On 29-30 May 2015, the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Barcelona hosted the 4th EPS Young Minds Leadership Meeting. 22 YM Sections took part to the event, representing 12 countries all around Europe.
All the Section had the opportunity to present their activities. The Physics League, YM Section of the University of Valladolid in Spain, won the 2015 Best YM Activity Award with an amazing outreach show on Physics and Superpowers. This year the price was sponsored for its first time by the Euro Physics Letters (EPL).
ICFO was elected like one of the best place where such event can happen during the International Year of Light. Moreover, the institute offered a enviable rose of invited speaker that the young scientists had the opportunity to hear. Romain Quidant, leader of the Plasmon Nano-Optics Group, was invited to give a talk titled “Nano-Optics: When light gets us into the nanoworld”. Niek van Hulst, leader of the Molecular Nanophotonics group, gave an overview on the research made at ICFO by more than 20 research groups, bring the Institute to be one of the leading research centers in optics in the world. Finally Lydia Sanmarti-Vila, leader of the Knowledge & Technology Transfer Department, introduced all the institute outreach project aimed to bring photonics closer to the society.
The EPS activities had been presented by two interesting talks. A plenary one from Christophe Rossel, president of EPS, who gave through his own story a point of view on the relations between Physics and Society. And David Lee, the EPS Secretary General, who gave a talk about “The European Physics Community”, highlighting the importance of the YM project for the society itself, and the increasing need of interaction with European initiatives involved in policies for research.
Looking at the future, YM aims to realize activities for development countries. Lorenzo Giorgi, executive director Liter of Light Italy, and Barbara Capone, C.E.O. and project leader of the Sunshine 4 Palestine, introduced the YM members to the world of physics for development showing how the physicist work can be addressed to help needy communities.
Here you can find the meeting material:
- Final program
- List of participants
- Budapest Section, poster by Zsolt Toth
- Castello de la Plana Section, poster and talk by Rafael Omar Torres Mendieta
- Catania Section, poster by Maria José Lo Faro
- Copenhagen Section, poster by Tianwu Wang
- Debrecen Section, poster and talk by Janos Toman
- Enschede Section, poster by Robin Bos
- ICONS Barcelona Section, poster and talk by Luis José Salazar Serrano
- Konstanz Section, poster by Karl-Philipp Strunk
- Lviv Section, poster and talk by Oksana Dobush
- Mainz Section, poster by Heike Enzmann
- Messina Section, poster by Maria José Lo Faro
- MPL Erlangen Section, talk by Vanessa Chille
- Naples Section, poster by Federica Guida
- Paris Section, poster by Samuel Felipe Serna-Otalvaro
- RINO Leiden Section, poster and talk by Steven Zwaan
- Rome Section, poster and talk by Micol De Simoni
- Santiago de Compostela Section, poster by Ferran Cambronero Lopez
- SCOPE Strathclyde Section, poster by Antoine Boudet
- Valladolid Section, poster by David Mateos
- Vilnius Section, poster and talk by Jonas Berzin
- Wroclaw Section, poster by Anna Zelazo