Cardiovascular Research PhD Student Retreat
The new Cardiovascular Research PhD Specialization Program was successfully initiated in early 2023 and collaborates with three partner programs, namely the Cardiovascular and Metabolism PhD Program (University of Lausanne), the Cardiovascular / Human Cardiovascular Sciences PhD Program (Università della Svizzera Italiana) and the Atherosclerosis PhD Program (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität & Technical University Munich).
On November 17, 2023, the first Student Retreat of the new Cardiovascular Research PhD Specialization Program took place at Gurten Park in Bern. We are happy to announce that this first Student Retreat exceeded our expectations with 18 participating students, including seven from some of the partner programs. In the morning, students gave flash presentations of their research work. In the afternoon, there was an interactive workshop on practical aspects of statistics led by Dr. Frédéric Schütz, Head of the Biostatistics Platform, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics / University of Lausanne. As part of this dynamic workshop, individual statistics questions submitted by the students in advance were discussed. During the coffee and lunch breaks, there was time for casual networking among the students.
The best student presentations were chosen by the students themselves (audience prize). Congratulations to the winners: 1st Place – Saranda Nimani (Translational Cardiology, Departments of Physiology & Cardiology, University of Bern), 2nd Place – Ilaria Barison (Cardiocentro Ticino Institute, Università della Svizzera Italiana), and 3rd Place – Selianne Graf (Department for Cardiac Surgery & Department for BioMedical Research, University of Bern).
We would like to express our appreciation to the University of Bern for the financial support of the Cardiovascular Research PhD Specialization Program (Förderprogramm “Doktoratsprogramme / Graduate Schools Universität Bern 2021-2024”), which made this retreat possible. We would also like to thank the Cardiovascular Research Cluster (CVRC) Bern for organizing this retreat, namely Dr. Maria Arnold, Ms. Daniela Castillo, Prof. Sarah Longnus and Prof. Katja Odening. And of course a big thank-you to all participating students who made this retreat a fruitful and enjoyable event! We are already looking forward to the next retreat.
