MPSP SPRING SCHOOL 2023
Schnacken & Schietwedder
Moin, Moin from Hamburg! At the end of March, not even a train strike or the varied Hamburg weather could stop us from holding this year's Spring School. In addition to the Student Conference, which took place for the first time, our PhD students had the opportunity to exchange ideas with each other, but also to discover Hamburg during our Social Afternoon. This year’s Spring School ended with lectures by our Fellows and guided tours on the DESY premises.
Day 1 & 2: Networking & Student Conference
On the first day of the Spring School, as a prelude, our PhD candidates had the opportunity to take part in a guided tour of the DESY premises. The Spring School was officially opened with the Welcome Evening. Our PhD candidates were welcomed live from the USA via Zoom by our speaker Gerd Leuchs. Afterwards, the PhD candidates had the opportunity to get to know each other better by playing get-to-know games and a round of MPSP Bingo.
Tuesday started with an MPSP premiere: The Student Conference, organized by the student themselves, took place for the first time. During the conference, selected PhD candidates presented their research topics and exchanged ideas with the rest of the PhD candidates afterwards. The topics Photonics, Sources and Imaging were in the focus of the first conference day.
To offer something different for rest in between, all participants went to the city center of Hamburg in the afternoon. While some participants explored the city during the guided tour, some others admired the world from a different perspective in the Miniatur Wunderland or created their own chocolate bar in the Chocoversum.
Day 3: Exchange & New insights
On Wednesday morning the last talks of the Student Conference took place on the topics Strong fields and Quantum optics. The afternoon started with presentations by Korbinian Hens from Hübner Photonics and Oliver Muth from the Bundesdruckerei. In addition to the possible career opportunities in their companies, they also gave the PhD candidates insights into their careers and space for subsequent questions.
Of course, the poster session could not be missed during our Spring School this year. In addition to the presentation and discussion of the various research topics, the prize for the best poster was awarded again. This time, Arghadeep Pal (Research Phase – Erlangen) won with the poster on "Machine Learning Assisted Inverse Design of Microresonators" (in collaboration with Alekhya Ghosh, Shuangyou Zhang, Toby Bi and Pascal Del'Haye).
We experienced Hamburg from a different perspective in the evening when we went by ship through the Speicherstadt and the container port. During the boat trip, our traditional pub quiz took place as well, with six teams competing for victory.
Day 4: Good Supervision
Good Supervision - What does it mean to you? These and other questions were the basis of the workshop on "Good Supervision" with André Lampe. During the workshop our PhD candidates worked on different topics and discussed them in smaller groups. The results were not only interesting for the future work of the PhD candidates, but also gave us, the office team, good input for our ongoing work with the PhD candidates.
The last evening in Hamburg was free for the PhD candidates. Some went to a musical, others went to a concert and others used the evening to network free from scientific topics.
Day 5: In Hamburg you say Tschüss
For the last day of Spring School we started early and crossed Hamburg to DESY. There, some of our Fellows from Hamburg, Nina Rohringer, Franz Kärtner and Ralf Röhlsberger, gave talks for the PhD candidates. Afterwards, guided tours took place on the DESY site and in the laboratories of Franz Kärtner's research group.
We left Hamburg on Friday afternoon with new ideas and with many good conversations with our PhD candidates in mind.
We are already looking forward to our Autumn School in September in Waischenfeld!
