MMGS Retreat 2021

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Nach zwei Corona-Jahren mit wenig menschlichen Kontakten bot der jährliche Retreat der MMGS-Mathematiker in der letzten Septemberwoche 2021 eine gute Gelegenheit, einen Teil davon nachzuholen. Das Organisationsteam, bestehend aus Sahana, Martina, Dennis und Johannes, konnte insgesamt 30 Doktoranden nach Brilon im Sauerland einladen, wo ein abwechslungsreiches Programm auf die Teilnehmer wartete.

Auf wissenschaftlicher Seite gab es einen Austausch mit dem ehemaligen Privatdozenten Dr. Thomas Timmermann, der in einer Diskussionsrunde viele Einblicke in seine schwierige Entscheidung gab, den akademischen Karriereweg zu verlassen. Außerdem hatte jeder Teilnehmer die Möglichkeit, einen Teil seiner Forschung oder eine spannende mathematische Kuriosität in einem Kurzvortrag vorzustellen. So kam auch der Spaß nicht zu kurz, dank Themen wie der unsinnigen Verteilung von Postleitzahlen in Deutschland oder dem Lösen von kubischen Gleichungen mit Origami-Faltkunst. Darüber hinaus wurden die rhetorischen Fähigkeiten der Teilnehmer unter der fachkundigen Anleitung von Rhetoriktrainerin Dr. Elisa Franz weiterentwickelt.

Die traumhafte Gegend um Brilon bot die Möglichkeit, viel Zeit in der Natur zu verbringen: So erklommen die Doktoranden die vulkanischen Felsformationen der Bruchhauser Steine und erkundeten die Bilsteinhöhle - eine große Tropfsteinhöhle, die Besuchern offensteht. In diesem Jahr konnten fast doppelt so viele Teilnehmer wie im letzten Jahr am Retreat teilnehmen und viele neue soziale wie auch mathematische Kontakte knüpfen.

Die Veranstaltungsliste der MMGS ist euer Helfer für das Sommersemester 2023. Hier erhaltet ihr Informationen zu den stattfindenden Vorlesungen und Seminaren im kommenden Sommersemester.

• Veranstaltungsliste der MMGS

The Retreat will take place in Brilon Environmental Youth Hostel  on 27-30 of September.
The program will include an exchange of individual research projects, workshops, social events and a lot of fun!
The final version of the program will be published soon.
Please remember to bring a proof of vaccination or negative test.

To register: please send an e-mail to Gabi  with subject "Registration Retreat 2021" (DEADLINE: 01 August).

In the message please specify the following:
- if you have food restrictions (allergies, intolerances, vegetarian, vegan, ...)
- we want to have short talk sessions in which everyone can say something about their mathematical interests, so write if you prefer to give a short talk (~ 5 min.) about any mathematical topic you find interesting and/or to prepare a poster about your research.
- we are planning to organise transportation by VW-transporters rented from the University, but we need drivers. Please write if you would be available to drive from Munster to Brilon (no special driving licence is required)
- we provide support for childcare and other personal necessities. Specify in the message if you have personal needs.

Hope to see you all soon,
the organisers Dennis, Johannes, Martina and Sahana
 

Bei der letzten Wahl der MMGS Sprecher wurden Dennis Wulle und Maike Frantzen wiedergewählt.
Die beiden haben die Wahl angenommen und werden MMGS bis zur nächsten Wahl in allen Angelegenheiten vertreten. Die nächste Wahl findet beim Welcome Event 2021 statt.
 

Viele neue Informationen auf der MMGS Webpage

Auf der Webpage befinden sich viele neue Informationen, die euch die Promotionszeit erleichtern werden.
Zum einem ist die Veranstaltungsliste für das SoSe 2021 nun verfügbar. Hier könnt ihr schnell sehen, welche Veranstalten interdisziplinär für Doktoranden geeignet sind.

Zum anderen hat die MMGS noch ein neues Projekt auf den Weg gebraucht. Im Mitgliederbereich befindet sich nun eine Kategorie „Wusstest du schon?“. Hier teilen MMGS Member „Insider“ Information zum Leben und Promovieren im Cluster of Excellence. Ein Blick lohnt sich immer.
Falls du selber Informationen teilen möchtest, seien es hilfreiche Programme, Einrichtungen der WWU oder interessante Erfahrungen, melde dich bei mmgs@uni-muenster.de

Zum Schluss hat das Graduate Center noch eine nützliche Broschüre für den Start in Münster erstellt. Dieser enthält viele wichtige Informationen, damit das Einleben in Münster insbesondre für internationale promovierende, möglichst gut gelingt.

• Broschüre des Graduate Centers
• Wusstest du schon?
• Veranstaltungsliste SoSe 2021

PhD to PhD: Kevin Poljsak (EN)

Kevin Poljsak is a doctoral student in the differential geometry working group of the wwu and is supervised by Burkhard Wilking.
He does his thesis in the field of geometric evolution equations. There he studies the rigidity of Einstein manifolds with positive scalar curvature with methods from Ricci Flow.
In this interview he would like to share his experiences so far during his doctorate with you.

How was the beginning of your PhD and what would have been nice to know beforehand?
When I started my PhD in November 2018, I did not really know how to begin. So, I started to learn some new stuff related to my interests. After a while, my advisor introduced me to a possible topic for my PhD project. I also went to some conferences and met new people. When starting a PhD, you should not feel ashamed to ask each question which pops up in your mind. Get connected with other PhD students and talk regularly about your problems.

What would you like to have done differently during your PhD?
At some point you have to realize that if you don’t understand anything that it doesn’t make sense to continue working on that but to move forward and come back to your problem afterwards. At the beginning I thought about some things for a long time. After I had been on holiday, I forgot about them and when I came back to the same question half a year later it was easy to solve.

Do you have any advises for the other MMGS members?
Do not forget to enjoy the city during your time here. Münster is not just a nice place to work but also to live.

• Interview

Da insbesondere im Herbst und Winter der Austausch und das Kennenlernen in unserem „Common Room“ fehlten,  haben sich einige der im Oktober und November gestarteten Postdocs und PhD-Studierenden des Clusters in dem Artikel "Forschungsthemen unserer neuen Mitglieder" vorgestellt.
Auch neue Mitglieder das MMGS sind dabei vertreten.

• Forschungsthemen unserer neuen Mitglieder

Postdoc to PhD: Dr. Sahana H Balasubramanya (EN)

Sahana H Balasubramanya a member of the Institut for Mathematical Logic and Foundational Research and is advised by is Dr. Katrin Tent.
Sahana research in Geometric Group Theory and will share details about her research and academic background in the following interview.

What are you working on? / What is your research topic?
My research is focused in the area of Geometric Group Theory. This is an area of math that lies at the intersection of algebra, topology, and geometry. The basic idea is to try to understand the properties of a group by studying the action of the group on some space. The spaces that I look at mostly tend to be hyperbolic or CAT(0) spaces, and the presence of this (negative) curvature often yields strong properties for the groups. I also therefore try and build different actions of a given group on different spaces, so that we can look at information provided by different group actions.

How did you find your research topic?
I had a lot of help from my PhD advisor in terms of finding my first viable project to work on. Dr. Denis Osin was extremely supportive in this matter, and eventually a question he suggested was the first one that I worked on. I think it is therefore extremely important to choose one's PhD advisor carefully. Subsequent projects that I worked on were questions that naturally arose in the context of my work, but I again had help, support and input from my advisor, my PhD committee members and my postdoctoral mentors Dr. Talia Fernos and Dr. Katrin Tent.

Some Advice to the MMGS Members:

What would you like to have done differently during your PhD?
I don't think there is much I would like to change about the time I spent as a PhD student. It was a rather satisfying 5 years, and I think I got to experience all the aspects that one should at that time attending conferences, giving seminar talks, publishing process, etc.
However, it would have been nice to have some of the advice I had the second time I was applying for postdocs the first-time round. There were some nuances about the process and drafting one's statements that would have been very helpful if I had known them beforehand.

• Interview

PhD to PhD Fortschrittsbericht Spezial: Maria Beckemeyer (EN)

Im Mitgliederbereich der MMGS findet ihr nun einen Erfahrungsbericht von Maria Beckemeyer zur Progress Review.
Darin teilt Sie Ihre Erfahrungen, die Sie vor und während des Gesprächs mit Ihrem Betreuer und Mentor gemacht hat und erklärt, wie Ihr der Progress Review geholfen hat.

• zum Interview (EN)

PhD to PhD: Dennis Wulle (EN)

Dennis Wulle is a doctoral student in the differential geometry working group of the wwu and is supervised by Burkhard Wilking.
He does his thesis in the field of riemannian geometry. He studies riemannian manifolds with lower sectional curvature bounds and a high amount of symmetry.
In this interview he would like to share his experiences so far during his doctorate with you.

How was the beginning of your PhD and what would have been nice to know beforehand?
The biggest advantage in comparison to my master or bachelor studies was to finally get an office, which makes it easier to focus on work and separate it from free time. I also discovered that I like coffee, because of this nice coffee machine in the common room.
Although I just started, it happened that I became one of the speakers of the MMGS, only one month after I the beginning of my PhD. As a speaker I was for example in the organizing committee for the MMGS Retreat, which took place the first time this year. It was a very helpful experience, to organize something like a small conference. But the work as an MMGS speaker also includes the role as a contact person for the other PhD Students. So, if you have some questions about the graduate school, do not hesitate to ask me!

How did you find your research topic?
It did not take much time, since I started to work on my topic during my master's thesis, so I should maybe say how I found the topic back then: I first started with a very topological topic inside of equivariant differential geometry. But I did not like the methods used there, because they were ‘too topological’ for me, so after a while I switched to a topic, which needed more methods from differential geometry and the theory of Lie groups.

How was your supervision up to this point and how is the relationship to your supervisor?
I am fully satisfied with my supervision. I do not meet with my supervisor on a regular basis to talk about my topic, but, if I have questions, I can just go to his office and he will spend as much time as needed to answer them. We also have mathematical discussions during lunch or coffee break, which is helpful.

• Full interview

Postdoc to PhD: Dr. Liesel Sommer (EN)

Dr. Liesel Sommer is currently a member in the working group applications of PDEs at the WWU.
In this interview she would like to share her experiences so far as a postdoc and during her doctorate with you.

What are you working on? / What is your research topic?
In my work I simulate propagation of fractures. Here the usual grid based FEM methods run into problems as fractures do not only propagate along element boundaries. I combine two different approaches to tackle this problem. The introduction of a phase field smears the crack out, making exact resolving by the grid unnecessary. On the other hand, unfitted methods, like the unfitted discontinuous Galerkin method I apply, can handle discontinuities of solutions inside of elements, thus allowing a fracture to propagate trough elements.  
How did you find your research topic?
The supervisor of my PhD had a couple of ideas in mind when I started working. Together we decided for one direction. Then, during my work, I focused on the things that I found most interesting.

What does a normal working day look like? What is the difference to your PHD time?
A normal working day does not differ that much from PhD life.
Depending on my current focus I either tackle analytical problems on the paper, studying relevant literature, or I program the simulations, search for errors in source code and run convergence tests to validate my algorithms and programs.
Nevertheless, there are some differences. First, as I do not want to stay in academics, I feel a lot less pressure now and it is easier for me to get my mind off the job after work. Second, obviously I spend much less time writing things down and proof reading than in the last months of my PhD.
I would say the Postdoc for me is more like the second phase of a PhD. You are well into your subject and do the actual work, going to conferences and maybe writing first papers, but not yet writing it all down. The third big difference is sitting at home in my Home Office, discussing much less with colleagues due to Corona. But I guess that is the same for all of us.   

• Full interview

"Bridging the Gap" seminar: O-Minimality and the André-Oort Conjecture (EN)

Prof. Dr. Urs Hartl and Prof. Dr. Martin Hils organize the "Bridging the Gap" seminar "O-Minimality and the André-Oort Conjecture" which connects Model Theory and Arithmetic Algebraic Geometry.

It will be held on Tuesdays, 2-4 pm. PhD students and master's students may enroll. The seminar will start in the first week of November.

• HIS-LSF
• Learnweb

PhD to PhD: Jannes Bantje (EN)

Jannes Bantje is a doctoral student in the Topology working group of the wwu  and is supervised by Johannes Ebert.
He does his thesis in the field of geometric topology. There he studies spaces of positive scalar curvature with methods from the theory of cobordism categories and spaces of manifolds.
In this interview he would like to share his experiences so far during his doctorate with you.

Why did you choose Münster for your PhD?
I already did my Bachelor and Master degree in Münster and when the opportunity to stay here for a PhD arose, I did not hesitate, since Münster fits my mathematical interests, my girlfriend has a job here and I really like the city.

How did you find your research topic?
It was proposed to me by my advisor with my previous knowledge in mind (I am a topologist with some background in C*-algebras, not terrified by differential geometry).

How long should a PhD thesis be?
That depends. Brevity should definitely be a goal, but it has to be weighed with thoroughness. If you do not have to lay groundworks and the available literature is highly compatible, you might do with less than 50 pages. On the other end of the spectrum, there might be theses, where more than 100 pages are totally appropriate.

MMGS Retreat 2020

MMGS Retreat 2020 images

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Der erste Retreat der MMGS fand in Duisburg statt. Dieses Event trägt zu der Vernetzung der Mitglieder der Graduate School bei. Insbesondere während der Covid-19 Pandemie, wurde der MMGS Retreat als wichtiges Hilfsmittel zum Vernetzen in der MMGS gesehen.  

Der Retreat stand ganz im Fokus der persönlichen Zukunftsplanung. Neben einer Vortragreihe über den Bewerbungsprozess im akademischen und nicht akademischen Umfeld, fand auch ein Workshop zu beruflichen und persönlichen Lebenszielen statt.
Auch blieben der fachliche und persönliche Austausch nicht auf der Strecke. Während der Abendveranstaltungen blieb genug Zeit, um interessante Gespräche zu führen, sich kennen zu lernen und sich über seine eigenen Forschungsthemen auszutauschen.
Ein paar Impressionen sind hier zu sehen

Neues MMGS-Projekt: PHD to PHD (EN)

Markus Schmetkamp is in the final phase of his doctorate and shares his experiences from his doctoral studies in this interview.

His thesis deals with coarse versions of the Farrell-Jones conjecture and he is supervised by Arthur Bartels.

Why did you choose Münster for your PhD?
I already studied mathematics in Münster. I like the city very much. I also got to know the working group and my advisor early on.
How did you find your research topic?
My advisor had a rough idea of a theorem I should prove. It took several months until I understood what the content of that theorem could be. It got a lot better over the time and in later phases I had my own ideas of theorems worth proving. In the end my research topic is a combination of both the idea of my supervisor and one of my own ones.

What would you like to have done differently during your PhD?
At some point I started using git as part of making backups. I wish I had used that earlier and even more I wished I had used it properly. There were many times that I updated whole parts of my dissertation because results had to be stated more generally. Sometimes I went into a wrong direction. Sometimes I realized that what I did before was not so bad after all. A proper version control helps a lot of keeping track of such things.