What does your life look like when you're a starting scientist? For the tenth time, 12 talented PhD students have been selected to report on their daily work and life. UT PhD student Femke Witmans is one of them. She researches nanowires, a promising building block for quantum computers.
On Facesofscience.nl, dozens of PhD students blog about their research, science in general and their lives as scientists. The blogs are interesting for anyone who wants to know how science works in practice. They also give a realistic picture to students who have to decide whether they want to continue in science, and to pupils from 5 and 6 vwo who are faced with a choice of study.s
Femke Witmans.
Femke, PhD student in the departments Nano Electronics and Interfaces and Collerated Electron Systems, is now one of them. She is researching promising building blocks for the quantum computer: nanowires, about 1,000 times thinner than a human hair. Quantum computers are in full development and promise a revolution. In principle, they can solve problems that cannot be solved with current computers, or it will take thousands of years.
About faces of Science
Faces of Science is a network of PhD students from different fields who give science a young face through blogs, videos, articles, lectures and media appearances. The PhD students are nominated by members of the KNAW, members and alumni of The Young Academy and NEMO Kennislink. Faces of Science is a project of the KNAW, De Jonge Akademie and NEMO Kennislink, funded by the Lira Foundation. Since its inception in 2013, 114 PhD students have spoken as Faces of Science about their research and their lives as scientists to students, schoolchildren, journalists and other groups in society.