CSS - "Being a Scientist in a Facility - Challenges and Opportunities"

Katharina Hipp: What is the role of a facility head and what are typical tasks? What might be special requirements and challenges in an electron microscopy facility?

In my talk I would like to invite you to hear about some answers to these questions. You are also invited to learn about my daily life as the head of the electron microscopy facility and my experience since I joined the institute several years ago. I will also briefly talk about my carrier path starting as an occupational therapist to become an electron microscopist and what influenced and motivated different steps.

Dai Long Vu: The Mass spectrometry facility of the MPI for Biology Tuebingen was established in the middle of 2020. Management of such a new facility is both challenging and interesting as you would have chances to work with multiple scientific projects, coordinate and work with colleagues from different scientific backgrounds. In this talk, I would like to share with you my experiences in maintaining the work-life balance, how I stay motived to support our colleagues to answer their scientific questions using newly developed methods in the fields of metabolomics, lipidomics and mass spectrometry imaging. I would be also happy to share my career path from a food chemist to a mass spectrometry facility manager.