Beyond the scientific programme, we also had the opportunity to spend time together, swim, enjoy ice cream, compete in board games, sing, and listen to wonderful bossa nova guitar music performed by Guilherme Carella while watching the sunset over the lake.
On the hottest day of the retreat (37°C) we tested our endurance during our excursion to Einstein's Summer House, where we not only learned more about Einstein's life but also got to know one of its cutest inhabitants – Peter the cat, who seemed to be suffering from the heat just as much as we were. ☀️
The retreat was rounded off with a little "nano-surprise" from the IRTG coordinator – a song entitled "CRC Blues." It highlights funny moments from everyday scientific life in our CRC and ends with the sentence that became the title of this post.❤️
Many thanks to everyone who joined us! Special thanks go to our PhD students, who prepared excellent talks covering topics such as NMR, chromatography, TAS, 2D-IR, TEM & SEM, X-ray spectroscopy, AFM, and quantum chemistry. Since we are a highly interdisciplinary team, we all tried to learn from fields beyond our own. Thanks to the presenters, this idea worked extremely well and created a fantastic learning experience.
Many special thanks also go to:
🔹 One of our PIs Dr. Matthias Hartlieb for his workshop on poster design.
🔹 Our external guest, Dr. Anne Lehnen, for sharing her insights into the transition from academia to industry.
🔹 Dr. Marek Bekir for his workshop on figure design.
🔹 Dr. Anisha Pathak and Dr. Shashank Gahlaut (working in the group of Prof. Ilko Bald) for their talks on DNA nanotechnology and chiral plasmonics.
🔹 Dr. Elham Mazarei (working as a young PostDoc with one of our PIs Dr. Evgenii Titov) for her presentation.
🔹 Dr. Mitra Esfandiari (working with Prof. Nora Kulak) for many valuable discussions.
Last but not least, we thanked our outgoing PhD speakers, Anahita Heraji Esfahani and Leo Cordsmeier, for their commitment and elected our two new PhD speakers—Guilherme Carraro Carella and Naincy Mall. We also celebrated our outreach champions by presenting awards to the Queen and King of Likes (Anahita Heraji Esfahani and Niklas Bier), as well as the King of Reposts (Florian Schmitt).
We wish everyone a wonderful rest of the summer!
"Our CRC isn't just science — it's all of you!" ❤️ | IRTG Retreat 2026
From 29 to 31 July, the retreat of our graduate school (IRTG) took place.
We spent a wonderful time at the beautiful Märkisches Gildehaus, located directly on the lakeside. And as a cherry on top, the town of Caputh has a direct connection to one of the greatest scientists of all time – Albert Einstein. That is why we opened our retreat with one of Einstein's quotes addressing one of humanity's most intriguing questions: the meaning of life. In a very practical sense, he finds the answer in living for other people—first for those whose happiness is closely connected with our own, and then for the many others to whom we are bound by ties of sympathy. Without doubt, our retreat helped strengthen these human connections within our CRC.