Recently, Lightsources.org asked scientists at light source facilities from all over the world to record a short video statement, pointing out why and how synchrotron light is useful for their research. The outreach campaign is featuring the variety of research done at light sources in a comprehensible way, easy to understand by all citizens. HZB chemist Marion Flatken took part. She is doing her doctorate on perovskite materials for solar cells in Antonio Abate’s team.

Why did you take part in the #LightSourceSelfie campaign?

For me it’s important to make transparent how we work in research. Actually, this is also in the spirit of Hermann von Helmholtz, the great physicist, who was a great communicator too. It was really exciting to participate in this video campaign, there are 25 different videos from people all over the world, and we will soon all get to know each other virtually, that’s international networking.

How tedious was the preparation?

It wasn’t much work for me. There was a guideline with questions that were all very intuitive, I read through that and made a few notes. Then we recorded different footages, Florentine from HZB-Comms prepared everything for it. We needed maybe 30 minutes: we filmed in front of BESSY II, went to the PTB hutch, but also the HySPRINT Innovation Lab where I work. We send all the recordings to Lightsources.org and they took care of the film production.  

And what was the response like?

A lot of people did see it on YouTube, and even university colleagues from years ago got in touch again. I got a lot of nice messages. I was really happy about that.

Additional Information:

Lightsources.org is the result of a collaboration between communicators from light source facilities around the world. This platform groups 23 synchrotrons and 7 FEL facilities from Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, Asia and Australia. You can subscribe to a weekly update here >

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