At IGB it is custom that finishing doctoral students get a Berlin Buddy Bear prinked by supervisors, colleagues and friends. For now, Florian has to cope with a digital version. | Screenshot: Florian Ruland/IGB
Dr. Alexis Guislain
“I had the chance to defend my thesis online during the COVID-19 crisis. I want to thank the University of Potsdam and the chairman of the committee, Dr. Guntram Weithoff, for making it happen. It was rather unconventional but I am glad that people living all around the globe could attend my talk and support me.” And for Alexis a (bad) dream came true: defending his thesis in slippers. (But what else should one wear at home? Photo: private)
During the past years at IGB Alexis studied the eco-physiological consequences of fluctuating light on phytoplankton. And as if a successfully defended thesis would not be reason enough to celebrate, he is staying at IGB for another year as a postdoc to work on methods of high throughput analysis of phytoplankton based on Artificial Intelligence approaches.
Dr. Florian Ruland
“The defence happened a little later and a lot more virtual than anticipated, but smoothly overall. I am happy that Freie Universität Berlin offered a remote defence and thankful for how cooperative my committee was. It was fun, actually, and the party is still to come.”
Florian did his research on the role of behavioural change in biological invasions. Take a glimpse at chapter 2: Behavioral differences in an over-invasion scenario: marbled vs. spiny-cheek crayfish. He too will stay at IGB and FU for another six months to write a research proposal for behavioural and technical innovations to avert ecological crises.
Dr. Tarun Bisht
Tarun, who visited family in India when most borders where shut down, defended his thesis on “The form, flow and dynamic character of meanders in a lowland river”. His work answers fundamental questions on how meanders develop, the hydrodynamics involved and the life trajectories of these meanders over long time scales, while also laying a strong groundwork for future work on special types of shapes of meander bends occurring in nature.
“I could have never imagined that I would get to defend my thesis sitting at the same table where I wrote the application for the SMART doctoral program years ago, given that this table is situated 7000 km away from Berlin in New Delhi. Many thanks to my supervisor Martin Pusch, the academic board and the doctoral office at FU Berlin, who made extra efforts so I could defend my thesis from India in a timely manner.” The Happy End: Tarun got his doctor’s degree in River Science!
He will now be joining Newcastle University in the UK as a postdoc within a project aimed at assessing ecosystem services of some of the most vulnerable and large delta systems on the planet (livingdeltas.org).
