09/28/2026
15 Years of Smart Membranes – Anniversary Alumni Meeting
This year our group hit another milestone as we mark fifteen years of Smarties existence. Of course we took this opportunity to celebrate as former alumni members gathered together with current team members to exchange ideas as well as experiences and reflect on their time in our group.
For our anniversary, we met up on the Friday, 25th of September, at the university. We eagerly listened to Annette Andrieu-Brunsen giving a talk reminiscing about the full history of how the Smart Membranes group came to be. She provided us a cheerfully complete picture on how it developed throughout the years and how each individual played their part in shaping where we are now as a group scientifically and interpersonally. Afterwards our current squad of PhD students presented their work in the form of a selection of slides which continued into a poster session. Whilst this already provided a fantastic opportunity for fruitful discussion, there was also a second session where we created interactive posters. Here, former group members got to give advice to the younger, much less experienced PhD students on collected questions about e.g. personal development, job-hunting or life in and outside science and academia. We finished our time at the university with a tour through our labs where former members got to experience the changes and developments at firsthand.
Towards the later stages of the afternoon, we continued our celebration at Grillhütte TC 1875. This get-together with families and partners involved a tasty menu of salads, main dishes, barbecue and dessert prepared for us. As a surprise a game was prepared for us where current and former group members had to draw personal facts about one another at random. Being tasked with finding the person that fits your drawn description gave us a fun and playful chance to get to know each other. At last, our celebration continued way past official schedule into the night.