It’s been great year 2023 and a learning experience on many fronts.
1) I started my own junior group on January 1, 2023, building on funds provided by the cluster and an ERC Starting Grant.
2) I had the first PhD and Bachelor students joining in spring and summer.
3) I started setting up the lab and first photon BECs in small lattice structures were observed in late summer.
4) An ML4Q summer intership student joined my team, and she did very well. I am optimistic (after discussions with her); the experience convinced her to pursue a Phd in quantum science after finishing her studies. I missed the call for this year to offer a new fellowship (sometimes it’s hard to spot the right emails if one receives many of them), but I do think that the ML4Q Internship program is drawing international attention to research performed at ML4Q.

2023 was a great year! Just to name some highlights:
– I became a PI at ML4Q.
– I was able to attend lots of cool conferences and meetings.
– A new PhD student funded by ML4Q, Monika, joined in July and we started investigating quantum communication protocols for continuous variable systems.
– My first PhD student funded by ML4Q, Giacomo Carrara, successfully graduated in December.
– The year ended with very happy news: I got a Professorship position in Vienna, so I will be joining the TU Wien as an assistant Professor in June.

Our collaboration has been very active, with many meetings and discussions (both in-person and online) in Bonn and Düsseldorf between the theory subgroups and the experimentalists.
This helped us monitoring the individual progress of all subprojects (quantum info/many-body theory/ experiment) and streamline our efforts.

I have used the Young Investigator Award funds mostly for my personal career development in order to attend seminars and puchase small lab items, literature as well as software.

The award definitely helped to develop my career. Firstly, the notion of having received an award (irrespective of the funding sum) is great for my CV. It provides flexibility and freedom in taking choices for my own career development (in the form of seminars, and also participation at international conferences).
The amount of funds seems fully appropriate for career development purposes at this early career stage.

I think a great instrument that will help to accelerate the career development are teaching seminars for professorship positions. I’m glad to hear that Achim Rosch is offering a course now (and I hope there are some spots left…)

Definitely! As I highlighted in the previous question, in the last year the funds gave me freedom to attend conferences and meetings that I strategically chose to boost my independence and increase the chances of getting a permanent position (which was successful). Plus, as Julian mentioned, an award always looks good in the CV.

Regarding other instruments, I can mention that I really enjoyed participating in a structured long career development program at my university (HHU). This included workshops on specific career related topics (leadership, how to apply for professorship, etc) and mentoring sessions in small groups, which really helped to reflect on where I was and where to go in my career. I think this was also a significant stepping stone towards my academic independence.

Apply for grants! (even if you don’t think you have a chance)
Take all the opportunities to present your work in conferences and while visiting other groups. (that is how people get to know you and your research)
Join some career development events, they can be very helpful.

Apply for grants, fellowships, talks, communicate with your colleagues (even if they are on a higher hierarchical level). Put yourself out there!
It’s always better to try (even if you fail to get that grant or so…) than to not even go for it.

Try to collect several such puzzle pieces and put them together in a way that is unique and represents/builds your research profile.
Ultimately, this is crucial for obtaining a permanent stand in the academic world.

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