8th EPS Young Minds Leadership Meeting
On 24-25 May 2019, the 8th leadership meeting of the Young Minds Programme of the European Physical Society was held at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL), in Erlangen, Germany. This Leadership Meeting was organized by the hbar Omega student chapter and the Young Minds (YM) section of Erlangen, supported by MPL and funded by the European Physical Society (EPS), Europhysics Letters (EPL), International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS), The Optical Society (OSA), OHB Systems AG, and Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies (SAOT).
The main focus of the first day was the professional development, and the second day was fully devoted to the YM activities.
On the 24th, the morning session started with the welcome speech from Prof. Dr. Phillip Russell one of the MPL founders, and continued with presentations from MPL directors and young researchers to introduce MPL. After that, three amazing talks focused on professional development were delivered by Dr. Bettina Heim from OHB system, Dr. Michael Förtsch, the Chief Executive Officer of Q.ant, and Araceli Venegas-Gomez, OSA quantum ambassador. The last invited speaker was Prof. Dr. Petra Rudolf, EPS president. She gave a very encouraging talk about how to become a tenure-track assistant professor.
In the 8th LM, the Action Committee launched a video competition. The idea was that each of sections to make a short video to explain and demonstrate one of the experiments that they present to the public. After the invited talks, the videos were presented to all the participants as well as the Action Committee.
After lunch, the meeting continued with a 1-hour workshop dedicated writing an effective abstract for a journal publication. It was moderated by Anne Ruimy, Executive Publisher of the journal EPL.
The next interesting point of the day was the interaction among sections where everyone participated in a group game to construct bridges out of straws and tape with the aim of learning communication and teamwork by “building bridges and networking”. The poster session took place next and the first day ended with the social dinner at the restaurant Kaiser Wilhelm with traditional German food and drinks.
The second day started with the Action Committee presentation by Dr. Roberta Caruso and the announcement of the best activity award and the winner of the video competition. The best activity award was granted to two sections from Armenia: Yerevan and Artsakh sections and the best video award went to the Warsaw section. The session was followed by talks from the sections present (24) about the activities presented and the methods used by different sections in public outreach programs.
The 25th of May was the national day for Armenian dance so the meeting was closed in the afternoon with the students from the Armenian section leading us all in dance.
