MAX PLANCK SCHOOLS DAY 2026

JOIN US FOR AN INSPIRING EVENT IN BERLIN

Together with the four Max Planck Schools – Biomedical Artificial Intelligence, Cognition, Matter to Life, and Photonics – we are looking forward to welcoming our new cohort of PhD candidates 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 October 8, 2026

Harnack House Berlin

from 11 a.m. (CEST) onward

This year, our event will focus on "The Scientific Method Under Pressure: Science in an Era of Political and Technological Disruption”.
In addition to a panel discussion and interactive workshop sessions, we are excited to have Prof. Gerd Kempermann, Fellow of the Max Planck School of Cognition, talk about his passion for science and how it feeds into the Max Planck Schools. Most of all, we want to provide once again our PhD candidates, Fellows, and representatives of our partner organizations with a platform to meet and network.

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

Member Max Planck Schools Steering Committee

Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung I Director Heterogeneous Catalysis

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

Gerd Kempermann

Fellow Max Planck School of Cognition I Research Focus: Adult Neurogenesis

German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases I Adult Neurogenesis Group

Gerd Kempermann, born in Cologne, studied Medicine in Cologne and Freiburg, Germany. From 1995 to 1998 he was postdoctoral fellow with Fred H. Gage at the Salk Institute, where he started his work on how cognitive and physical activity stimulate adult hippocampal neurogenesis. After two years a clinical neurologist in Regensburg, he was research group leader at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch. In 2007 he became Professor at the CRTD – Center for Regenerative Therapies at TU Dresden. Since 2009 he is also speaker of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease (DZNE) Dresden. Main topics of his work are the function and activity-dependent regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis and the neurobiological foundations of individuality and healthy cognitive aging. He is member of the Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences. © Francisca Gilli

PANEL ON THIS YEAR‘S LEADING THEME

Dagmar Schäfer

Director Max Planck Institute for the History of Science |Research Focus: History of Science and Technology, China

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Dagmar Schäfer is Director of the Department Artifacts, Action, Knowledge at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, as well as Honorary Professor at Freie Universität Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and Northwest University, Xi’an. A sinologist and historian of technology and science, she has published widely on the premodern history of China, materiality, and the processes and structures that lead to varying knowledge systems. In 2020 Dagmar Schäfer was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize by the German Research Foundation for her development of new approaches to cultural studies and the resulting comparative perspectives on a comprehensive global history.

Karsten Borgwardt

Director Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry & Speaker Max Planck School of Biomedical AI | Research Focus: Machine Learning in the Life Sciences

Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry

Karsten Borgwardt is Director of the Department of Machine Learning and Systems Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany since 2023. Previously, he was a full professor at ETH Zürich. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from LMU Munich and an M.Sc. in Biology from the University of Oxford. Prof. Borgwardt has received prestigious awards and has led major national and international research consortia, including the Personalized Swiss Sepsis Study, and two Marie Curie Innovative Training Networks on Machine Learning in Medicine. He served as Proceedings Chair of the largest bioinformatics conferences ISMB/ECCB 2025 with Tijana Milenkovic and of ISMB 2026 with Jian Ma.

Holger Wormer

Professor for Science Journalism TU Dortmund University | Research Focus: Quality and Ethics in Science and Media

Technische Universität Dortmund

Holger Wormer has established currently the only university chair of science journalism in Germany. Until 2004 he was science editor with a focus on medical, life science, and environmental topics at the national newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. His key research areas are quality and ethics of science communication. He was co-speaker and member of three working groups of the German Academies of Sciences on the future of science communication and one of the founders of the Rhine Ruhr Center for Science Communication Research as well as of the media monitoring project medien-doktor.de, which has won several communication awards. © TU Dortmund

SCIENCE TALKS - INSIGHTS BY SELECTED PhD CANDIDATES

Bianca Serio

PhD candidate Max Planck School of Cognition I Research Focus: Brain Organization

Max Planck School of Cognition I Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences

Classical approaches to human brain mapping rely on atlases delineating cortical regions, whereby synchronized activity within distinct functional networks supports cognitive functions. Regional boundaries are however, not uniquely or consistently defined; they vary based on modality, scale, and method, and are less clearly delimited for functional activity than anatomy. My work aims to advance an alternative framework that situates regions along a continuum, revealing the brain’s hierarchical organization. This shifts the focus from how cognitive function arises from discrete cortical regions to why regions are positioned as they are on the cortex, uncovering the organizational principles that support human cognition.

Karim Ajmail

PhD candidate Max Planck School Matter to Life I Research Focus: Microscopy-based Cell Sorting

Max Planck School Matter to Life I Max Planck Institute for Medical Research

Biological cells, whilst sharing the exact same DNA, often behave surprisingly heterogeneous. Consequently, single-cell sorting methods such as fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) capable of dissecting these heterogeneities have revolutionised biological research. However, current methods cannot distinguish more complex phenotypes such as spatial organisation or cell-cell-interactions. My work focuses on developing a pipeline, termed LaserTag, capable of sorting single cells based on a complex microscopy-based phenotype. I leverage the power of photoactivatable fluorophore to selectively photoactivate („tag“) single cells of interest. These fluorescently tagged cells are then sorted using FACS to dissect differences of these phenotypes on a molecular level.

Sebastian Hell

PhD candidate Max Planck School of Photonics I Research Focus: Ultrafast Photoionization

Max Planck School of Photonics I Friedrich Schiller University Jena

In quantum physics, what we observe depends on how we measure. Like casting a shadow, the way we illuminate an object determines which aspect becomes visible and which remains hidden. Ionizing D₂ molecules with ultrashort, intense laser pulses, we show that an electron and ion become entangled on ultrashort timescales. Measuring the ion in coincidence then determines what information is available about the electron. If the ion reveals the electron’s path, its typical wave-like behavior vanishes; if this “which-path” information is erased, it reappears. Our results show that ion–electron coincidence spectroscopy can test quantum information concepts on ultrashort timescales.

CONTACT AND FURTHER INFORMATION

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

E-Mail: mpsd@con-gressa.de
Phone: +49 30 28 49 3855

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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