A new Dr. rer. nat.: Mounashree student took the solemn oath and received her doctoral certificate and hat

Today, after a long time, another young researcher from our group received her doctoral degree: along with 15 other young Doctors, Mounashree Student took the oath, pledging to “strive at all times to preserve the doctoral title from every blemish, prove herself worthy of this title in all future academic endeavours, and to always seek and uphold academic truth to the best of her knowledge and belief”. Yes, the language sounds a bit antique, but it is perhaps more important than ever in our times of “alternative” facts and truths in which the US administration is declaring that “professors are the enemy”, because they “control what we call the truth”. The beauty of science is that it gradually moves from hypotheses to truth and, on that way, continuously and critically questions its own conclusions by attempting to falsify them, to prove them wrong. It is a very powerful way of unveiling the truth – not controlling it! Sometimes a convoluted one and rarely a fast one, but eventually a reliable one. One that explains the world, allows us to understand it, to develop concepts and complex theories, to make predictions that can be tested and based on which we can develop technologies that work, crops that thrive, drugs that heal, even societies that prosper, nations that collaborate. Mounashree found a new way to reliably analyse the chitinous components of fungal cell walls in more detail than hitherto possible. This may sound like a minor contribution to that truth, but every bit counts. And more than the knowledge and insight gained, it is the person who counts: one more adept to seeking to truth, and to upholding it.