Yesterday GENECO held their annual winter meeting at Hotel Elite. About 40 persons came to hear presentations on the topic “Managing Ideas and Careers”.
After a second breakfast and an intro talk by members of the GENECO steering committee, it was time for three of the PhD students to give their talks. The first one was Laura Seidel from the Linnaeus University who talked about biogeochemical changes in the Baltic Sea.
Then it was Kristaps Sokolovskis from Lund, who spoke of migrating willow warblers. Finally Julian Melger talked about “Sex and sociality in hot places”.
– It is not about my holiday, he assured us before he started to explain why it sometimes is better to help your kin with their offspring than to have your own.
Then it was time for the inspiration talks. And such inspiration it was! Per Mercke from LU Innovation talked about how they work, and assured us that even if you work with basic research it will inevitably generate great ideas that may lead to new companies and commercial products.
Håkan Arheden and Einar Heiberg talked about how they had started a bunch of new companies and what is important when/if you choose to do the same.
The last speaker was Elna Heimdal Nilsson who told us about her double careers in academia and Thai boxing. She gave us a lot of good advice to keep stress away and how to focus. She made us think about who our worst enemy is, and the opposite; who is our best supporter. I think many of us were left with a lot of thoughts after her talk.
The day ended with an excellent dinner at restaurant Finn Inn.
Thank you Christina Rengefors and the other organizers at GENECO!
You find more photos at Flickr.
Text and photo by Inger Ekström
