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Young Minds Leadership Meeting 2024

Posted on by Pasquale Francesco Romano

Monday 25th of March was the first day of the Young Minds (YM) Leadership Meeting (LM) at the EPS Forum 2024. More than 70 participants from the YM network, representing 39 YM sections, as well as guests from other associations, were welcomed by the LM organization committee chair Anna Grigoryan, the EPS Secretary General Anne Pawsey and EPS Former Chair Luc Berge. EPS YM former chair Mattia Ostinato presented an overview of the YM program and the new elected YM chair Carmen Martín Valderrama was presented to the participants. Following two masterclasses on scientific writing given by the EDP Science Senior publisher Isabelle Auffret-Babak and Publishing Director Anne Ruimy, the participants attended the lecture given by Antigone Marino on Impostor Syndrome. Could not be missing the “From PhD to CEO” panel discussion, always inspiring, in collaboration with OPTICA.

Tuesday 26th of March, the day started with the Nobel Prize Laureates’ Lectures. The opportunity to attend such interesting sessions was allowed by the co-location with the EPS Forum. The morning continued with lecturer Tatevik Chalyan on writing a successful grant application, after which Steven Goldfarb presented the talk “Why we bother – the urgency of education and outreach”. To further connect with other YM delegates, a networking session was conducted and the day and LM were concluded with the YM activity poster session and the corresponding “Young Minds Best activity award by EPL” ceremony where the YM sections PONYS and SPAM Caserta received the winners certificates from EPL and 250 euros.

The meeting brought together YM delegates from 20 different countries, as well as many interested students and young researchers from outside of the YM network, making it a great success. Beyond the programme of the LM, the participants could learn about industrial opportunities and attend lectures from world-class researchers conducted in the EPS Forum. Thanks to the European Physical Society and Luc Bergé for the invitation and this opportunity and congratulations to the organization for the success of the event.

We believe that scientific outreach, cultural exchange and mutual understanding, and peaceful international collaboration are more important than ever and we believe that bringing young scientists together and equipping them with tools and skills is a great way of fostering these aspects.

We are very excited that so many young minds gathered for the meeting, and we are very much looking forward to the Leadership Meeting in 2025.

Action Committee Call

Posted on by Tanausu Hernandez

The Action Committee is currently looking for a number of motivated Young Minds to join its ranks.

The Action Committee manages the programme, from running short-term tasks like approving or rejecting grant applications, to defining strategic long-term goals for future development. As the YM project and network continue to grow, and fresh ideas are always welcome, we are looking for motivated people keen to contribute to the programme’s future development and join the committee.

If you are interested, please send an email to ac@epsyoungminds.org with a one-page (maximum) application stating your motivation, your experience within the project and other experiences you believe are relevant. Long-standing cooperation within Young Minds is not mandatory, but highly appreciated.

The deadline for applications is July 15th. We expect to send out notifications early in September.

Update: The deadline for applications has been extended to July 31st.

Finally, please do not hesitate to come back to us if there are any questions.

Leadership Meeting 2023

Posted on by Tanausu Hernandez

Last year’s Leadership Meeting was a fresh experience for Young Minds as a joint event with the brand-new EPS Forum in Paris. This year we go back to the usual format of a standalone event, this time in Italy.

The location of the meeting is Naples, hosted by PONYS – Naples Young Minds (Physics and Optics Naples Young Students). The dates are the 19th and 20th of May. You can find all the details on the website of the event.

As you may already know EPS Young Minds covers the accommodation and up to 100€ of the flight fare of one representative per section. Please, register before the deadline to secure the funding for your transport and stay.

Registration for the 11th Leadership Meeting is open starting now. Follow the link to register before the 3rd of March.

Mattia Ostinato elected new EPS YM Chair

Posted on by Richard Zeltner

During the course of the EPS Forum 2022 the Action Committee gathered for its biannual meeting, discussed recent developments of the YM Programme and sketched plans for future activities.

Further, a successor for the current chair Richard Zeltner was elected: Mattia Ostinato, PhD student at the University of Barcelona and former member of the YM section in Naples, received the support of the full committee and will take over the chair position from July 1.

Mattia Ostinato has been elected EPS YM Chair for the 2022 to 2024 tenure period.

We thank Richard for his dedicated work and #leadership in the last two years, and we wish Mattia all the best and much success for his tenure.

Further, Daryna Pesina and Hripsime Mkrtchyan announced that they will leave the committee. We thank them for their valuable work and their commitment, and we wish them all the best for their future.

The Young Minds Leadership Meeting 2022

Posted on by Richard Zeltner

The 2022 Young Minds Leadership Meeting took place from June 2 to June 3 at the EPS Forum 2022 at Sorbonne University in Paris. On June 2 more than 40 delegates from the YM network, as well as guest from IAPS, were welcomed by the LM organization committee chair Mattia Ostinato and EPS YM Chair Richard Zeltner. Following a networking event, the participants attended the various industrial sessions of the EPS Forum, learning about the career opportunities for scientists outside of academia. In the afternoon Jean-François Morizur gave an inspiring “From PhD to CEO” workshop, that was moderated by Yann Amouroux from the European office of Optica.

The Leadership Meeting 2022 brought together more than 40 delegates from YM, as well as guests from IAPS and the EPS Forum.

On June 3 the LM concluded with inspiring talks from Prof. Petra Rudolf and Giuliana Galati, and the YM Poster Session in which the section delegates shared their recent activities with the rest of the YM network. After three years of virtual engagement the meeting brought together YM delegates from 20 different countries, as well as many interested students and young researchers from outside of the YM network, making it a great success. Beyond the programme of the LM, the co-location with the EPS Forum allowed the participants to learn about industrial opportunities and to attend lectures from world-class researchers, including 3 Nobel Laureates. Thanks to the European Physical Society and its president Luc Bergé for the invitation and this opportunity and congratulations to the organization for the success of the event.

We believe that scientific outreach, cultural exchange and mutual understanding, and peaceful international collaboration are more important than ever, and we believe that bringing young scientists together and equipping them with tools and skills is a great way of fostering these aspects. This said, we are very happy that so many young minds gathered for the meeting, and we are very much looking forward to the Leadership Meeting in 2023.

The Action Committee welcomes new members!

Posted on by ymadmin


Many bright and committed Young Minds have followed the call for applications to join the Action Committee.

Eventually Dr. Mažena Mackoit Sinkevičienė (EPS YM Vilnius& postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy, Vilnius University), Anna Grigoryan (EPS YM Artsakh & junior researcher at the A. Alikhanyan National Laboratory) and Carlos Damián Rodríguez-Fernández (EPS YM Santiago de Compostela & predoctoral researcher at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) were selected to join the committee.

All three have displayed great motivation and leadership in the development of their local sections and broader communities, and we are happy that they will contribute to the development of the programme in a more central role in the future.

Anna and Mažena already started their work in the committee, Carlos Damian will join after the summer break.

Call for applications to join the Young Minds Action Committee

Posted on by Richard Zeltner

The Action Committee is currently looking for a number of motivated Young Minds to join its ranks.

The Action Committee manages the programme, from running short-term tasks like approving or rejecting grant applications, to defining strategic long-term goals for the future development. With the YM network continiously growing and 2022 hopefully bringing back more physical interaction, we are looking for motivated people keen to contribute to the future development of the programme and to bring in new ideas.

If you are interested, please send an email to ac@epsyoungminds.org with a one-page (maximum) application stating your motivation, your experience within the project and other experiences you believe are relevant. Long-standing cooperation within Young Minds is not mandatory, but highly appreciated.

The deadline for applications is December 12. We expect to send out notifications early in February 2022 latest.

Next edition of “From PhD to CEO”, October 28

Posted on by Richard Zeltner

Strongly aligned with the agenda of the current EPS presidency to strenghten the relations and the exchange between the EPS and business, EPS Young Minds is delighted to announce the next session of “From PhD to CEO”, the joint webinar series on young entrepreneurship in the European photonics community, jointly hosted by EPS YM and Optica.

Meet Michele from Milano

In the session on October 28 Michele Lacerenza will share the story of PIONIRS. This young and innovative company is based in Milano, Italy, and is working towards developing next generation devices for near infrared spectroscopy in biomedical applications. More details on Michele and the mission of can be found in the flyer below.

As in previous editions registration is possible via the Optica website

2nd “Physics, Enterprise, Research” meeting takes place in Paris

Posted on by Richard Zeltner

We are very excited to invite you to the second edition of the meeting “Physics, Enterprise, Research”!

This event is brought to you by Société Française de Physique, EUROPEAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY, and ESPCI Paris – PSL and will take place:
🗺️ at Sorbonne University, Paris, France
📅 on the 17th of September 2021.

Aiming at “Bringing together industry and academia”, this event will:
– present the exciting research opportunities in large industries, SMEs and start-ups
– encourage and stimulate the dialogue between young graduates and the entrepreneurial world, to close the gap between industry and academia.

Don’t miss the opportunity to interact with major physics-based companies involved in energy production, biophysics, soft matter, machine learning, transportation and quantum technologies.

The European Physical Society (EPS) Young Mind Programme will contribute to RPER 2021 through a Forum dedicated to the employment of young physicists in Europe. 

Ph.D. students and Post Doctoral researchers are now welcome to register: The registration fee does not exceed €16 and includes lunch on September 17. One night’s lodging and dinner will also be offered to attendees living outside the Ile-de-France region upon request, but the number of places is limited.

The EPS Young Minds community gathered for a virtual Leadership Meeting in May

Posted on by Richard Zeltner

On 7 May 2021, the EPS Young Minds Leadership Meeting took place online. It was the first gathering of the whole YM community since the leadership meeting 2019 in Erlangen. 55 section delegates, representing 21 countries and vastly different career levels ranging from bachelor students to postdocs, attended the meeting and made it a large success.

The meeting included two parts, the first taking place on Zoom and the second on the virtual interaction platform Gather Town. On Zoom EPS YM programme manager Ophélia Fornari welcomed the participants and provided an overview of new functionalities for section management on the EPS website to the participants. She was followed by Richard Zeltner, YM Action Committee Chair, who gave a wrap-up on the years 2020 and 2021 from the YM perspective and highlighted the numerous section activities that were carried out despite the ongoing pandemic. He also gave an outlook on the plans for the rest of the year and 2022 and thanked the members of the Action Committee that left the programme over the course of the last two years, in particular Petra Rudolf who handed over the EPS presidentship, and thus the position in the YM Action Committee, just in April. As the third speaker, Luc Bergé, current EPS president, presented his agenda and his plan to establish the EPS Forum to the YM community. The first part of the meeting was concluded by a panel discussion on career advice for young scientists. The discussion on topics ranging from the role of professional media platforms for personal branding over the difference of working in academia and industry to the importance of aligning career choices with individual aptitudes and talents was very much appreciated by the young minds and certainly a highlight of the event.

The 2021 Young Minds Leadership Meeting brought together more than 50 section delegates from 21 different countries in the virtual realm.

After the panel discussion, the meeting transitioned to Gather Town, where the participants could engage in more informal activities. During a speed networking event, the participants had the opportunity to refresh old connections and to establish new ones within the YM community. This was followed by a Physics Quiz, in which the participants teamed up in small groups and tested their knowledge, not only on physics but also on Trivia and on questions of popular science.

Considering the large number of participants and the very positive feedback that we received during and after the meeting, the event was a large success. Moreover, for the sections that started their activity in 2020 and 2021 the meeting was a great opportunity to gain more insights into the programme and to connect with the network. Even though, we are very much looking forward to connect with the YM community physically again in 2022.

Finally, we would like to warmly thank our panelists Gabrielle Thomas, Lucia Santamaria, Luc Bergé, Chang Kee Jung and Petra Rudolf for their contribution to the panel discussion. We also thank Florian Schorn and Dominik Rattenbacher from the Erlangen section hBar Omega for providing the Gather Town Environment and their contribution to the Physics Quiz.