Season 3
Life of P.I. season 3 saw more external speakers, including speakers from industry and journal editors. Like last year we had speakers from Uniklikum, ZMBH, DKFZ and of course our beloved COS. Also, we were able to host speakers from Institutes in Vienna, Lyon and Nijmegen. Starting with this season we also streamed all the talks to Students from our University that could not be there. We also had to cancel our first talk because of an illness but were able to make up for that only a few weeks later! We expanded on our merch and even got our own little tiger mascot!
Overall, season 3 took everything a bit further and expanded on our technical facilities and international connections. We are very happy and grateful for all the amazing speakers that gave talks and to all the people who attended live or online in the stream! See you next year :)
If you would like to see the speaker lineup for season 3, have a look here.
Season 2
Greenlighting Life of P.I. season 2 introduced several changes. Our organization team grew to include MolBio master's students from multiple majors and bachelor's students from the biosciences program. We extended invites to speakers from several different institutes in Heidelberg, such as EMBL, Uniklinikum, ZMBH, etc. We obtained funding to fly in our first external speaker from Spain. We also produced our own merch - you may have spotted our tote bags or won a sticker or two! Most importantly, season 2 was filled with inspiring stories, great questions, and engaging discussions. Big thanks go to our fantastic speakers and everyone who attended and participated!
If you would like to see the speaker lineup for season 2, have a look here.
Season 1
Season 1 is where it all started. After Angela Nieto's Bertalanffy lecture where she detailed her life and career in science and academia, four master's students in the developmental and stem cell biology major decided they wanted to give their lecturers the platform to do the same. Norin was the one to coin the term 'Life of P.I.', Vincenzo and Iva designed our first poster (in total agreement and harmony), and Rebecca found organizing the logistics to be quite fun (did you know that the first season actually appeared as an official course/lecture in the LSF?). There are several points to highlight from our first season. First, it was amazing that our invited speakers responded with enthusiasm to participate. Each and every one of them made the talk their own, provided different perspectives, and truly showed how variable an academic career can be. Then, the engagement from the students' side came in the form of many questions of which many devolved into outright discussions about, e.g., narrative-driven vs. unbiased research, building dual careers, dealing with imposter syndrome, the current state of publishing, and more. As the season progressed, we added more talks but soon realized we weren't quite ready to end it there...
