AVA Fellows join Marie Curie Celebrations across Europe

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The 7th November was the 150th anniversary of the birth of Marie Curie Skłodowska Curie. In order to celebrate her life and achievements, as well as the EU funding program that bears her name, fellows from the AVA network joined a simultaneous event at the University of Liverpool, CERN and LMU, Munich.

The event coordinator Prof Carsten Welsch said, ”The event was an enormous success. We had hundreds of school children, students and researchers participating across the three sites, as well as more than half a million people who read about the event via internet and social media on the day.”

Marie Curie introduces the day

In Liverpool, more than 70 high school students attended a series of activities at the University. The day started at the historic Victoria Gallery & Museum with an introduction by Madame Curie. This was followed by a live-streamed talk from CERN by Dr Marco Silari about the international impact of Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (MSCAs).

The students then enjoyed hands-on demonstrations on radioactivity and a poster session with contributions from AVA fellows. The students also participated in their own poster competition about “Women in Science”. All the entries were of excellent quality and the winner was the North Liverpool Academy.

AVA Fellows at the poster sessions

The afternoon activities finished with a live-streamed talk by Prof Welsch about Researcher Training. A film contributed by the European Commission’s DG EAC, Martine Reicherts, provided additional background information and the view of the EU.

Evening activities were open to the whole University community and included a live-streamed talk by Prof Katia Parodi from LMU Munich about the impact of MSCAs on education and research in ion beam cancer therapy. The day ended with a reception for all participants.

A special motivation for organizing this celebration were the pan-European training networks, including AVA, funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie grants and coordinated by the Department of Physics which have supported almost 100 research fellows. But first and foremost, Marie Curie remains an inspirational figure who paved the way for many women in science and today and 150 years on from her birth, still continues to inspire a new generation of scientists.

More information, including Fellows’ individual profiles and videos of all talks, can be found on the event home page: http://www.marie-curie-day-2017.org.