2024 - October

The following candidates ran for a total of three positions.

Leon Chryssos

Email: leon.chryssos@tum.de

Forschungs-Neutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II)

I am in the third year of my doctorate at the positron source of the research reactor at TUM. I started my bachelors degree in 2015 at TUM and have completed both my bachelor's and master's degree here. I have been a representative for the past year and I have also been the second speaker of the Graduate Council, which represents us on a TUM wide level.

One of the most relevant parts of our last year were the changes in teaching duties at the NAT school. Melanie, Maria and me did our best to re-negotiate the terms of those changes in our favor, yet there is still work to be done here. I want to press on to make all the requirements for us doctoral candidates more transparent and easier to navigate.

This also applies to my work at the Graduate Council in which I have been active as a second speaker. Here I was able to give critical input to the Graduate School about the difficulties we are facing with the goal to de-clutter bureaucratic processes and make things easier for external students. Me and the first speaker of the Council, Stuart, have also talked to the TUM president about more general problems doctoral students face. This includes things such as contract lengths and coverage, as well as, living conditions in Munich and what can be done to ease the financial burden for us. 

We also organized several social gatherings and events, like TUMblue and workshops to come up with new ideas for at doctorate at TUM and I will continue to improve those in the forthcoming year.

I hope you will trust me with your vote again.

Maria-Teresa Handschuh

Email: maria-teresa.handschuh@tum.de

Walther-Meißner-Institut, Lehrstuhl für Technische Physik (Prof. Gross)

Hey everyone! I’m Maria, and I’m in my third year of my Ph.D. here at TUM. While I didn’t start out at TUM—I did my Master’s in Nanoscience - Physics in Regensburg—I know what it’s like to join a new doctoral community. I’m excited to bring my experiences and help make sure everyone feels welcome and included.

This past year, I’ve had the chance to be one of your representatives. We’ve faced some challenges, but we’ve also made good progress by starting important conversations and projects that have given us a stronger voice. A big topic this year was the changes in teaching duties at the NAT school. We worked hard to negotiate better terms, but there’s still more to do, and I’m ready to keep pushing forward!

What I’m really passionate about is making sure communication is easy, important info is accessible, and that we continue organizing events like the Job Info event for the whole School of Natural Sciences. I believe that if we work together, we can make our time at TUM more supportive and useful for everyone.

Let’s keep moving forward and make next year even better!

Melanie Hoffmann

Email: melanie.e.hoffmann@tum.de

Professur für Molekulare Katalyse (Prof. Kühn)

I obtained my Bachelor's and Master's in Chemistry at TUM. After a detour at ETH Zürich, I started my doctorate in the Group of Fritz E. Kühn this May. I am glad to be back in Munich and be able to spend my time working in the lab and ballroom dancing in my free time. As a board member of the Young German Chemistry Society Munich (JCF München), I have helped organize academic and networking events for Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD students. However, my main interest is to make the doctorate an excellent time for everyone at TUM. I am already organizing fun events, like the Mario Kart Tournament (8th Nov.), but I also want to ensure that the Ph.D. students' interests are met at the School of Natural Science.

Please trust me to bring your interests to the School and help to make your time at TUM a great experience.

2023 - October

The Candidates and their Manifestos

Four candidates ran for a total of three positions.

Leon Chryssos

Email: leon.chryssos@tum.de

Forschungs-Neutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II)

I am in the second year of my doctorate at the positron source of the research reactor at TUM. I started my bachelors degree in 2015 at TUM and have completed both my bachelor's and master's degree here. Having also been born in Munich, I would be glad to represent doctoral students in my home town.

Doctoral students are one of the most essential parts of university research. Unfortunately, in recent years the cost of living crisis and other external factors have put an additional burden on many of us. This is why I am also a member of the GEW trade union, which is currently fighting for substantial pay increases for educational personnel. Additionally, I will organize social events. This is an important way to get together with fellow students, help each other out and build a social community on campus.

I hope you will trust me with your vote.

Maria-Teresa Handschuh

Email: maria-teresa.handschuh@tum.de

Walther-Meißner-Institut, Lehrstuhl für Technische Physik (Prof. Gross)

My name is Maria, and I am currently in my second year of my Ph.D. program. Although I didn't start my academic journey here at TUM, I understand the challenges faced by students like me who are new to this doctoral community. Having completed my Master's in Nanoscience - Physics in Regensburg, I bring a unique perspective to our community, and I am dedicated to ensuring that every student feels welcome and valued. I am passionate about making our university experience memorable and supportive by providing a platform for better communication, ensuring that essential information reaches each one of you. I aim to organize events tailored to our specific needs, assisting new students in their transition to life at TUM. I believe that by encouraging a supportive atmosphere, we can enhance the overall quality of our academic journey.

I see this opportunity as a representative of the School of Natural Science not only as a chance to get involved but also as a responsibility to represent your voices effectively. Together, let’s make our graduate school experience enriching and enjoyable.

Melanie Hoffmann

Email: melanie.e.hoffmann@tum.de

Professur für Molekulare Katalyse (Prof. Kühn)

I obtained my Bachelor's and Master's in Chemistry at TUM. After a detour at ETH Zürich, I started my doctorate in the Group of Fritz E. Kühn this May. I am glad to be back in Munich and be able to spend my time working in the lab and ballroom dancing in my free time. As a board member of the Young German Chemistry Society Munich (JCF München), I have helped organize academic and networking events for Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD students. However, my main interest is to make the doctorate an excellent time for everyone at TUM. I am already organizing fun events, like the Mario Kart Tournament (8th Nov.), but I also want to ensure that the Ph.D. students' interests are met at the School of Natural Science.

Please trust me to bring your interests to the School and help to make your time at TUM a great experience.

Chuanlei Li

Email: lichuanlei18@mails.ucas.ac.cn

Lehrstuhl für Technische Chemie II (Prof. Lercher)

Nice to see all of you!

My name is Chuanlei Li, a Chinese doctoral student here. It’s my great honor to apply to be a doctoral representative of the School of Natural Sciences in the following one year. There are several things that I plan to do in the following one year as a doctoral representative.

1. Culture. Many students want to know the culture of those international students who are from different countries. According to this idea, I’d like to hold some events about this filed;

2. Communication. In our daily research, we mainly focus on our own project while not the other fields, it’s a good opportunity to organize kinds of interdisciplinary discussions;

3. Hiking. In Munich, we’re very close to the Alpine mountains and the transportation is quite convenient to reach those places, so we’d like to organize more activities about hiking in the future.

Furthermore, your support, help and understanding applause us to do more volunteer work. In the following one year, we hope all of us to join and attend all the event we hold, and make a glorious world in the future.

Results

Elected: Leon Chryssos, Maria-Teresa Handschuh, Melanie Hoffmann

Voting was carried out electronically. Each voter was assigned 3 votes and could assign at most 1 vote per candidate.

2023 - March

The Candidates and their Manifestos

Four candidates ran for a total of three positions.

Matthias Carosi

Email: matthias.carosi@tum.de

Professur für Theoretische Physik des frühen Universums (Prof. Garbrecht)

I started my doctorate little more than a year ago in the chair of theoretical Physics of the Early Universe (T70), after completing the master program Theoretical and Mathematical Physics at TUM/LMU. Originally I come from a small town just outside Rome, Italy, therefore being part of the third most represented nationality at TUM. I am a full-on theorist, as my time is mostly spent on a computer: reading, coding and (seldom) writing.

The environment in which we work plays a major role in determining both our productivity and our happiness. The pandemic and the consequent years of home-office have shattered this environment to pieces, leaving us to rebuild a community in the TUM school of natural sciences. It is my intention to continue the work started by the current representatives: encourage and create initiatives that bring us together, while we shape our growing community to be inclusive and diverse. I would like to repeat the successful job event of last year, and further have an awareness seminar on the discrimination that minorities still endure in our scientific environment.

I hope you will trust Vassily and me to be a well complementing pair.

Chuanlei Li

Email: lichuanlei18@mails.ucas.ac.cn

Lehrstuhl für Technische Chemie II (Prof. Lercher)

Statement of Purpose

Nice to see all of you!

My name is Chuanlei Li, a Chinese doctoral student here. It’s my great honor to apply to be a doctoral representative of the School of Natural Sciences. There are several reasons which push me to compete with this position.

1. Experienced. During my master period, I’m the student representative of all the international students in University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China;

2. Excellent Organizer. During almost every festival, I’d like to organize one celebrating event to learn the festival culture of western countries and introduce Chinese festival culture to all the students;

3. Collaborative. For every event that we organized, we need to collaborative with teachers, students and some sponsors. Therefore, I could cooperate well with everyone in every event.

In conclusion, we have lots of doctoral students who come from different countries in the world. While this is a good time to learn with each other, know with each other and cooperate with each other. And it’ll be my great honor to work for all the students here.

Vassily Burwitz

Email: vassily.burwitz@frm2.tum.de

Forschungs-Neutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) (Prof. Hugenschmidt)

I am currently in the 5th (and hopefully final) year of my doctoral studies in the positron physics group at FRM II. Before this I studied my masters at TUM with the thesis work performed at IPP, where afterwards I worked as scientific staff before starting my doctoral studies. My "science experience" has been that of an experimentalist; An instrument builder and operator who occasionally goes on beamtimes at other large scale research facilities.

In a perfect world we would all be able to pursue our research in a safe environment in both an economic and a personal sense. Sadly reality is still a long way from this. If entrusted by you with the office of doctoral representative I will use the (limited) resources available towards this goal. My first goal is to finalize the permanent observer status on the new school council. This process was started by the previous representatives. After this I see my main task as to monitor and scrutinize the school councils actions, and where the interests of the doctoral students are concerned, pass on information to you (Although my name might suggest differently my mother tongue is German so I will not have trouble when interacting with the administration at TUM).

If you give your other vote to Matthias Carosi you will get the full experimentalist/theoretician combo.

Results

Elected: Chuanlei Li, Matthias Carosi, Vassily Burwitz