IRTG Travel Grants Programme

PhD candidate Hannah Niehaus joint the CHESS winter school on Ocean, Sea Ice, and Atmosphere Interactions in Longyearbyen, Svalbard

Already the flight to Svalbard was a highlight seeing sea ice for the first time. The school itself started on Sunday afternoon with an icebreaker event where we met all participants and lecturers at a bonfire in a relaxed and open atmosphere. From Monday to Friday we had plenty of lectures on different compartments and approaches of Arctic research. On Monday there was also the first poster session where I was able to present and discuss my work with the other participants and with the lecturers. The posters were kept for the following two days to enable the continuation of discussions in the coffee and lunch breaks that were spent together in the same area where the poster session took place. Another highlight of the course was a boat trip on Tuesday evening where we could actually see sea ice from close distance, especially young pancake ice whose formation we had just discussed the same day in a lecture. In general the participation in this school was great to gain a broader overview of the important compartments and their interplay in the Arctic as well as a feeling for the importance and integration of my small subproject. Discussing and sharing experiences with other students was also very motivating and after a slow start in my PhD during covid I feel now a little bit more connected to other researchers and institutions in my field.

A list of all funded travel grants can be found on the IRTG page here.