First Casimir Open Days
On Thursday February 23, six international MSc students arrived in Leiden for the Casimir Open Days, where they were welcomed by Casimir Director Tjerk Oosterkamp and coordinator Marije Boonstra. The two-day program started with an introductory presentation about the Casimir Research School, and some information on what life is like when doing PhD research in the Netherlands. Next, the group went to the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratories, where PI Milan Allan and PhD student Gesa Welker showed them their set-ups and presented their latest discoveries. After lunch, PhD student Nelli Bossert and Babette de Jong showed the students around in the biolabs that are located in the new building. After this tour, PI Peter Denteneer briefly presented the data he recently gathered on the career paths of our former PhD students and there was some time for questions. Despite storm Doris, the students then walked to the historic city centre, where a city guided showed them the hidden gems of Leiden. The evening program started with a drink in one of the many pubs of the city,  followed by a delicious dinner with the PhD students, where many different subjects were discussed.

In the early morning of the following day, the group gathered at the train station to travel to Delft. There, in the new Applied Sciences building, PhD student Orkide Ordu showed the students around in labs of the Bionanoscience department. Next item on their program were the individual interviews with several of our Delft PIs. At 11:00 hrs, the group was reunited again for a presentation by PI Sander Otte on his lab’s research. The visit to Delft ended with a tour in the QuTech labs by Marios Kounalakis and Fokko de Vries. After lunch, the group travelled back to Leiden, for the final Open Days presentation by Jan Aarts.

We look back at two enjoyable days – we would like to thank Ivan, Willeke, Kostas, Xavier, Joris, and Arash for visiting us. We are also very grateful for our own PhD students Orkide, Floris, Babette, Nelli, Marios, Gesa, Marco, Fokko, and our PIs for contributing to our program, without you the Casimir Open Days would not have been as successful!

More information
Please contact us if you would like to get more information about the Casimir Open Days 2017 or if you would like to stay informed about the next edition.