Maddalena is a postdoctoral researcher at the Erlangen Center for Astroparticle Physics (ECAP). She works in the field of radio detection of astrophysical and cosmogenic neutrinos, namely in the collaborations of RNO-G (Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland) and IceCube Gen2 - Radio.

RNO-G is a neutrino detector located at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet composed of 35 radio stations. Its first deployment season took place in the Summer of 2021, and the entire detector will be constructed over the next three years. It will explore mainly the Northern sky via an in-ice radio detection technique. The antennas will register radio signals produced by the Askaryan effect in cascades generated in the ice by incoming neutrinos. It is a precursor and complementary detector for IceCube Gen2 - Radio that will be constructed in the upcoming years at the South Pole. IceCube Gen2 - Radio is the next generation of IceCube (currently the largest Čerenkov neutrino detector). Radio detectors’ scientific purpose is to observe ultra-high-energy neutrinos, a regime out of reach via traditional optical methods. The attenuation length of radio waves in ice (order of km) allows for this unique detection method.

In the ECAP laboratory, Maddalena conducts the assembly and low-temperature testing of the different amplifiers of the radio antennas. Her research is also focused on sharpening the science cases by conducting detector sensitivity studies and exploring the possible observable sources of these high energetic neutrinos such as tidal-disruptive events, GRBs, compact-object mergers, or core-collapse Supernovae.

Selma started earlier this year as a new director at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics after being a professor at Harvard University. She is most known for her work on binary systems, pairs of stars that interact, as can be seen in the artist's impression behind her. Her new department will be investigating the lives and deaths of stars.

 

 

Anthoula is a surface science lecturer at the Technical University of Munich. Her group's research focuses on the organized assembly and reaction of small organic molecules on solid surfaces to ultimately create functional materials. With her colleagues, she creates and investigates model systems in an ultra-high vacuum. Their techniques of choice are scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy combined with X-ray spectroscopy, often using European synchrotron facilities. The photo was taken during Anthoula's postdoctoral time at the University of Cambridge and shows her manipulating a sample in an ultra-high vacuum scanning tunneling microscope. Prior to Munich and Cambridge, she earned her Ph.D. from University College London, studying titania nanostructures.

 

Sherry is a Max Planck Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, an Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Munich, and a Visiting Scholar at the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics. She uses the spectacular phenomenon of gravitational lensing, the bending of light by gravity, to probe the dark cosmos: dark energy, dark matter, and supermassive black holes. She also works on the extremely bright side of the Universe in observing splendid cosmic fireworks from supernovae. Sherry has led the H0LiCOW program that measured the expansion rate of our Universe using gravitationally lensed quasars. With the support from the European Research Council through a Consolidator Grant, she is launching a new program on lensed supernovae: HOLISMOKES! 

Veronika is Head of the Earth System Model Evaluation and Analysis Department at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Atmospheric Physics and Professor of Climate Modelling at the University of Bremen. She maintains a strong collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR, USA) as Affiliate Scientist, with the DLR Climate Informatics Group in Jena that she founded in 2017, and with the team of the European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant on "Understanding and Modelling the Earth System with Machine Learning (USMILE)." Veronika's research focuses on Earth system modeling and process-oriented model evaluation and analysis, including artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, to improve climate projections and technology assessments. She has authored many peer-reviewed journal articles and has contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate assessments for many years, including her role as Coordinating Lead Author for Chapter 3, "Human influence on the climate system" in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report of Working Group I published in 2021. Veronika has been involved in the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) for many years, for example, through her roles as Chair of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Panel (2014-2020) and member of scientific steering committees, including the Working Group on Coupled Modeling (WGCM) from 2008-2018. She was PI of the Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool) until 2020 and has been a member of the European Lab for Learning & Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) since 2019. Veronika received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2021 for her significant contributions to improving the understanding and accuracy of climate projections through process-oriented modeling and model evaluation.

Christine is a professor in experimental soft matter physics at the Technical University of Munich. Her research focuses on polymers of complex architecture, responsive polymers, block copolymers, and polymers for drug delivery. Using scattering methods, also in a time-resolved manner, her group investigates structures of polymer systems and their changes during rapid changes of the environment. Using neutron spectroscopy, they characterize the interactions between polymers and solvent molecules. The photo shows Christine in the research reactor Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum of TUM, where the group often conducts experiments. During her Ph.D. at the University of Roskilde and her postdoctoral stay at Risø National Laboratory, both in Denmark, she investigated block copolymers using small-angle scattering and light scattering. Before joining TUM in 2003, she did her habilitation at the University of Leipzig, where she studied block copolymer solutions and thin films.

Liliana is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Rostock, working at the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Kühlungsborn. Her research focuses on the dynamics of winds, solar tides, and neutral temperatures in the mesosphere. This topic is part of an effort to understand a new phenomenon in the D-region that she and her team discovered in 2020. They named this phenomenon “the fall-effect,” which is observed as an increase in the received very low frequency (VLF) radio signal amplitude during fall when compared to the received amplitude during spring. Liliana is also interested in studying the ionospheric D-region behavior under the influence of different phenomena located in space (e.g., solar flares, gamma-ray bursts) or at Earth (e.g., lightning emissions), and the highest frequency range of VLF emissions coming from the magnetosphere.

Liliana has recently been awarded the MSCA-IF (Marie Curie grant) to work on the D-region and magnetospheric topics using the VLF wave propagation. As part of this grant, she will work at the University of Bath, UK, from next year (2022).

Anne completed her Bachelor's and Master's studies in Erlangen, where she explored the effects of non-equilibrium currents on phase transitions with Prof. Martin Eckstein as a research assistant.
Interested in brain research, she spent one year as a DAAD scholar at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. There, as her Master's project with Asst. Prof. Shanon Kolind, Anne investigated how magnetic resonance imaging can help to track brain damage in multiple sclerosis patients.
Still fascinated by the versatility and richness of non-equilibrium systems, she subsequently joined the group of Prof. Achim Rosch at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Cologne for her Ph.D. In her latest project, she explores how one can efficiently realize stable topological qubits using a periodic drive.
After various stays abroad, Anne is still curious to explore new countries and languages. Therefore, she is excited to visit Prof. Erez Berg at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel for six months as part of her Ph.D. studies. To share her love of physics and inspire other young women, Anne has engaged in many outreach activities.

Astrid is a scientific director of the Institute of Energy and Climate Research, IEK-8: Troposphere, at Forschungszentrum Jülich and a professor for experimental physics at Cologne University. IEK-8 investigates chemistry-climate interactions on a global to regional scale. It performs experimental studies of the atmospheric self-cleaning, with particular emphasis on the link between gas-phase oxidation processes and the formation and aging of aerosols. Research at IEK-8 also includes long-term observations of the atmosphere and model simulations of the complex chemistry and transport in the lower troposphere and its interaction with the Earth system. IEK-8 aims for an improved understanding and contributes data needed for assessing the connections between air quality and climate change. Astrid is a lead author in the IPCC 6th Assessment Report Working Group 1: The Physical Science Basis and chair of the board of the German Climate Consortium (DKK).

Bella is a professor in condensed matter physics at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin and the Technical University Berlin. She heads the Institute of Quantum Phenomena in Novel Materials and investigates materials whose properties are strongly influenced by quantum mechanics.  In particular, she focuses on emergent phenomena in quantum magnets, unconventional superconductors, and strongly correlated electron systems. Recent work has achieved insights into highly entwined parameters such as superconductivity, charge, orbital, and spin orders in transition metal oxides. She also explores exotic quantum states in spin chains and spin ladders and the effect of quantum fluctuations in highly frustrated magnets, which can lead to new states of matter such as the quantum spin liquid.

 

Kirsten is a Ph.D. student at the Grantham Center for Sustainable Future at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her research investigates the roles of atmospheric processes and vegetation feedbacks and their implications for future climate change.

Climate change is a long-term shift in the properties of our atmosphere. One of these properties is relative humidity. Relative humidity describes the amount of water vapor in the air, relative to the temperature of the air. Dry air has low relative humidity, while fog has high relative humidity. Observation data shows that relative humidity is decreasing globally over land since the year 2000, especially in regions of mid-latitudes.

Kirsten's project will be exploring three possible causes, or drivers, for declining near-surface relative humidity over land: (1) Dynamical drivers, so-called modes of variability (e.g., wind and pressure pattern), (2) Thermodynamical drivers (temperature and, consequently, greenhouse gases), and (3) Land-based drivers (transpiration of plants and large-scale land cover changes, such as deforestation).

She works with global monitoring products and earth observation data for land use, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture. Furthermore, she will also be using computer simulations based on this data, and ecosystem studies. She hopes to find out more about water, the fundamental element for life, and the representation of atmosphere-land exchange processes in climate models that predict the future.

The photo shows her measuring the relative humidity on the mountain Goat Fell on the Isle of Arran (Scotland).

Foto-Rechte: Dr. Miriam Brosi

Since November 2019, Elisabeth is a group leader for Mechanics of Active Biomaterials at the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (PoL) at the Technische Universität Dresden. Her research group combines biological experiments at the cellular and tissue level with theoretical physics to uncover principles by which active molecular units lead to dynamic intracellular force generation and cellular shape changes.

 

 

Alissa is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in quantum computing in the Jens Eisert group at the Freie Universität Berlin in tandem with Porsche Digital. She combines her curiosity and knowledge of quantum computing with the field of artificial intelligence and optimization, daring to genuinely unite quantum information theory with practical quantum computing towards effective applications.

 

 

 

 

Uta is a science communicator at the Institute for Nuclear and Particle Physics at Technische Universität Dresden. After her Ph.D. in chemistry, she started to work as a freelance science journalist and communicator. During the startup of CERN´s Large Hadron Collider in 2008, she joined TU Dresden and began to work as coordinator for “International Masterclasses,” an outreach program in particle physics. The program runs in 60 countries worldwide and allows high school students to participate in hands-on activities with real data from particle physics experiments. Uta is also co-leader of the German „Netzwerk Teilchenwelt,“ a network between 29 universities and research labs in Germany, bringing particle and astroparticle physics to the classroom.

 

 

 

 

 

Monika is a professor for synthetic quantum matter at the Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich since 2019.
Her research focuses on quantum simulation of many-body physics with ultracold atoms in optical lattices. During her Ph.D., she developed novel experimental techniques to realize topological lattice models with cold atoms. She then worked as a Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellow at Collège de France in Paris, where she studied homogeneous 2D Bose gases before she returned to LMU in 2017. Now she is working on topological Floquet systems and many-body localization and has received an ERC Starting Grant from the European Commission for simulating lattice gauge theories with ultracold Yb atoms.

Nathalie is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching and works in the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics led by Prof. Ferenc Krausz. Starting with her Ph.D. thesis, she has continuously pushed the frontiers of high-repetition-rate femtosecond laser sources. She aims to generate highly intense few-cycle pulses at exotic wavelengths in the mid-infrared spectral region. With her experimental findings, Nathalie has pioneered a new generation of highly compact and low-noise laser systems that will be used to analyze minuscule variations in the infrared response of body fluids and thereby identify — non-invasively — early signs of illnesses such as cancer (Lasers4Life project).

 

Roser is a professor of theoretical physics at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Her field of research is computational solid-state with a focus on microscopic modeling of correlated materials such as unconventional superconductors, frustrated magnets, and systems with topologically non-trivial states via a combination of first-principles-based methods and many-body numerical techniques.

 

 

 

Lara is a Ph.D. student within a co-tutoring agreement between the RWTH Aachen and Chalmers University in Sweden, which will lead to a jointly awarded degree. At RWTH Aachen, she works at the Department of Theory for Statistical Physics and is part of the Research Training Group "Quantum Many-Body Methods in Condensed-Matter Systems"; at Chalmers University, she works at the Applied Quantum Physics Laboratory of the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience. Her current work focuses on out-of-equilibrium dissipative quantum systems with strong Coulomb interaction. In particular, she is interested in their transient dynamics that are manifest in charge and heat transport. In the future, she will also consider aspects of quantum thermodynamics in this kind of quantum system.

 

Anne recently finished her Master's degree at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). During her Master's thesis, she analyzed different effects of doping on the charge carrier dynamics in organic semiconductors. As of now, she started her Ph.D. in the research group of Prof. Götz Uhrig at TU Dortmund, where she aims to investigate topological excitations in magnetic systems theoretically.

 

 

 

 

Yulia is a group leader at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden. Her group is working on organic and metal-organic materials investigating molecular single crystal growth, structural, charge transport, and magnetic properties. One of the main focuses of the group is organic semiconductor single crystals, which, thanks to their perfect structure, enable investigation and understanding of fundamental electronic properties such as charge transfer and transport - the most relevant effects for organic electronics applications.

 

 

Marie is a Ph.D. student at TU Dortmund University. She works at the department of experimental solid-state physics 1b. Her research addresses the metal-semiconductor interface of low-dimensional, silicon-based nanostructures. In order to understand their chemical and structural properties, photoelectron spectroscopy and photoelectron diffraction experiments are conducted. The experiments are performed with soft x-rays from beamline 11 of the Dortmund storage ring DELTA. In combination with theoretical simulations, she reveals detailed structure models at the atomic scale. Besides her work, she is actively involved in the association for physics students and alumni to expand the network between active and former physics students.

Ivy is a research scientist at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and presently involved in the BMBF project Humboldt Tipping. Her research focus is on the role of ocean mesoscale eddies in the Earth system. Mesoscale eddies are circular currents in the ocean with typical lateral scales of around 100 kilometers and lifetimes of about a month, and they are ephemeral phenomena in the ocean. Ivy makes use of numerical ocean models to test the impact of mesoscale eddies for instance on how the ocean stores carbon, which is fundamental to understand in the context of anthropogenic climate change.

Isabella is a postdoctoral researcher in theoretical biophysics working with Ben Machta at Yale University. Her goal is to better understand how biological systems self-organize themselves to be close to critical points, where they can exhibit collective behaviors and high sensitivity to small external signals. She has a particular focus on multicomponent mixtures like cellular membranes. Experiments with cell-derived plasma membranes suggest that their composition resides near a miscibility critical point. However, there have been few hints as to how this regulation occurs and Isabella is working to understand whether lipid homeostasis motifs could naturally tune the membrane to these interesting regions of thermodynamic space.

Beata is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Physics at the Bundeswehr University Munich in Neubiberg. Her work spins around 2D materials, e.g., graphene or transition metal dichalcogenides, especially WS2 and PtSe2. These materials are layered structures that are uniquely defined as they dramatically change their properties while thinned down to monolayer. Beata is interested in their fundamental size-dependent properties but also possible applications. Recently, she explores their pollutants sensing capabilities. It is an extremely important problem as about 4.2 million deaths are caused by pollutions annually. 

Anni studied physics in Göttingen, Germany. She received her M.S. degree from the Georg-August University in 2018. Since 2019, she has been pursuing a Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering at the Ilmenau University of Technology and is a part of working group 5.42 “Multiwavelength interferometry for geodetic lengths” at PTB.
One critical issue when surveying large structures like telescopes outdoors is the compensation of the refractivity-induced beam bending in leveling. For this, the temperature gradients in the plane along the line of sight need to be determined. She and her colleagues are currently developing a dispersive optical thermometer. It will be realized by an absolute interferometer with two different colors and a 2f/3f detection scheme for phase detection.

Jenny is a cosmologist of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Heidelberg University. In her own DFG-funded research project, she explores dark matter distributions and properties that can be directly inferred from observed strong gravitational lensing effects. These rare phenomena occur when light rays of background light sources bend around massive objects on their path into our telescopes, such that observations of these deflections allow inferring properties of the light-bending mass. In December 2020, she was awarded the Prize for Courageous Science for her innovative approach to separate observation-based evidence from model assumptions. Currently, she transfers this methodology to derive the morphologies of dark matter agglomerations from fundamental principles to replace heuristic fitting functions like the Navarro-Frenk-White mass density profile, which is often used to describe deflecting masses in strong gravitational lensing. Beyond her research, she engages in outreach talks for "Urknall, Weltall und das Leben" to disseminate recent insights into our universe to the public.

Maren Stocklöw is a master's student at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Currently, she is working on her master's thesis in the group of Prof. Markus Garst at the Institute of Theoretical Solid State Physics. She is investigating the effective low-energy behavior of Skyrmion strings in chiral magnets. Skyrmions are two-dimensional topological magnetic structures that appear in chiral magnets subjected to an external magnetic field. They can extend along the field direction, forming a magnetic string that supports the propagation of spin-wave excitations. Alongside her studies, Maren is chairwoman of the physics department’s theater group. Since its formation in 2002, the group has staged more than 25 plays in the physics lecture hall.

Doris is a Junior-Professor at the University of Münster leading the research group Ultrafast Optics in Nanostructured Solids. Her research field is solid-state theory with a focus on light-matter interaction on ultra-short time and length scales. Furthermore, she is highly interested in solid-state applications for quantum information technology. Since 2017, Doris is co-speaker of the Semiconductor Division of the DPG and host of ‘Semiconductors for breakfast’ – a new online lecture format of the DPG. Moreover, Doris is chairperson and co-founder of the DPG working groups AGyouLeaP, aiming at increasing the standing and visibility of young research group leaders in physics who start their own research agenda.

Heike is a senior scientist at the Leibniz-Institute for Tropospheric Research in Leipzig. She is a renowned expert in topics concerning cloud condensation nuclei and heterogeneous ice nucleation and currently focuses on atmospheric ice-nucleating particles. She is a member of the International Commission on Clouds and Precipitation, for which she also organized the 16^th ICCP-conference in Leipzig in 2012. Through classes in geology and meteorology, which she took during her physics studies, she started to know about climate change, and particularly through working with data from the Arctic, she is very aware of the connected dangers for humanity. This is why, in her spare time, she is engaged with “Scientists for Future” since their beginning in March 2019, trying to inform people about climate change in general and also trying to change things for the better on a local scale, in cooperation with many other locals who also organize themselves in several climate groups.

The picture shows her on the top level of LACIS (Leipzig Aerosol Cloud Interaction Simulator) at the cloud-tower of the Leibniz-Institute for Tropospheric Research in Leipzig, at the generation unit for aerosol particles. LACIS is used to examine the hygroscopic growth of aerosol particles and their ability to nucleate cloud droplets and heterogeneous droplet freezing.

Benedetta is head of the Organic Spins group at the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Tübingen. She works in the field of organic quantum materials.

She pioneered the research on radical thin films introducing the use of soft X-rays-based techniques, such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and photoemission electron microscopy with the additional use of synchrotron radiation that is of paramount importance to elucidate interface phenomena otherwise not accessible with other sources. The thin-film phase of organic radicals and their interfaces were unknown before she started working in the field. This is a fundamental pre-requisite to test their suitability for electronics.

Anne leads the Quantum Many-Body Systems group at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems. Her group uses numerical simulations and analytical tools to study the properties of strongly-correlated quantum systems in one, two, and fractal dimensions. She is particularly interested in anyonic quasiparticles that appear in topological quantum systems. She also studies exceptions to thermal behavior and how measurements affect the dynamics of quantum systems. The aim is to find new types of behaviors and to understand how and when particular properties arise.

Julia is an assistant professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY in the USA. With her research group, she studies complex crystal structures as well as crystallization phenomena through self-assembly simulations, using molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods. Their goal is to design new materials and to develop a fundamental understanding of the processes of structure formation and stabilization in soft and hard condensed matter.

 

Angela is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) in the group of Prof. Geoffrey Beach. Her research explores the control of the spin degree of freedom and spin dynamics in unconventional condensed matter materials such as organic semiconductors and antiferromagnets. Using different experimental techniques, including magneto-transport measurements and x-ray imaging, she aims to tackle the challenges posed by today’s vast amount of data by developing novel ultrafast and robust spin-based memory technologies.

 

 

Martha is currently finishing her Ph.D. in the field of cosmology with a focus on the statistical analysis of the large-scale structure in the Universe. For her latest Ph.D. project, she developed a code to estimate Minkowski functionals from the large-scale galaxy distribution under the supervision of Dr. Ariel G. Sánchez. Minkowski functionals characterize the geometry and the topology of the cosmic density field and contain important cosmological information. She currently works in the OPINAS group of Prof. Ralf Bender at the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching. After her Ph.D., she intends to continue her work in the same group as a postdoctoral researcher. Her goal is to advance the analysis of Minkowski functionals further to extract information complementary to other more standard statistical analyses.

Anna is a Ph.D. student at the IV. Physical Institute at the University of Göttingen. She is working in the group of Martin Wenderoth, which focuses on the development and application of scanning probe methods with the aim of answering challenging questions in the field of fundamental research on solid-state physics and nanostructures. In her experiments, Anna studies charge transport in graphene on the nanometer scale. The focus of her research is on understanding the impact of atomic-scale inhomogeneities on transport properties in this fascinating 2D material. To target this question, Anna uses the method of scanning tunneling potentiometry, which allows her to measure the voltage drop across a sample with the lateral resolution of a scanning tunneling microscope. The measurements take place under ultra-high vacuum conditions and are carried out both at room temperature and at low temperature using liquid nitrogen / liquid helium cooling. The picture shows Anna next to one of the home-built scanning tunneling microscopes.

Eileen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Applied Physics, University of Muenster. Her research focuses on structured singular light fields, representing light of spatially varying properties as amplitude, phase, and/or polarization and embedding optical singularities. Eileen develops novel approaches for the customization, analysis, and application of these complex light fields, giving new insights into the fundamental nature of light and paving the way to, for instance, advanced quantum communication or optical micro- and nano-manipulation. For her excellent Ph.D. thesis, she received the University of Muenster dissertation award and the research award 2020 of the Industrial Club Duesseldorf. Since the beginning of this year, Eileen is a junior class member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts.

Anja is head of the division "Radiological Methods" at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin. Her research field is at the interface of materials science and X-ray imaging. Her team develops 3D X-ray imaging methods and analysis routes for 3D image data in order to understand the properties of functional, structural, and additively manufactured materials.

Anja has been awarded the Georg-Sachs Prize of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Materialkunde e.V. (DGM) in 2020.