Upcoming Events

Date: Mondays 13th + 20th + 27th June 2022

Location: online

Trainer: Amani Said

Description: The Career Booster Program Workshop Series has been specifically designed to support PhD candidates, Postdocs and other academics to leverage their PhD by making a successful career transition, whether within or outside of academia.

The main challenges PhDs struggle with when it comes to career development are:

•     lack of clarity, not knowing what the next career step should be
•     not knowing where to start and the strategies to use
•     not understanding their own value, skills and the results they can create and more importantly how they can transfer their research training to another field
•     not having a long-term plan or career vision
•     fear of the unknown (especially if outside of academia)
•     where to find positions and how to network

As a result of taking the Career Booster Program, candidates experience clarity on their career path, they gain the confidence and learn the tools to create their desired careers. The programs 4 workshops and group coaching help scientists tackle the main challenges mentioned above.

Date: Wednesday 22nd - Tuesday 28th June 2022

Location: online

Trainer: Rick Scavetta

Description: This workshop enables life scientists to effectively create figures based on quantitative data that add impact to their publications. The workshop is divided into two modules: Principles and Applications.

Participants learn how to:

• use figures and tables to effectively tell the story of their research.
• decide whether text, tables, or plots are most appropriate to convey the message of each result.
• choose the most appropriate plot type for their data.
• understand the science of perception and apply design principles to communicate their message clearly.
• use aesthetics to relate sensory attributes (color, shape, etc.) to abstractions (enrichment, change-over-time).
• distinguish between graphics for publication and for data exploration. 

Date: Monday 11th - Tuesday 12th July 2022

Location: Small Lecture Hall, 1st floor, T-building, MPI of Biochemistry

Trainer: Philipp Gramlich

Description: Are you dreaming of becoming a professor one day? Or, are you just not sure yet if this is the ‘right’ career path for you? Then this online workshop is the perfect way to find out more about the academic track, what universities are looking for, and how to plan your career strategically.

In this course you will learn…
• About the academic track; what is it like?
• The academic portfolio; what do you need to achieve to become a professor?
• Introspection; is this the ‘right’ path for me?
• Planning the academic career; when is a good time for what?

Date: Monday 18th - Tuesday 19th July 2022

Location: Small Lecture Hall, 1st floor, T-building, MPI of Biochemistry

Trainer: Michael Gordian

Description: More than ever, the ability to develop fresh ideas, to formulate new questions and to explore uncharted scientific areas are vital to one's professional career. True creativity is key to success in academia and, of course, beyond. The main goal of this practical webinar is to familiarise you with some of the best-practice techniques of creative thinking for your scientific work and research. We will focus mainly on the concepts and exercises developed by Sir Edward de Bono, one of the greatest experts on the subject worldwide (who, however, is largely unknown in Germany). We will also explore some other famous creative techniques, for example 'oblique strategies' which David Bowie has famously used while composing one of his albums. You will get to try out and practice these techniques in various individual and group exercises, applying them to your own work. Furthermore, you will learn about the do's and don'ts of creative thinking, discussing and reflecting on key concepts such as the 'inner censor' and the 'diamond of creativity'. At the end of this workshop, you will have a 'toolbox' with various techniques which you can use independently in your daily work and research.

Date: Monday 12th - Wednesday 14th September 2022

Location: online

Trainer: Jan Brocher

Description: Learning the ImageJ Macro scripting language from scratch to automate anything in Fiji (no prior programming knowledge necessary):

• In-depth Analysis Automation via Macros
• Statistical Co-Localization Analysis
• 3D Visualisation and Quantifications
• 3D/4D Tracking & Tracing
• Semi-Quantitative Western Blot Analysis
• Image Shift Correction & Stitching
• Automating Measurements in Histological Stainings
• Correct Resolution & Prerequisites for Intensity Analysis

Date: Monday 26th - Tuesday 27th September 2022

Location: Small Lecture Hall, 1st floor, T-building, MPI of Biochemistry (link is external)

Trainer: Andreas Kist

Description: Programming is a highly desirable and applicable skill in science. With the open-source and universal programming language Python, you can acquire, analyze, and present your data easily without leaving one programming environment. In this introductory course, students will learn how to write small Python scripts using Jupyter notebooks. We will cover why Python is an ideal programming language to learn, the Python syntax, data types, conditional statements, loops and file I/O. We glance at scientific Python packages and version control.

Date: Thursday 29th - Friday 30th September 2022

Location: Small Lecture Hall, 1st floor, T-building, MPI of Biochemistry (link is external)

Trainer: Andreas Kist

Description: Programming is a highly desirable and applicable skill in science. With the open-source and universal programming language Python, you can acquire, analyze, and present your data easily without leaving one programming environment.

This workshop focuses on scientific image processing using Python. We discuss different file formats and origins, how to open different file formats and deal with metadata. We cover basic image processing principles such as histogram equalization, (local) thresholding, alignment and segmentation. For each topic, we will use real data to showcase the applicability of the learned functions. On the second day, we will further emphasize functions that fit the students’ needs and invite one to two speakers that show briefly where they use Python in image processing. The course also highlights strategies how to tackle an image processing pipeline.

This course will be adjusted according to the participants’ background.

Course aim:
Use the skimage and OpenCV package to process imaging data.

Date: Thursday 20th - Friday 21st October 2022

Location:  online

Trainer: Andreas Binder

Description: This two-day workshop is „hands-on“, i.e. you will directly practice the course contents at the computer during the workshop. It will start from scratch and teach you the basics of vector graphics until you will be able to draw your own schematics and data figures. The trainer can flexibly adapt to your needs if you would like to have special topics covered. It can also include basics of Adobe Photoshop. By the end of the workshop, you will be able to apply your new skills to create and design advanced graphics and data representations for talks, posters, and your publications.