Day of Research 2019

Poster sessions have become an integral part of science communication. Ideally, a poster makes it possible to present complicated contexts in an understandable and concise way. This is all the more difficult the more unfamiliar the audience is. While at a specialist conference one can be sure to meet interested people at eye level, it can happen that at a "day of research" a computer scientist finds it difficult to understand the methodology of a biologist when he presents his poster, and vice versa. This is where even the specialist becomes a layperson.

At this year's Research Day on 8 May 2019 in Rheinbach, some PhD students took up the challenge of using their posters to inform both specialist colleagues and lay people during the PhD Poster Exhibition. A jury of visitors decided who had solved the task best according to the categories "presentation of the problem", "explanatory power of the research method" and "quality of the illustrations and graphics". On June 5, 2019, the prize winners were officially honored.

First place went to doctoral student Thomas Havelt (Department of Applied Natural Sciences), who succeeded in explaining his research project on bio-based materials and packaging in an understandable way and with the help of high-quality graphics. Thomas Havelt is supervised by Prof. Dr. Michaela Schmitz and is doing his doctorate in cooperation with the University of Bonn.

Second place went to the team of Prof. Dr. Peters (Department of Economics): Usha Singh, Argang Ghadiri and André Scholz. They are doing research on occupational health management and the prevention of work-related stress consequences. Their doctoral theses are being written in cooperation with the University of Duisburg-Essen (Singh/Ghadiri) and the University of Sport Cologne (Scholz).

Third place went to Christine Kawa (Department of Economics), who vividly presented the "art of the right snack". Christine Kawa is supervised by Prof. Dr. Patrizia Ianiro-Dahm and is writing her doctoral thesis in cooperation with the University of Maastricht.

In addition to the doctoral students who took part in the PhD Poster Exhibition in Building G on Research Day 2019, numerous doctoral students presented themselves at the information stands of the respective institutes in front of the cafeteria. Special thanks to all of them for their effort and willingness to present their research topics.

We were particularly pleased to welcome Katharina Walbrück, PhD student in FB05 and AG Prof. Dr. Steffen Witzleben in 2019. At the GDCh meeting of the Division of Construction Chemistry 2019 in Aachen, her poster entitled Novel Geopolymer-Bounded Insulation Materials from Renewable Resources was awarded the prize for the second best poster.  Congratulations! Link to the poster: