Report from GATIS Network Meeting at KCL

by Xinyi Chen Reports from Events, Research Training

The first GATIS network meeting of the year took place in Kings College London (KCL), UK, on 10th to 14th of February, 2014. The Nordita GATIS fellows, James Gordon and Xinyi Chen, attended the meeting. Xinyi reports:

The GATIS (Gauge Theories as an Integrable System) network is an EU-funded Marie Curie Initial Training Program, of which Nordita is one of 17 partners. The event held at KCL was a gathering of mostly young researchers from different partner institutions. It consisted of two separate parts. The first part was a scientific workshop, called "Strongly Coupled Gauge Theories", while the second part was devoted to a soft-skill training program on scientific communication, with subsequent proposals about outreach projects of the network.

The scientific workshop lasted two days, where a total of 22 researchers gave short presentations about their current research. I had the opportunity to give my first talk as PhD student, about my ongoing project with my supervisor, Nordita Professor Konstantin Zarembo, and fellow PhD student James Gordon. I presented the model we are currently working on, the so-called N=2* Super Yang-Mills theory, in the holographic setting. Some of our preliminary results were showed as well.

During the following two days, one of the private partners of the GATIS network, SISSA Medialab, gave us an introductory course on scientific communication. Group activities were organized, such as practicing talks aimed at various audiences, and writing scientific news titles and abstracts for the general public.

On the last day, participants, including some senior researchers from the network, formed three groups to discuss GATIS outreaching projects. This was mediated by professionals from two other privates sectors, Milde Marketing and Mann beisst Hund. We discussed a website project, which might involve a blog addressed to a non-specialist audience; a visual project, which will consist of a short film about the network; and, last but not least, a social media project, both for internal communication and public outreach. Future meetings of GATIS fellows and the private companies will further develop these projects.

The experience, overall, was enriching, with a friendly atmosphere. More information about GATIS can be found on its official website: gatis.desy.eu