Five YIN members have taken on new positions as professors within the last six months. Anne Koziolek has just been announced professor for software engineering at KIT. Petra Schwer is now professor for geometry at the University Magdeburg. Bastian Rapp relocated to Freiburg University starting as professor for Process Technology. Frank Schröder has become assistant professor at the University of Delaware. And Cornelia Lee-Thedieck was welcomed as professor for cell biology at the University Hannover. Congratulations! As of now, there are 50 professors among YIN alumni (49%).

"Negotiating with Confidence", "Challenging Leadership Situations", and "Mastering Conflicts" are three new topics addressed by the YIN continuing education program 2019 - now online. Scheduled are also well-established workshops like "Leadership Excellence" or "Appointment Procedures". YIN continuing education is specially tailored for early-stage academic leaders including leadership skills, project and personnel management, as well as personal development. Small sized groups and expert consultants stand for the high quality of the program.

Dr. Frank Biedermann and Dr. Ulrich Paetzold each run a collaborative project supported by the Heidelberg Karlsruhe Strategic Partnership (HEiKA). Frank Biedermann and Prof. Thomas Kuner plan to apply artificial neurotransmitter receptors  for the monitoring of dopamine levels in neuronal tissues as well as in prefrontal cortex and basal nuclei of intact mice. Ulrich Paetzold and JProf. Yana Vaynzof aim to utilize the inkjet printing deposition method for fabrication of high yield and high performance perovskite solar cells. Since 2013, YIN members have been involved in 11 HEiKA projects.

Scientists at KIT and colleagues from TU Berlin are working on a better meat texture for plant substitutes.The typical impression when chewing, the mouth feeling, is based above all on the fibre-like texture of meat,"; explains YIN member Dr. Azad Emin. The process engineer heads the KIT junior research group „Extrusion of Biopolymers". In extrusion, a dough-like mass is pressed. The researchers are now analysing the interactions between pressure, temperature, flow and shear forces in order to specifically modify the structure of plant proteins.

YIN has been on a success story for 10 years! Special thanks go to the friends and supporters of the YIN who have accompanied the network over long distances. We were very happy to see many familiar faces at YIN Day 2018. Highlights of the public program were a scientific keynote lecture by YIN Alumna Prof. Erin Koos, KU Leuven, and a panel discussion on "Careers in Science - Fostering Research"; with selected representatives of the major external funding agencies and university policy. Thank you very much for coming!

With a new radio antenna field, Dr. Frank Schröder will search for high-energy photons that accompany the massively charged particles of cosmic rays. The future setup will also measure signals with energies smaller by a factor of 100 as in photons originating from our galaxy. "Within three years, I expect to obtain crucial indications as to where the highest-energy particles of the Milky Way are formed", says the former YIN member who has just taken up an assistant professorship at the University of Delaware, USA. The ERC will fund his project with 1.6 million euro over five years.