First SpaceLife Career Day at the University of Applied Sciences in Rheinbach.

Participants of the Career Day
Around fifty students and postdocs participated in the SpaceLife Career Day on September 17, 2011, at the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg in Rheinbach. Not only the SpaceLife doctoral candidates, but also participants of the annual conference of the Society of Biological Radiation Research (GBS2011), and students from other universities in the area, such as Cologne and Düsseldorf, but also from Bremen, profited from this opportunity to discuss different career paths with experienced speakers from academia, industry, and funding bodies.

Prof. Rittweger, head of the department of Space Physiology at the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne, warmly welcomed the participants and gave important advice for the current stage of the PhD theses of the SpaceLife students.

Dr. Carsten Roller from the association of biological sciences in Germany (VBIO) gave an extensive overview about the career possibilities in biological sciences in Germany, and laws and regulations that have to be followed. Carola Brügman from the internet job platform Jobvector gave general advice about career planning, applications and interviews, and presented some less known career paths in industry.

Andrea Boese from the German Aerospace Center told the students about her way from nutrition sciences to research management, involving the students by many questions.

Prof. Brüggemann from the German Sports University in Cologne.
Being a scientist in industry or at a university – these career paths were covered by Dr. Veit Bergendahl from Miltenyi Biotec GmbH in Bergisch Gladbach and Prof. Dr. Gert-Peter Brüggemann. Dr. Bergendahl fascinated the audience by his story about a chemist who went forth to learn what cells can do, about surprising turns in his career and different stations abroad. Prof. Brüggemann from the German Sports University in Cologne explained the many coincidences that made his career in sports sciences possible: “Try to find mentors and do everything that fortunate coincidences can happen” was his advice.

How to get funding for the research? Ingo Trempeck from the coordination office of the European Union (KoWi) in Bonn explained Marie Curie funding programs and starting grants.

What else is possible after studying natural sciences? Dr. Robert Habedanck from the European Patent Office in Munich, Germany, explained how attractive the job of a patent examiner can be. “Don’t worry, we all want to become patent examiner now” said one participant after Dr. Habedanck’s sweeping talk. But also, at some point, it might be appealing to become his own boss one day. Dr. Monika Heidenreich from Röntgen Consult in Kirchzarten, Germany, presented her way into self-employment as medical physics expert.

Many thanks from SpaceLife to all the speakers for their dedication and to the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg for providing the lecture hall university campus in Rheinbach and to the “Studentenwerk” for preparing the lunch and coffee breaks!

First SpaceLife Career Day, September 17, 2011 - General Information: