One hundred enthusiastic PhD students attended the AII PhD retreat from November 3 until November 4 at Hotel van der Valk De Bilt in Utrecht.
This year’s retreat was themed AII in Space and hosted keynote speakers Stephan van Duin (“The space needed for impact”) and Jorge Domínguez-Andrés (“Immunity in time and space”). The participants also attended workshops to improve their presenting, research, or data visualization skills in addition to the inspirational scientific talks. During the evening, the PhD retreat committee hosted a pub quiz as a support act to the themed party “AII in Space” where PhD candidates enthusiastically dresses as "Miss Universe", "ET", and "Space Bugs Bunny", amongst others. On the second day, candidates presented their scientific posters, learned about the step from academia to industry via talks and company stands and attended some more scientific plenary talks. After the award ceremony, all participants returned home tired but satisfied.
On behalf of the PhD retreat committee, we thank all speakers, PhD students, and last but not least, AII, for making this year’s PhD retreat over the moon!
AII PhD Retreat Committee,
Bo Broens, Tessa van Horrik, Nikitha Vavilthota, Agner Parra Sánchez, Nadia van der Meijs, Nieke van der Bolt, Fatemeh Khodadustvaskasi, Fabio Balzarini, and Rosalie Kempkes