record was broken once again – Andrius Gegužis memorized 10 003 decimal places of Pi (He is 1st in Europe). Winner was writing over 15 hours! EPS YM Vilnius was invited to give an interview for mass media and national television. Lithuanian community has heard about our section. We hope to continue this tradition! Further science popularization is needed.
Section Starting
The Young Minds section of the University of Liège was created recently (May 2018). During the past months, our group has organized a “get-to-know-us” presentation for physics and space science students (masters, PhD and post-docs). It sparked great interest for the Young Minds activity in the Liège physics community. The objective was also to brainstorm ideas of activities to be organized for the upcoming academic year 2018-2019. This meeting, along with three other group reunions over two weeks, lead us to the idea of a networking event under the theme “Physics and Sport” (see the corresponding document for more details), during which we will test activities we plan using to create an outreach event destined to high school students. It also allowed us to gather motivated PhD students with experience in science outreach event (sci-fi movies analyses, broad audience communication, …) and effectively reinforce the initial team. We have also made contact with a local organization specialized in the field of science popularization at the University of Liège (“Réjouiscience” – http://rejouisciences.uliege.be) and they showed enthusiasm in collaborating with us in the organization of physics outreach events. We committed to participating in the next edition of their “Printemps des Sciences”, a yearly, high-impact science fair week for schools and general public in the Liège area. Members of our team are also dedicating their time to the construction of a website (www.ymliege.uliege.be) and a Facebook page (“YMLiège”) for more visibility. We created a public mail address: youngminds@uliege.be.
Our group takes the opportunity to be part of the Young Minds network very seriously, and we think we are off to a great start. We hope that the aforementioned activities testifiy our motivation for holding physics-related events and for growing the Young Minds network.