Who would like to go on a one day trip to a new city, share their passion for science and meet a whole bunch of interesting people? This entry will be about Julianna Palotas (Radboud University) who was invited for a visit to Leiden University. Her goal of the day was to present results and meet as many fellow researchers as possible. As I took initiative to plan the trip, I wanted to show our readers how we spent the day at Leiden University.
8:45 Coffee
As a part of Leiden University staff you are likely to start your day off over coffee with your colleagues. Disclaimer: you do not have to be a coffee enthusiast to do that. You can have tea, water or nothing at all. What matters more is your presence. In my experience the chats over coffee can go in all, even the most unexpected, directions. “Coffees” allow to you get to know your colleagues better, and in some cases, lead to new scientific ideas.
10:00 Astrochem seminar
Julianna presented her laboratory and computational results in front of a scientific audience. Her work is the basis for her first (?) first-author publication – which is a milestone for a PhD student. The talk had a clear coherent message and the publication is in its finals steps of review so stay tuned (all our publications are available to everyone). In the audience we had Bachelor, Masters, PhD students, post-docs, full-time professors that have background ranging from Astronomy, through Physics, Chemistry, to Engineering. Tough crowd to please, but Julianna did great!
Lunch 12:00
Nothing special here unless you are big fan of Dutch meatballs and croquettes. After lunch, coffee is a must.
Who can I talk to about my research? 13:00-17:00
The schedule for the afternoon was filled with appointments with researchers at Leiden Observatory. First up were Dr. Alessandra Candian and Dario Campisi sharing their expertise on computational methods used for quantum chemistry.
MSc. Dario Campisi
Next on Julianna’s schedule was my supervisor Prof. Dr. H.V.J. (Harold) Linnartz who is Chair for Laboratory Astrophysics, Head of Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics and you can simply ask him anything astrophysics related.
Prof.dr. E.F. (Ewine) Dishoeck, van
Prof. Dr. H.V.J. (Harold) Linnartz
Last but definitely not least was Dr. Ewine van Dishoeck who is currently a professor of Molecular Astrophysics at Leiden Observatory, and the president of the International Astronomical Union (an organization that decides for example if Pluto is a planet). Quite a schedule I would say!
Dutch Pancakes 17:30
The day filled with science was capped with delicious pancakes at Oudt Leyden (highly recommend) and a little reunion of EuroPAH members in the Netherlands.
This post was written my Michal Bulak who is currently doing his PhD at Leiden University in the Netherlands.