Picture: Palace of Karlsruhe
This year’s annual meeting was hosted at the Karlsuhe Institute of Technology. During the four days, scientist, old and young, from Germany and the surrounding countries came together and showed their works. The conference opened with a highly interesting talk by Ilme Schlichting from Heidelberg about the current developments, problems and future applications of free electron lasers. The micro symposia provided topics for all interests and were a good mixture of crystal physics, inorganic chemistry (including material sciences, energy materials and so forth) and protein crystallography. As always, several representatives of diffractometer manufacturers showed their latest developments during the break times and hold three lunchtime symposia. The social evening took place at the brewery „Hoepfner Burghof“. It was a very nice place because the brewery looks like a castle made from brick stone and the y also served good food.
This meeting was also quite a special one for the young crystallographers because for the first there were two micro symposia dedicated to lightning talks. The chairs for theses sessions were exclusively occupied by members of the young crystallographers (Michael Haiduk, Linda Hollenbeck, Alexander Pöthig, Hartmut Stöcker and Matthias Zschornak). Both sessions were very well attended and followed by intensive discussions afterwards at poster. As always, an independent jury choose the three best presentations and posters which were awarded with prizes provided from STOE & Cie during the get-together session. This year’s winner are (in alphabetical order):
Zoltán Balogh-Michels, Dübendorf (Switzerland):
The growth kinetics and the structure of expanded austenite in AISI316L stainless steel as characterized by in-situ XRD
Antje Hirsch, Aachen (Germany):
Synthesis and characterisation of monazite solid solution series
Matthias Künzle, Aaachen (Germany):
Binary protein crystals for the assembly of inorganic nanoparticle superlattices
The get-together was overall a fun „Karaoke-Session“. The microphone was passed back and forth between the moderators Falk Meutzner and Gregor Hofer as they told about past and planned events. During presentation awarding, Martin Fark (CEO of STOE & Cie) also joined in.
Short mention should also go to That Coffee Guy. The DGK meeting was accompanied by a mobile coffee shop, which was a great meeting place for fruitful discussions.
Chairs and participants of the first Lightning Talk Session.
Chairs and participants of the second Lightning Talk Session.