Speaker
Description
The past two and a half years have been extremely challenging for the global world population, with the ongoing pandemic impacting every single aspect of one’s life. Numerous restrictions moved almost all the activities to an online environment and therefore kept us positioned mostly in front of the screens. The overall scientific community was also greatly affected, as the pandemic caused the cancellation of most of the conferences, schools, and workshops, which are vital for the development of the research and connection of scientists all over the world.
Inspired by the strong wish to vitalize and nourish the European crystallographic community, the European Crystallographic Association started a project called the ECA lunch webinars. The ECA lunch webinars are monthly webinar series with an educational and scientific focus, coordinated by a steering committee comprised of the members of the ECA Young Crystallographers group (GIG01) and the ECA vice-president and past president as advisors. The first ECA lunch webinar took place in June 2021 and since then every first or the second Thursday of a month during the lunchtime eminent crystallographers from various fields of crystallography, proposed by the members of ECA Special and General Interest Groups (SIGs/GIGs), present part of their research through online lectures and address current topics of interest to the crystallographic and the wider scientific community. In this way, despite the ongoing pandemic and rather modest opportunities to meet, the European Crystallographic Association managed to encourage, maintain, and strengthen communication among crystallographers across Europe and the world.
Luckily, the pandemic has toned down during the last few months, and people were able to return to their usual in-person activities. But despite that, the webinars remained well attended, which demonstrates the true and unpreceded value of the ECA Lunch webinars and encourages us to continue with this project.
The European Crystallographic Association, steering committee, and the advisory board of the ECA lunch webinars, as well as all guest speakers of the ECA Lunch webinars, are warmly acknowledged.
