News Archive

Our annual retreat was taking place in Erfurt this year.

On Thursday morning was the start of our event, which we use for networking and exchange at BEAM. The focus of the retreat is on the Ph.D. students, who have to present their individual research projects in short talks followed by a Q&A session. On this day it was the turn of the first half of the doctoral students to give their inputs.

In addition, ideas for the next funding period of the RTG were collected during a short workshop. Questions were asked about suggestions for improvements to tools, research training, working atmosphere and knowledge transfer activities.

The day ended with a joint dinner.

The second half of the Ph.D. students presented their research projects on Friday.

The event ended in the early afternoon and the social program began. One part of the group visited Erfurt Cathedral, the other part went on a city tour. The retreat drew to a close at around 4 p.m. and everyone made their way home.

Thank you to everyone for the wonderful two days, the stimulating discussions and exciting input. We are already looking forward to the next event.

From 01 November 2023 to 29 February 2024, Christian Anders completed a research stay in China. He stayed in the working group of Prof. Dr. Feng Liu at the Shannxi International Research Center for Soft Matter, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behaviour of Materials at the Xi’an Jiaotong University.

The following is an excerpt from his report:

“During my stay, I had the opportunity to work on my own on two very important facilities.

The second facility was the “Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility”, which I could
enter due to Prof. F. Liu and his workgroup, who organized and booked measurement times there for my samples. One big advantage of this facility is the high beam energy and beam quality that allow fast and precise sample processing.

In both facilities, different types of processed samples were used, which had to be prepared before. The two main types are capillaries and spin-coated silicon wafers, which I could prepare for my samples as well as external ones on my own. This provided me with some new sample-preparing techniques for LC materials and other soft matter samples including polymers.

Interestingly, this journey did not only helped me to gain scientific experience in LC analysis
but also gave me a great chance to expand my social competence and soft skills. I got in touch with many other young and talented Ph.D. students that provide possibilities for further collaborations. Also, it was interesting to get new information about the local political system as well as the structure of the schooling and education system in China in comparison to ours in Germany.

In conclusion, I can say that the trip helped me a lot to develop myself further in my scientific
career, my social skills, and in dealing with other people and cultures. I think this trip was a good basis, which also helped me to re-evaluate my perspective for a later academic career and to consolidate it in certain points.”

We have two new papers with acknowledgment of BEAM members, which appeared at the beginning of this year.

Our student talent Annika Blum took part in the 23rd Joint meeting of Biophysical Chemists and Electrochemists(https://www.biophys-electrochem.cz/) in Prague. The event is an annual event continuing a long tradition where scientists from the fields of biophysics and electrochemistry meet.

Under the supervision of Maria Hörnke, Annika won one of the three prizes for her poster flashtalk. Congratulations for this great achievement!

Go watch our first scientific mini story with and about Til. As it is primarily intended to appeal to and reach school pupils and young people interested in STEM subjects, the video is in German.

BEAM held its first symposium at the beginning of September and it was a success in every way. Speakers from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the UK and gave presentations on, for example, function and ordering of liquid crystals, solvation of molecules, diffusive motion of complex molecules, mathematical description of symmetry, protein engineering & directed evolution, covalent organic frameworks, supramolecular self-assembly of polymers & complex materials and polyphillic protein-membrane interactions. All of these topics were connected through the intrinsic complexity of intermolecular interactions going beyond amphiphilicity

Talks were held by Thisbe Lindhorst (CAU Kiel), Sandro Keller (KFU Graz), Bettina Keller (FU Berlin), Carla Schmidt (JGU Mainz), Michael Vogel (TU Darmstadt), Oren A. Scherman (University of Cambridge), Beate Paulus (FU Berlin), Nina Morgner (Universität Frankfurt), Yoko Yamakoshi (ETH Zürich), Christian Schwieger (MLU Halle), Maria Hoernke (MLU Halle), [D1] Martin Weissenborn (MLU Halle), PD Dr. Annette Meister (MLU Halle) and PD Dr. Mohamed Alaasar (MLU Halle).

Our PhD students were of course also part of the event. They had the opportunity to present their research in a poster session combined with a short and concise introduction to their research in the form of flash talks of two minutes. We even had three contributed scientific talks by our students and some were chairs of scientific sessions, all part of a complete scientific training!

One great benefit of a meeting with eminent scientists and doctoral researchers  was that the guests were given the opportunity to talk and exchange ideas in between scientific sessions – and we allocated ample time for this in the meeting.

One of the highlights was a joint dinner followed by an after dinner talk on the topic molecules as astrophysical tools, held by Dr. Silvia Spezzano (MPI for extraterr. Physics, Garching) . After the presentation, the other guests were able to ask questions and interesting, lively, and insightful conversations ensued.

After three long days full of exciting topics, nice people and interesting conversations, our symposium came to an end. We would like to thank all participants and look forward to the next conferences planned in spring 2025. Wait for more to come!

Every year, the children’s university takes place with the aim of introducing children to the university. This year, BEAM (AG Hinderberger) participated for the first time.

Our student talents Annika Blum and Vanessa Jerschabek as well as our PhD students Sebastian Michler and Florian Lehmann took part.

Photos: Franziska Roth

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On Wednesday, July 12 2023, our Ph.D. student Anna Luisa Upterworth won the 3MT (three minute thesis) regional competition in Halle. In three minutes, she had to present her Ph.D. thesis topic “what is mixture?” with only one slide. Congratulations on the first place!

Our second BEAM retreat took place two weeks ago in Weimar. There, our PhD students presented their work to the other members of BEAM – the PIs, PhD students, student talents and advisory board members – from 11 to 12 May.
As part of our RTG, the Institute of Mathematics was also present. In their current newsletter they reported about the retreat.

You can find the article here:
https://www.mathematik.uni-halle.de/aktuelles/05-2023_-_beam-retreat/

We welcome our new student assistant Lisa Krahnefeld, who will take care of the public relations work and social media of BEAM.

We welcome our new PhD candidates Simona Bassoli and Jonas Lührs and are glad you are joining our team.

We welcome Jun.- Prof. Frederik Haase with his project A6 to BEAM. We are looking forward to working and doing research together.

We are looking forward to fruitful discussions, rocket science and many publications. Have fun doing research.

We welcome Dr. Imme Sakwa-Waltz as scientific and Nicole Haak as administrative coordinators of BEAM. We are looking forward to working together and are certain that their enthusiasm will be an asset for BEAM for the years to come!