We welcome Annika Schimmelpfennig as a new member of the OCC PhD program. Annika Schimmelpfennig started her PhD project "Castration vs. Sterilization – Effects on Animal Welfare" under the supervision of OCC member Prof. Dr. Sylvia Kaiser at the Department of Behavioural Biology. The PhD committee is completed by Prof. Dr. Stefan Schlatt and the OCC member Prof. Dr. Norbert Sachser.
We welcome Jana Masselink as a new member of the OCC PhD program. She started her PhD project "Oculomotor learning via plasticity in visouspatial, motor and forward model coordinates" under the supervision of OCC member Prof. Dr. Markus Lappe at the Department of Psychology. The PhD committee is completed by the OCC members Prof. Dr. Rebekka Lencer and Prof. Dr. Heiko Wagner.
In collaboration with the Hertie Foundation (Gemeinnützige Hertie Stiftung) the OCC offers the material for the project "Wir sind Hirnforscher" to primary schools in Münster. The aim of the lesson series designed by the Hertie Foundation is to introduce children to the control center of our body - our brain. The pupils themselves take on the role of brain researchers and, through their own experimentation, find the answers to several exciting questions about the brain. Additionally, our OCC PhD students visit the classes in the end of the project to talk about their own research and the experiments they conduct at the university and to try to answer the pupils' numerous further questions about the brain.
The PhD students Jennifer Pomp and Malte Scherff, who already visited classes that participated in the project at the Kardinal-von-Galen-Schule, the Wartburg Grundschule and the Marienschule, now were interviewed by the Hertie Foundation and asked about their experiences with working with the elementary school children, their motivation to volunteer in the project and the collaboration with the little robot Mr. Tie, who is an integral part of the project. You can find the complete interview here.
