Meet the People: Jakob Möbs

Jakob smiling in the camera. He has curly brown hair and has glasses on.Jakob Möbs got elected as new Co-Chair of the Young Crystallographers by a narrow majority of one vote at the 30th Annual Conference of the German Crystallographic Society. Congratulations and good luck!

We already introduced him shortly as he won one of the Lightning Talk Awards at the LabMeeting @ STOE last year. Jakob studied chemistry and mathetics at Philipps-University Marburg from 2013 to 2018 and graduated with the first state examination. Now he is a PhD student in the Heine Research Group in Marburg and investigates ternary group 15 iodidometallate anions as building blocks for new materials.

What motivated you to become the next Co-Chair?

I came into contact with the Young Crystallographers for the first time only last year at the LabMeeting at STOE in Darmstadt, so I was very surprised, when I was asked a few weeks later to run at the election for the new co-chair. I had enjoyed the LabMeeting very much for its informal atmosphere and close contact to all the participants and therefore I was delighted to become more involved with the Young Crystallographers. I want to help bring together young scientists from many different scientific disciplines to share and discuss their research on an eye to eye level. Also I want to help strengthen the network between my young generation and the established scientists within (and outside) the DGK. For this, small conferences like our LabMeeting are great as there is nearly no barrier between the invited speakers and the young participants and I’m looking forward to be able to help shape the upcoming conferences, e.g. in Freiberg 2022.

What are you most excited about in your new function?

As much as I want to help bring together young scientists I want to get to know and connect with them myself. There is no better way to do that than taking responsibility in an association like ours.

In addition I am really looking forward to be a member of the Lieselotte-Templeton prize committee. I don’t really know what to expect from that yet, but I’m thrilled by the idea of reading through all the different submissions.

What advice would you give to other young scientists? / You got a tip for a master student?

Well… come to our lab meeting and talk to other young scientists, of course! Also don’t be afraid to talk to professors at conferences. Be it to just express your interest in their work or if you have a question, no matter how silly it may seem. I’ve been quite shy myself, but they will always appreciate it, when young people are interested in their work. The YC-lab-meetings are a great place to practice your “talking to professors”-skills as they are in general nice and small and informal.