Photo: David Hübner
In the week after the Easter holidays postdocs, PhD candidates and master students of the BrainLinks-BrainTools Cluster of Excellence enjoyed an inspiring three day workshop on top of the Feldberg, organised by the junior scientists themselves. The idea of the workshop was to strengthen the interdisciplinary research within the excellence cluster by working through the basics of various topics, including hardware, optogenetics, brain imaging, machine learning, brain diseases and visual perception. The participants were teamed up in focus groups, teaching the fundamentals of their fields to their fellows. Subsequently these topics were discussed in interdisciplinary expert rounds to allow for specific questions to be answered.
Additionally, a crucial part of the workshop was information, discussion and planning of future outreach and career events to promote young researchers. The central management of BrainLinks-BrainTools was represented by Dr. Luise Goroncy, who informed about the cluster of excellence and its offers for junior scientists. She was warmly welcomed within the group as a person of trust to the junior scientists and as link to the management. The workshop was enriched by a snowshoe hike through the mountains, socialising games and discussions in the evenings.