MAX PLANCK SCHOOLS DAY 2024

TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY AND JOIN US IN BERLIN!

Together with the three Max Planck Schools – Cognition, Matter to Life, and Photonics – we are looking forward to welcoming the PhD candidates of the sixth cohort this fall. On behalf of Prof. Patrick Cramer, President of the Max Planck Society, and Prof. Walter Rosenthal, President of the German Rectors' Conference, we cordially invite you to attend the annual

MAX PLANCK SCHOOLS DAY

on September 24, 2024

Harnack House Berlin

from 11 a.m. (CEST) onward

This year, our event will focus on academic freedom in a changing international landscape. Besides a panel with experts from different disciplines and interactive workshops, we are excited to have  Prof. Michèle Heurs, Fellow of the Max Planck School of Photonics, talk about her passion for science and how this feeds into the Max Planck Schools. Most of all, we want to once again provide our PhD candidates, Fellows and representatives of our partner organizations a platform to meet and network in person. 

Join us for a lively event at the Harnack House Berlin, celebrate the start of the new academic year,
and take the opportunity to meet and network!

REGISTRATION

REGISTER HERE

PROGRAM

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

WELCOME AND CLOSING

Walter Rosenthal

President of the German Rectors' Conference

German Rectors' Conference

Walter Rosenthal is a physician and pharmacologist and has been President of Friedrich Schiller University Jena since 2014. Previously, he was Director of what is now the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology from 1996 to 2009 and thereafter Chairman of the foundation's board and Scientific Director of the Max Delbrück Center, a research center of the Helmholtz Association, until 2014. He is a member of the Leopoldina, the Senate of the Leibniz Association, as well as Dean of the Max Planck Schools. In 2022, he was named "Higher Education Manager of the Year" by the newspaper "Die Zeit" and the Centre for Higher Education. He is recognized as a specialist in signal transduction (G-Proteins, G-protein-coupled receptors and anchoring proteins). Since May 2023, he is now President of the German Rectors’ Conference, and he will continue as Dean of the Max Planck Schools until December 2023. © HRK/Jürgen Scheere

Ferdi Schüth

Director Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung

Max Planck Institut für Kohlenforschung

Ferdi Schüth was born in 1960, studied chemistry and law at Münster University, Germany, and completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1988. After a post-doc with L. D. Schmidt at the University of Minnesota, he joined the group of K. Unger in Mainz for his habilitation. In 1995 he became full professor at Frankfurt University, and in 1998 moved to Mülheim to become director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung. He was vice president of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and until 2020 of the Max Planck Society. His research interests include catalysis, zeolites, porous materials, and energy-related topics.

PASSION FOR SCIENCE LECTURE

Michèle Heurs

Fellow Max Planck School of Photonics I Research Focus: Interferometric gravitational wave detection and quantum technologies

Institute for Gravitational Physics at the Leibniz Universität Hannover and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)

Michèle Heurs is a professor of experimental physics at Leibniz Universität Hannover and leader of the group “Quantum Control”, working on interferometric gravitational wave detection and quantum technologies. She is a council member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC). She is dean of QUEST Leibniz Forschungsschule, an interdisciplinary faculty at LUH, and principal investigator in two Centres of Excellence, PhoenixD and QuantumFrontiers, as well as one of the proponents of the German Centre for Astrophysics (Deutsches Zentrum für Astrophysik, DZA).

PANELDISCUSSION ON THE ROLE OF (FUNDAMENTAL) SCIENCE

Shalini Randeria

President and Rector of CEU (Central European University)

Central European University

Shalini Randeria was elected president and rector of Central European University in 2021. A distinguished sociologist and social anthropologist, she has served at many institutions across Europe, including as rector of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and professor at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. Randeria holds the Excellence Chair at the University of Bremen, leading research on "soft authoritarianisms." She has published extensively on globalization, law, the state, and social movements, focusing on India. Her influential podcast, Democracy in Question, launched in 2021 and is now in its ninth season. © Tamas Kovacs

Katrin Kinzelbach

Professorship International Politics of Human Rights I Research Focus: Human Rights

Institute of Political Science, FAU

Katrin Kinzelbach studied Italian studies and political science in Bonn and Florence, as well as peace and security studies in the UK. Her PhD in human rights is from the University of Vienna. She has lived and worked in several countries across Europe, Central Asia, East Asia, the Horn of Africa, and North America. In 2019, she joined FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, where she reads the politics of human rights. Together with colleagues of the V-Dem Institute in Sweden, Kinzelbach developed the Academic Freedom Index. Among other appointments, Kinzelbach also served on the Academic Freedom Committee of the International Studies Association. © FAU/ Anna Tiessen

Stefan Klumpp

Fellow Max Planck School Matter to Life I Research Focus: Theoretical Biophysics

Institute for the Dynamics of Complex Systems I University of Göttingen

Stefan Klumpp studied Physics and Philosophy at Heidelberg University and obtained his PhD in physics 2003 from the University of Potsdam, working at the MPI of Colloids and Interfaces. After postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Diego, he started his own group at the MPI in Potsdam. In 2015 he joined the University of Göttingen as professor for Theoretical Biophysics. He is a member of the Executive Board of the Max Planck School Matter to Life. His main interest is the physical basis of biological function. His group works on biological stochastic dynamics, the relation of gene expression and cell growth, and active matter in bacterial motility and in the cytoskeleton.

SCIENCE TALKS - INSIGHTS BY SELECTED PhD CANDIDATES

Eva Schmidt

PhD candidate Max Planck School of Cognition I Research Focus: Emotions in AI

Max Planck School of Cognition

Facial expressions of emotions are an essential part of human interactions. When we observe these expressions in others, we derive implicit information about them and receive crucial emotional cues that affect the way we feel towards and treat the other person. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality have made it possible to visually manipulate facial expressions. This project addresses the ethical concerns associated with AI-mediated communication, focusing on the use of AI-based face-altering technologies during interactions. The study investigates how these AI-mediated modifications impact prosocial behavior and empathy, aiming to understand the broader implications for human social dynamics.

Christoph Karfusehr

PhD candidate Max Planck School Matter to Life I Research Focus: DNA Nanotechnology

Max Planck School Matter to Life I TUM Physik synthetischer Biosysteme

Nature's way of compartmentalizing environments is key to life's complexity. Typically, biology employs crystalline protein cages for small containers and lipid vesicles for larger structures, such as cell membranes. The field of synthetic biology and container self-assembly has mirrored this separation, facing the limitations of each approach. Our study demonstrates that radially symmetric DNA origami subunits, inspired by lipid structures, can organize into giant DNA origami monolayer membranes. These can be programmed to form containers or hollow tubes, ranging in diameter from 100 nm to over 1 µm. Our DNA origami compartments enable new approaches for bottom-up biology and cell-scale soft robotics.

Josephine Spiegelberg

PhD candidate Max Planck School of Photonics I Research Focus: Nanoscale 3D Laser Printing

Max Planck School of Photonics

In our work, we focus on direct laser writing for nanoscale 3D printing. This technique uses a focused laser beam in a liquid ink, or photoresist, to print arbitrary 3D structures and can reliably achieve a printing resolution of a hundreds of nanometers. This printing resolution, however, is generally limited by the so-called diffraction limit, which sets a lower boundary on achievable resolution in optics. In this work, we implement novel photoresists alongside techniques from stimulated emission depletion microscopy (STED) to go below the diffraction limit and explore the true lower limits of printing resolution in direct laser writing.

CONTACT AND FURTHER INFORMATION

For any questions regarding the registration process, please contact our event agency compactteam:

E-Mail: mpsday@compact-team.de
Phone: +49 (0)30 44 38 00 50

For any questions regarding the Max Planck Schools or the Max Planck Schools Day, please contact
the Max Planck Schools Central Coordination Team:

E-Mail: maxplanckschools@gv.mpg.de
Phone: +49 (0)89 2108 1873

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