Yes, we can
Imagine a group of PhD students and young PhD degree holders who have wanted to make something meaningful for young physicists in Ukraine together for years. Yes, that is us, and now we are called Kharkiv EPS Young Minds Section.
We all work at the O. Ya. Usikov Institute for Radiophysics and Electronics NASU, but have different majors – from solid state physics to biophysics and geoscience. That is why we prepare events that would unite us all. Let me introduce you to the best one that we have organised so far – 2017 IEEE International Young Scientists Forum on Applied Physics and Engineering (www.ysc.org.ua).
On October 17-20, 2017 in Lviv, one of the most beautiful cities of Ukraine, this conference gathered over 150 young scientists, engineers, and invited speakers from all over the world. The geography of participants included 29 cities of 10 countries including USA, UK, Spain, Poland, Estonia, Turkey, Italy, Hungary, Egypt, and Ukraine. The technical program included presentations on a broad range of topics including Biological and Medical Physics; Optics and Photonics; Computational and Experimental Electromagnetics; Microwave and Terahertz Electronics; Nano- and Metamaterials; Information Systems and Non-destructive Testing; Power Electronics and Industry Applications; Solid State Physics; Nuclear and Plasma Physics; Multiwavelength Astronomy; Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
The unique feature of the event was a successful combination of a scientific program with soft skill training. The Forum offered workshops on scientific writing in English, improving skills of public speaking, grant proposal writing as well as insights into the grant programs of the European Union, NATO, DAAD, and other organisations.
Such an event could not be brought to life without collaboration. We are deeply grateful to the Ukrainian Physical Society, EPS Physics for Development Group, and EPS which recognised the Forum as a Europhysics Conference. We also thank our colleagues from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv and Karpenko Physico-Mechanical Institute NASU for taking active part in the organization, and IEEE IRE NASU-Kharkiv AP-S, ED-S, MTT-S, IA-S, SSC-S Student Branch Chapters, IEEE East Ukraine Joint Chapter, IEEE Ukraine Section Women in Engineering Affinity Group, and EuMA for the financial support.
This year, we are concentrating on the workshops on science-industry interaction and soft skills development (like scientific writing and translation, public speaking, making presentations) for young scientists at our Institute and hope to bring more visibility to the EPS Young Mind project in Kharkiv.
