Invitation to KIT: New Structure for the Expert Committee Meeting

Prof. Martin Heilmaier invited the Expert Committee Intermetallic Phases to this year's meeting at the Institute of Applied Materials - Materials Science (IAM-WK) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Normally, the Expert Committee meeting takes place over a full day, with a get-together the evening before. This time we deviated from that pattern and met at two o'clock on Thursday, 20 February 2025. This made it possible to travel by train from all parts of Germany on the same day.

Tour of the Lab and Exchange of Ideas in the Evening

The get-together and the tour of the IAM-WK laboratories were moved to Thursday evening. This allowed all participants to attend the tour and the get-together. In some cases, these items had previously fallen victim to late arrivals or early departures. The second part of the presentations and the rest of the meeting took place on Friday morning. The changed concept was well received by the attendees, so we plan to continue this format in 2026. It was also possible to follow the presentations and the formal part of the meeting online, which gave Dr. Klein the opportunity to welcome the participants on behalf of the DGM.

Lectures: From Theory to Application

The presentations, which took place on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, covered a wide range of topics in the field of intermetallic materials. These ranged from density functional theory calculations to precipitation hardened high entropy alloys and oxidation behavior. It was again pleasing to see that a large proportion of the talks were given by young researchers at the PhD or early postdoc stage. The various presentations led to some lively discussions, and the integration of the online participants went smoothly.

Good Mood Despite Token Strike

Even a token strike on Friday at the Karlsruhe public transport company could not dampen the positive course of the meeting. Especially not when it turned out that the most important connections between KIT and the train station were still running. Thus, when we said goodbye on Friday at noon, we could look back on a completely successful expert committee meeting with excellent organization by the Karlsruhe hosts.

Prof. Dr. Florian Pyczak
 

Information about all the expert committees can be found on the DGM website at https://dgm.de/en/network.
If you are interested in becoming an active member of one of the committees, please send a brief email to fachgremiendgm.de.