MARA DAY 2017

Our annual MARA DAY took place on November 13, 2017. This year, it was devoted to the topic "How Do We Communicate in the Scientific Community"?

It began with three short workshops, which were very well received with a total of 34 participants. In each of the one-and-a-half-hour workshops, the junior scholars could get a taste of the courses that are also offered as part of MArburg University Research Academy's regular program. In "Crashkurs Textgestaltung" (Crash Course in Text Design), Dr. Matthias Warkus explained in a nutshell the most important rules for designing professional print documents. Laurence F. Henry instructed the participants of the "Academic English for Second Language Researchers" workshop in writing, publishing, and giving presentations in English. With Dr. Peter Widmann, coordinator of the DAAD "Marburg International Doctorate" program, participants could discuss their experiences with the program and its future development.

The event continued at 5 p.m. in the imposing auditorium of the Alte Universität. About 80 visitors attended this part of the event. Prof. Dr. Richard Wiese, head of the Language Theory and Psycholinguistics Working Group at Philipps-Universität Marburg's Department of German Linguistics, began by giving a talk on the topic "Digital Humanities – Science in Transition?", providing an introduction to "Open Science", the topic of the subsequent round table.

We were able to engage three experts for the keynote presentations that introduced the round table: Marion Goller, alumna of the "Open Science" Fellowship Program, provided a professional opening with her occasionally provocative presentation titled "Open Science in a Nutshell". Dr. Timo Glaser, Philipps-Universität's open access representative, provided the interested audience with a better understanding of the issue of "open access". Dr. Ortrun Brand, head of Philipps-Universität Marburg's research data management service team, shared her expertise in matters of "open data". The audience made ample use of the opportunity for discussion. The lively discussion as to what extent researchers should make their research open to and available for use by others continued during the following champagne reception.

The traditional highlight of MARA DAY was once again the competitions for the best short presentation and best poster: In three-minute intervals, six doctoral candidates and two postdocs presented their research projects in the Alte Aula. The winner of the audience award for the best short presentation was Dr. Muriel van Teeseling from the Laboratory for Molecular Microbiology/ Thanbichler working group at the Department of Biology. With her unique presentation on "Unique cell division of the bacterium Hyphomonas neptunium: only the best for the kids", she gave the audience a vivid impression of her research.

In the cloister of the Alte Universität, 16 scientific posters vied for the favor of interested visitors. The award for the best poster was split between two doctoral candidates from the Department of Pharmacy: In a tied vote, the audience chose the posters by Ms. Verda Farida and Ms. Shadaan Zulfiqar as their favorites. Verda Farida won with a poster that bore the title "How to deal with wrinkles and the bills", and Ms. Zulfiqar was able to win over the audience with a visual illustration of her research on the topic "Alzheimer's Disease in a dish".

Each of the two winners can look forward to a voucher worth 100 EUR toward MARA's continuing education offerings. MARA DAY also yielded another lucky winner: Our "fortune fairy", Prof. Dr. Michael Bölker, drew the ticket that belonged to Dalia Fadly, doctoral candidate at the Center of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, for a voucher worth 50 EUR toward MARA's continuing education offerings.

The voice of one of the visitors summarizes the enthusiasm with which MARA DAY 2017 was received: "The academic program was brilliant, the presentations and posters extremely interesting, the food very tasty and abundant, the environment magnificent, and above all participant turnout was impressively high!"

You can find more information in the announcement of the event, in the program (PDF), and in the program for the short presentations and for the poster competition (PDF) here.