The "Best FIGSS Talk " was awarded for the first time by the Frankfurt International Graduate School for Science (FIGSS) at FIAS. The FIGSS was founded in 2004 and brings together the doctoral students at FIAS who work at a broad variety of research topics ranging from nuclear physics to mathematical biology. In the bi-weekly FIGSS Seminar, doctoral students present their research to a broad scientific audience including their fellow doctoral students at FIAS.

In the winter semester 2022/2023, nine doctoral students presented their work and current projects. All talks were evaluated by a jury consisting of the FIGSS Scientific Coordinator, Dr. Sebastian Thallmair, and the FIGSS Administrational Coordinator, Doris Hardt .

The awardees Mariia Golden (Goethe University), Marc Pereyra (FIAS), and Pamela Osuna (FIAS) investigate the embryonic development of insects and the connectivity of neurons in the brain, respectively. The first prize for the “Best FIGSS Talk” was awarded to Mariia Golden and Marc Pereyra. Their tandem talk entitled Detection of serosa contraction waves with PIV from 3D recordings of the embryonic development of Tribolium castaneum convinced the jury with a coherent presentation of the joint theoretical and experimental work to characterize cell motion during the development of red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum. The smooth transitions between the more than once alternating speakers nicely illustrated the close collaboration in this research project embedded in the Center for Multiscale Modeling in Life Sciences (CMMS) at FIAS.

Pamela Osuna won the second prize of the “Best FIGSS Talk” with her talk entitled Automated pipeline for large-scale analysis of dendritic spines. In her presentation, Osuna explained the details of the machine learning-based approach which she uses used to detect dendritic spines which play an important role in the communication between neighboring neurons. The clear presentation and the detailed discussion of the challenges as well as an example application convinced the jury.

Photo (from left to right): The prize winners Marc Pereyra and Pamela Osuna (Mariia Golden was absent) received a book voucher from FIGSS coordinators Doris Hardt and Sebastian Thallmair. (c) Störiko/FIAS.

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