Dr. Brian Cahill rewarded „MCAA Alumni of the year“
Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) highlights and rewards its members for their actions and activities within the research community
09.03.2016 von Brian Cahill/sk/mcaa
Each year the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) intends to highlight and reward its members for their actions and activities within the research community. Dr. Brian Cahill has been rewarded as „Alumni of the Year 2015“ for his „outstanding and exemplary contributions and leadership of the German Chapter and his contributions to the entire MCAA community“.
In January 2015, two CoWet fellows from the TU Darmstadt Vignesh Thammana Gurumurthy and Md Ehsanul Alam hosted the Kick-Off Meeting of the German Chapter of Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA). At this meeting, Vignesh and Ehsanul were elected to the Board of the chapter and Vignesh volunteered for the post of Treasurer. It was decided that the German Chapter would organize a career training event in Darmstadt and the main organizers were Vignesh, Ehsanul and the Chapter Chair Brian Cahill. Vignesh came up with the idea of focusing on the choices that face Marie Curie fellows when their fellowship ends: whether to pursue a career in academic research, in industry or to start-up a business. This blueprint exactly matches the European Commission’s priorities for the career development of Marie Curie Fellows. It also exactly meets the expectations of many fellows themselves.
On the 10th June 2015, the German Chapter of the Marie Curie Alumni Association held its first career event and the largest event ever organized by a MCAA chapter. Over 70 MCAA members attended. The German chapter marketed the event to current MCAA members but also to prospective members and supervisors. In this way, the German Chapter drove membership growth of the MCAA. The agenda covered science communication, soft skills, tax issues, the Emmy-Noether Programme of the DFG, the EXIST program for graduate startups and how to manage industry-academia partnerships.
The CoWet project provided very strong support to this initiative through the engagement of Vignesh and Ehsanul but also through the extraordinary cooperation and help offered by the Center of Smart Interfaces at Technische Universität Darmstadt. Without the organizational skills of Monika Medina España, it is unlikely the event could have taken place. Prof. Tropea held a talk on Publishing from the perspective of a Journal Editor. Sebastian Keuth looked after the audio-visual setup of the venue.
The European Commission is particularly interested in providing such broad career development training to Marie Curie Fellows. As Chair of the German Chapter, I attended the 2016 MCAA General Assembly in Venice and was invited to share the secrets of success with the Executive Board and the Chairs of Working Groups and Chapters. I was first awarded the Outstanding Contributor Award for 2015 and subsequently elected Chair of the Executive Board of MCAA. I explained quite clearly that I was receiving these honors through my cooperation with many people in Germany and that I was particularly thankful to Ehsanul and Vignesh, who make such a huge contribution to the work of the German Chapter.
