Yazdan Rashidi
I am from Kermanshah, Iran. I obtained my B.Sc. in physics at Bu-Ali Sina University and M.Sc. in physics at Iran University of Science and Technology. I am a first year Ph.D. Student at Saarlandes University (AG Wagner group) and advised by Prof.Dr. Christian Wagner.
My project during the PhD is "Micro fluidic experiment of red blood cell suspensions". The goal of the project is to validate experimentally the numerical simulations of the proportions and shapes of red blood cells in micro fluidic flows. During this project, I must to perform the micro fluidic experiment and do image analysis and develop biophysical models of the flow phenomena and cell shapes.
For the first year I am working on analysis the red blood cell in both vitro and vivo condition in different micro channel.
How to get to know this grant
I had my eyes on the AG-Wagner group research early on, many months before the opening PhD position in the group I had been contact with Professor Christian Wagner. I had since quite a long time thought about doing PhD studies abroad after my Master studies. When I understood about the ESR position, with its international focus, and possibilities to work at different facilities and locations across Europe, I knew that I wanted to apply for a position there. In addition, it was closely related to my field of study.
Reason for joining
In some part of my master experience because of lack of facilities in our laboratory, we forced switch to the simulation work, which I had never give up and try to do the experiment after finishing master. I went to the China in the very good group with the equipped laboratory to do research, that was similar as the research done in my master degree. I had the opportunity to do the experiments and see the results.
That was so important for me as a physicist to do my experiments with success. Also, after my great experience studying abroad with well-equipped laboratory (in China, Nanjing University. for One-year scholarship as a researcher in the SCI laboratory) I decided to pursue a PhD in an international environment. Because of the culture interaction between Iran and Germany and also power of Germany in the industrial with the high-ranking university in all over the world. After hearing advices and experiences from my friends who are living in the European countries, I choose Germany. After that, I tried to search for finding the groups that work in the same direction of my interesting. The result of monitoring different group was finding the AG-Wagner group in the Saarland University.
Updates
In our consortium, there are currently 17 fellows (11 academic research centers and 6 companies), spread all over Europe, working on related topics. One of the biggest advantages of this consortium structure is that there are going to be training events. This programme is a great opportunity for my career. Being part of a training network has already allowed me to get in touch with many institutes all over Europe.
Due to Covid-19 conditions and the lack of face-to-face conferences, working conditions are very difficult for a Ph.D. student. But one of the advantages of this project is the existence of secondment. I did a secondment at the University of Grenoble (Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique) in France for a month, which was a great experience for me. In addition to meeting new people, I had the opportunity to have a scientific discussion about the project with new ideas and perspicuity. Despite this secondment, I achieved these things. In addition, I had the chance to attend HemPhys 2021 conference in Montpellier, France, where I displayed a poster of my first results about the vivo experiment. I can say that this project helped me a lot to crowd out the negative effects of Covid-19 on my research (by having the chance to visit the other group). It is inspiring to work on an innovative topic and to collaborate with other Ph.D. students. Having monthly meetings together helps us to be fully aware of other projects in the consortium and to choose the next location for the secondment which is more relevant.
As a Ph.D. student starting his second year, I had good achievements in my first year, both scientifically and personally. Scientifically, I am close to submitting a paper with a good result. I traveled to two different cities in France and got acquainted with several different scientific groups related to my research field, which is really important for a researcher to be more familiar with the other research group. Personally, I met some wonderful people this year and become friends with them. All this was not possible except by doing this project in such a nice circumstance.
Because of these aspects, this fellowship could allow my career to become highly visible and productive, and it is up to me now to exploit this opportunity.