At the end of October, students and postdocs joined in on the first listening session of the new MRSEC. The purpose of this meeting was to convey the Center’s resources for supporting students and postdocs and to gather feedback and suggestions from participants.
MRSEC Director, Paul Voyles, kicked off the session with an overview of some of the resources available to participants as well as the specific things expected of students and postdocs. Those slides are available for download here:
Download Slide Presentation from Listening Session
The remainder of the session was spent collecting feedback from attendees on interest areas. One topic that rose to the surface was an interest in opportunities to network and collaborate with companies that would have an interest in hiring people with advanced degrees in areas related to MRSEC research. Additionally, there is an interest in learning what others are working on in different research groups.
Each year, the Wisconsin MRSEC will host a similar listening session to help maintain good alignment between the center’s activities and the needs and interests of the participating students and postdocs.