Lawrence Berkeley National Lab had its first National Postdoc Appreciation Week, and it has been widely embraced both by postdocs and senior scientists !
Over the week of Sept 19-23, many events across the lab and across divisions brought scientists together over coffee, science slams or dinner at sunset.
Among the highlights were the ALS/Molecular Foundry slam (pictures here), where the postdocs from the Advanced Light Source and Molecular Foundry united forces to present their science in a condensed form. Ruimin Qiao from ALS won the contest.
The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) kickstarted the event on Monday Sept 20th, with a pizza lunch. Computer Research Division (CRD) and the Biosciences division also organized their gathering, while Earth and Environmental Science Division (EESA) organized a Twitter challenge and PIs engaged the young scientists over coffee.
The lab-wide event on Thursday drew over 150 postdocs, and many eminent scientists (among them Wim Leemans and James Symons) shared drinks and a gorgeous fall sunset on the patio of the cafetria (pictures are here).
Lab deputy director and BLPA executive sponsor Horst Simon gave an address to the postdocs, underlining the importance and the great promises of research as a young scientist, unencumbered with non-scientific aspect of running a team and a lab.
Postdocs at the lab were also thrilled to have their counterparts from MSRI, located just above the lab on the hill; spouses, partners and children were also welcome to the party (though their drink options were more limited.)
Thanks to the lab management for support, and all the members of the Berkeley Lab Postdoc Association for organizing these events !
The National Postdoc Appreciation is not over yet, with the Energy Technologies Area (ETA) having it event on October 20th.