Postdoc Association HZB

Introduction HZB-PA

The postdoc association at HZB is all about bringing postdocs together on a social as well as on an academic level. We aim to achieve this by organizing seminars and social events, and offering soft skill courses. The agenda for up-coming events can be found in the right panel. If you have an idea how the HZB-PA can help you with your scientific career, personal development, and social contacts then feel free to contact us!

Regular meetings

Postdoc After Work Drinks: Joining this monthly social event is a great chance to meet, chat with, commiserate or congratulate (science can be fickle) fellow HZB postdocs over some nice drinks and food. Every third Tursday of the month we meet in a bar, usually downtown. Exact time and place can be found in our agenda. We always appreciate it if you let us know that you are joining by sending us an email.

Postdoc coffee: Every first Thursday of the month we meet around 2:30 PM in the canteen (Wannsee) or a monthly determined place on the campus (Adlershof). The exact time and place is communicated via email.

Past events

Bessy Seminar & Tour: In July 2017 the PA seminar was about research activities at BESSY. We had Ben Hall, Emmy Staples and Georgios Kourkafas talking about their work on cavities and couplers for BESSY VSR and bERLinPro, and the difficulties linked to setting up such a high precision instrument.

Ben and Emmy presenting

Walking inside

After the talks Katharina Kolatzki took us to the experimental hall. From above we had a good view of the different working stations. Rowan MacQueen made a special point about the EMIL lab.

We were able to walk through the radiation protection tunnel and to the innermost of the storage ring. We could see the individual magnets in one of the undulators. Unfortunately we could not visit neither the booster nor the linear accelerator. A good reason to come back next time!

Katharina explaining the maintenance works during the summer shutdown

Ben explaining the function of cavities

Neutron Scattering Seminar & Tour: About four times per year the HZB-PA organizes seminars where fellow postdocs can tell about their work. In June 2016 the seminar was about research activities at the Neutron facility BERII. We had Mirko Boin talking about residual stress determined by neutron diffraction, Diana Quintero Castro talking about inelastic neutron scattering, and Sebastian Risse about electrochemistry and neutron scattering. After the talks there was a guided tour through the Neutron guide hall.

Fig.1: Ben Kent talking about the different experimental setups present in the guide hall.

Fig.2: Ben Kent explaining the working principle of the beam line.

Bessy Seminar & Tour: About four times per year the HZB-PA organizes seminars where fellow postdocs can tell about their work. In March 2015 the seminar was about research activities at BESSY. We had Kaan Atak talking about Liquid Microjet Photoelectron Spectroscopy, Hanjo Ryll about VEKMAG, a vector magnet station for BESSY II, and Paul Goslawski about BESSY-VSR, short intense bunches for BESSY II. After the talks we went to the experimental hall. From above we had a nice view of the different working stations. Most spectacular was that due to a maintenance shut-down we were able to walk through the radiation protection tunnel and view the innermost of the storage ring.

Fig.1: Paul Goslawski explains about the injection of electrons into the storage ring

Fig.2: Impression of the inside of the radiation protection tunnel

DAAD travel grants & funding seminar: In April 2015 Dr. Thilo Zinecker from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) visited the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin to talk about the different DAAD foundations for all kind of researchers: students, PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and professors. In short, DAAD provides financial support for both researchers working in Germany who want to visit scientific centers abroad and for researchers working outside Germany who want to visit German educational/scientific institutions. He gave a very interesting talk, explaining small and large-scale grants. And, as he is responsible for German-Russian cooperation in the field of education and science, Dr. Thilo Zinecker finished his talk by a description of the newly-found German-Russian Institute of Advanced Technology in Kazan, which is the oldest scientific center in Russia. In the end, the participants were able to ask Dr. Thilo Zinecker about details of foundations. For those who want to contact Dr. Thilo Zinecker for more information, please click here.

German language course: German courses are making a come-back. If you are interested, we recommend you to contact Andrea Gibhardt.

Press releases:

HZB postdoc association offers workshops for young scientists

Postdoc Association founded at HZB

The HZB-PA council

The HZB-PA is governed by a council consisting of two co-chairs and regular members, all postdocs. The positions of co-chairs are filled by Anna Manzoni and Klaus Jäger. As regular members there are Sean Berglund and Rowan MacQueen. For question about and suggestions how the HZB-PA can help you with your scientific career, personal development, and social contacts then feel free to contact us!