8th Election to the 1st Doctoral Students' Council of the TU Dresden

The PhD Council of the Technische Universität Dresden has a total of 17 votes, which are to be distributed evenly among the 17 faculties of the university.

The PhD Council can consist of up to 17 representatives, who are elected from the ranks of PhD students who have been accepted for doctoral studies and registered in Promovendus.

The main tasks of the PhD Council are the networking and interdisciplinary exchange of PhD students as well as the representation of the interests of the PhD student body at TU Dresden.

In May 2022, the PhD Students' Council was elected for the first time by all PhD students registered at TU Dresden. This means that the PhD Council represents more than 6000 registered doctoral students at TU Dresden.
The elections for the 1st PhD Council of the TU Dresden took place online on 25, 26 and 27 May 2022.

The candidates were:

Maren Weissig (Fakultät Architektur)

I am Maren and I am doing my PhD at the Faculty of Architecture. I would like to continue to represent the interests of doctoral students at TU Dresden, promote a lively doctoral student network and continue to help shape Technische Universität Dresden in the various committees.
Currently, I am actively working in the project group "Career Paths" and represent the interests of PhD students.
I studied art at the UdK Berlin and architecture at the TU Berlin, and have experience with student representation. My activities there included appointment committees, fundraising for projects, committee work, project organization and keeping alive an international network between students and graduates.
I would like to continue to advocate for doctoral students, to help shape the TU Dresden so that it is an open, supportive space for research and teaching.
The PhD Council offers a platform to be the contact person for individual PhD students on the one hand. I am concerned about the compatibility of funding research, family or care obligations with the doctorate. I would like to participate in the various committees in order to make the TU Dresden attractive for doctoral students, especially with regard to career opportunities. I would be happy to continue to take the opportunity to be there for the doctoral students.

Talika Neuendorf, (Fakultät Chemie und Lebensmitteltechnik)

I am Talika Neuendorf, 26 years old, and a third-year PhD student in chemistry at the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research in Dresden.
My research focuses on developing microscopic hydrogel building blocks and their assembly into complex, multifunctional materials using a novel additive manufacturing technique. In other words – LEGO® on the microscale. True to the motto "Chemistry is not everything, but everything is chemistry", what fascinates me most about my field is its interdisciplinarity, versatility, and the opportunity to be involved in the development of the materials of the future.
The start of my PhD overlapped with the pandemic’s beginning, so networking opportunities with other PhD students were very limited, and I initially felt slightly isolated. As I believe that research and the PhD live from the exchange of different disciplines, it is very important to me to promote and support trans- and interdisciplinary networking for young researchers and represent PhD students' interests.

Hifsa Pervez (Fakultät Maschinenwesen)

Hello all, as an international student in different countries (Canada, Denmark, UAE), I have realized that an important part of a fulfilling experience at the university relies on the student council.
I have been part of the first Fachschaftsrat of CMCB in Dresden where I was involved in the onboarding of new students and have been an active member of the Lise-Meitner-Gesellschaft in Dresden, Germany. There I helped organized meetups and local conferences to encourage open dialog and cultural exchange.
However, with the pandemic, a lot of things have changed and admittedly, a lot of us in such student clubs were not fully ready to face the new challenges that came with it. Moreover, with the recent crisis in Ukraine, the society is going through another wave of changes, and I believe a platform as the doctoral council helps foster an enriching space for all people equally in university.
Therefore, for our next Doctoral Council chapter, I would like to focus on some of the following questions and areas:

Increase awareness of existing platforms in Dresden for PhD that allow networking and make moving to a new city easier
Generally, I am very passionate about diversity in STEM fields and feel it should be discussed more
How can we tackle some of persistent issues with PhDs/Post-docs?
A mental health initiative: a safe, open & anonymous platform that deals with things like burn-out, common occurrence in academia

I personally find by sharing (experiences, food, ideas), we learn a lot about each other and develop tolerance and widen our perspective – key to a successful international study.
I wish to give back to the community of TUD from the great experiences it has given me and count on your votes :-)

Shamini Ramkumar Thirumalasetty (Fakultät Medizin)

All through my formative years as a young student of Biotechnology in India, I dreamt of working in a laboratory that was striving to make a real difference in bettering lives. I feel very grateful and extremely fortunate to be living that dream today. My name is Shamini and I have been pursuing my PhD in the field of Molecular Endocrinology at TU Dresden since October last year. Ever since I started here, I have had the opportunity to interact with many PhD students who’ve been very kind in sharing their experiences of dealing with the various vicissitudes that this enriching journey offers.
Having been the recipient of great support from these students, I would like to give back to the PhD community by being part of the Doctoral Council at TU Dresden. This is a great opportunity for me to make a difference outside the laboratory by voicing the needs of my fellow doctoral students and building a network through which we can learn and imbibe best practices from universities across Germany.
It would be a great honor to be a part of the Doctoral Council and serve my fellow students in making the PhD marathon a truly enjoyable experience.

Jasmin Stein (Fakultät Psychologie)

Dear fellow PhD students,
I started my PhD at the Faculty of Psychology last year and I would be happy to represent our interests by becoming a member of the Doctoral Council. In the last years, the COVID pandemic has made academic exchange and interdisciplinary collaboration but also networking and socializing very difficult for us. In the Doctoral Council, I would like to work towards bringing us all closer together again, both professionally and personally, and to create opportunities for us to support each other on our PhD adventures. This work will also include representing our interests in university committees and thus ensuring that our concerns are heard. In addition to networking and academic exchange, topics such as reproducibility and transparency in research, equality, and mental health are of personal importance to me. I am looking forward to discussing your interests, opinions, and concerns, to carrying these forward, and to making our PhD years as fun, interesting, and educational as possible.
I am looking forward to your votes and to the new tasks and challenges that working in the Doctoral Council will entail.

Majka Hausen (Fakultät Sprach-, Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften)

I am doing my PhD in linguistics (Slavic studies) and philosophy of language with Prof. Dr. Kuße (Dresden) and prof. PhDr. Vojtech Kolman (Prague). My concern for the PhD Council is to develop a concept for the integration of PhD students and also graduates into the teaching of the TUD, so that their expertise and ideas remain present and can become fruitful even after graduation or outside of a university position.

Isabell Lippert (Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften)

I have been doing my PhD at the TU Dresden since 6/15/21 and I am still happy about this option today, as it is not a matter of course considering my family history.

Commitment, having a say and helping to shape things have always been close to my heart. During my apprenticeship at AUDI AG, I was elected as a youth and trainee representative. I continued my trade union commitment beyond my training and received a scholarship from the Hans Böckler Foundation for this during my studies. At the Hans Böckler Foundation in particular, the focus is on having a say, because it is the scholarship holders who decide who is accepted.

I've also been through many different stages in my career: first training, then studying, project manager, parental leave, project manager again, and finally a doctorate. I try to teach my children that you have to take your luck into your own hands, and I also adopt this mentality in my teaching. For me, students are not followers, but I want to pull them along and inspire them, give them something to take with them, and be a role model for women who have also had to fight their way through, that you can make it if you set your own conditions and there is someone or other who believes in them.

So I'm happy to continue my spirit of commitment in the doctoral council and I hereby gladly stand for election.

Riyan Habeeb (Fakultät Architektur)

I am a third-year doctoral candidate at Dresden Leibniz Graduate School registered at Faculty of Architecture, TU Dresden. Having started the PhD in 2020 with the onset of the pandemic the journey has been a mixed bag. I have certainly learned and unlearned a lot of things along the way, this could have never been possible without the help and support of the TU Dresden community. In the light of this, I am eager to further this support by giving back to the community based on my experiences as a student, resident, and researcher at TU Dresden. Some of my key agendas (but not limited to) for joining the council are as follows:

Extension of support for newly joining PhD students and their smooth induction into the TUD community.
Proactive creation of preventive mechanisms to deal with disruptions arising due to seen and unforeseen political, public or personal circumstances.
To connect professional institutions with doctoral candidates based on mutual interests.
To foster stronger involvement of PhD students through various channels, events and activities especially for those who started during the pandemic.
To help in outreach and engagement of DDocs with larger student sections enrolled in various institutes at TU Dresden.

Slava Markin (Fakultät Bauingenieurwesen)

Hi, my name is Slava, I am PhD candidate at the Institute of construction materials. My field of research is concentrated on 3D printing of concrete. I am exploring possibilities and challenges of the digital construction and with my research, I want to contribute to the more sustainable and more favourable housing.
Due to my desire to extend my knowledge and broaden my horizon, I have been studying in total in four universities of three different countries. This experience gave me clear understanding how the university should support students and what are the main obstacles students face. I would like to use my knowledge and my ideas to the benefit of the PhD students at TU Dresden.
Main goals:

Advocate the interest of the PhD students.
Improve social networking and scientific exchange between PhD students: Organise seminars and workshops; create a space for more discussion and exchange.

Nils Kretzschmar (Fakultät Chemie und Lebensmittelchemie)

I am Nils Kretzschmar, 26 years old and a 3rd year PhD student in chemistry at the TU Dresden. As part of my work, funded by the Graduate Academy with the Saxon Scholarship program, I am working on the hydrodeoxygenation of bio-oils to renewable carbon sources and fuels based on the motto:

"The future will be green, or not at all" - Jonathon Porrit.

Besides my hobbies like Muay Thai, wakeboarding and video games, I am also politically involved in JU Dresden and RCDS. In the latter, I am part of the doctoral advisory board and advocate for the interests of doctoral students there. I would like to continue this effort in the PhD Council in order to act as a contact person for all PhD students and support a strong education and research.

Preetam Dacha (Fakultät Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik)

I am Preetam, a year 2 PhD student in Chair of Organic Devices, registered under the department of Electrical Engineering.
First of all, I would like to congratulate the present team and the former ones that were handling DDocs before for the wonderful initiative and continuation of the events despite the troublesome years in between.
I believe I can contribute to the committee because of my experience with graduate students and events organization from Masters and prior.
During my Masters year 2 at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore I was elected as the Orientation Director of the university Graduate Students Association (NTU GSA). Under this position, I have organized Orientation events for the incoming post-graduates (Masters and Phds) twice. From familiarizing the students to the new environment to organizing trips around the city giving them an opportunity to interact with the masses, all the programs organized were well received. Apart from this, I also managed to get external funding to provide goodies to the incoming grads during the welcoming.
In my Masters year 1, I was a member of the EEE Graduate student council wherein I actively participated in organizing events specific to the department. With this expertise and many more, I believe I would be a credible candidate to be a part of the next doctoral council.
If considered for, I see quite an opportunity for immense growth of DDocs. This would be possible by collaborating with the departments to get the incoming graduates information which should also be available from Graduate Academy. If possible, it would be great to have a representative from each and every department at TUD which will help us reach out to everyone. The TUD welcome center organizes certain events every now and then for PhDs and PostDocs. If possible, a discussion with the team there can help us organize events together in a larger scale.
Apart from spreading wings and organizing events, another important discussion I would like to bring about is the issues PhDs face. Whether minor or major, it always helps to have guidance from peers. I believe that the Happy hour at Campus Bar is helping mitigate this but not to the extent of reaching out to everyone. I believe having some kind of a buddy program will help in these terms. I believe that all of this would be possible with some effort and contribution to the university for what I have got myself.

Aydin Homay (Fakultät Informatik)

With more than 16 years of experience in the Software Industry, I am a hands-on coding software architect and technical team lead. I started computer programming as a hobby in GW-basic on Commodore 64, then moved to the Qbasic and developed a program to turn on/off 9 LEDs via LPT interface (Parallel Port) back in 1997. I did my B.Eng.i Software Engineering, M.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence and am continuing an engineering Ph.D. in the field of Computer Science with a focus on Changeable Industrial Control and Automation Systems at Informatic Faculty, TU -Dresden.
My Ph.D. program is based on an Individual Ph.D. Program offered by TU Dresden for people from industry, therefore I’m permanently working at Siemens Healthineers as a Senior Software Architect on developing a complex cancer therapy solution called Proton Therapy. By the industrial experience that I accumulated during the past 16 years and academic publication records in the related field, I’m willing to establishing interdisciplinary academical and industrial collaborations for Ph.D. students at TU Dresden. My aim is to extend TU Dresden Ph.D. community by establishing cross-functional activities and interdisciplinary exchange opportunities.

István Simon (Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften)

My name is István Simon, I am a cultural manager and an international ballet artist. I was the first performing artist to be accepted at the TU Business and Economics faculty as a doctoral student. My field is ArtScience, I am researching the impact of performing arts on management learning in the context of experimental teaching.
I define my work as interspace management, connecting remote areas of knowledge with the intention of facilitating innovation in science and business.
As a member of the Doctoral Council, my intention is

to contribute to the development of interpersonal relationships and network
to foster collaborations and exchanges
to improve the visibility of the doctoral students and their work within, as well as outside of the university.
lobby for the development of such sustainable models and structures that can give various desirable perspectives for TU Doctoral Students to remain and continue their work in Dresden if they wish to do so.

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