What is “Speed Date with Research”?

“Speed date with research” is an annual event where master students of Engineering Physics can meet PhD students and PostDocs from the Physics Department of Politecnico di Milano and jump into their research activity. The students can ask any curiosity about the laboratories of the Physics Department directly to the people that live the lab-life. Once the students find out what is the topic that fascinates them most they can subsequently apply to join that research group for their Master Thesis!

Who invented “Speed Date with Research”?

The event has been conceived by the Student Chapters of Politecnico di Milano, associations of young researchers born inside the Physics Department of Polimi in 2019, motivated to promote outreach and scientific dissemination, and to build a solid connection between the students and the professors / alumni of Engineering Physics. The event was born as a very exciting opportunity for the master students to get insights on the research activities of the Physics Department, in order to inspire them for the choice of the master thesis project.

Since the great success of the first edition in 2019, the event has been rebooked annually, and it has become the official event of the Physics Department of Politecnico di Milano to present the master thesis projects!

How does it work?

Speed Date with Research is scheduled annually around mid September.
The event lasts for 2 hours. Each research topic is represented by 1 speaker. Every 15 minutes each student has to change speaker (like in a speed date!) and explore different research topics, we have 35 different speakers! Each student can meet 8 speakers in total (15 mins x 8 = 2 h), and they can reserve their speaker preferences in advance, when registering for the event.

Each year we have 35 speakers and we host around 100 students! A blast, so much fun!!!

How does it look like?

Pretty much like this 🙂 This is only one of the two rooms running in parallel.