Alessio Miscioscia - Travel Award Interview

Congratulations on winning the PHGS Travel Award 2024. You are one of a total of four PHGS members who have won the 2024 award and thus received up to 3,000 euros to finance participation in a scientific event. For which event did you use the PHGS Travel Award money for?

I used my PHGS Travel Award to visit some institutions in the USA, give talks and start new collaboration. Visited institutes are Stony Brook university, Yale University ,Princeton Univeristy, Caltech, UCLA, UCSB.

Where, when and for how long did the event take place?

My visits in the USA started at the end of August and it ends at the beginning of October 2024.

Please describe the event. Who was the organizer? Were there many people present or only a few? Is it a regular event or a one-time event? What was the event about? Which speakers or interesting people were there?

Visited the institutions above gave me the possibility to start new projects, present my work and discuss with many leading scientist in my community (including Igor Klebanov, Zohar Komargodski, Leonardo Rastelli, David Poland, David Simmons-Duffin, David Berenstein,…). Furthermore it gave me the possibilit to discuss with them and in fact one of those institutions offered me a position for my future postdoc.

Please describe your role at the event. Were you mainly a listener? A visitor? Did you give a talk or display a poster? Were you there to meet people for discussions?

In every institution I gave a talk about my research about thermal effects in conformal field theories, but most important I had the opportuninity to interact with important scientists and leading expert in my field.

Please describe how you benefited from the event. Did you get the chance to broaden and strengthen your network? Did you gain new scientific knowledge and/or received feedback on your scientific findings? Were you able to clarify questions that will help you in your further work on your doctorate?

The main benefits includes a powerful network, many crucial feedback (which also ended up in a published prepreint), many important discussions, new projects.

What was the best thing about the event?

The possibilty to interact with extremley important and leading scientists.

Was it worth taking part in the event respectively having made the trip?

It was definitely worth and I’m sure it will really benefit my future career.

Is there anything you would advise or recommend to future participants?

No particular advise: it is important in our job to travel to connect with people as many as possible and to discuss with them. I hope the same possibility could be given to many more students

Thank you very much, Alessio, and all the best to you for your further studies.