Farewell Kerstin and Konrad
Last month, Kerstin left our lab. We are very grateful to have had her with us, as she obtained a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Fellowship to conduct her research on Ebola virus pseudotypes. Besides that, she was the chair of the Umeå Postdoc Society (UPS), responsible for cell culture in our department and responsible for the maintenance of this website. Furthermore, she contributed greatly to the visibility of our research and UPS by (co-)organizing and participating in several public outreach events, such as Pint of Science and Låna en Forskare. Needless to say, she will be dearly missed.
This was evident at her goodbye party: all her art pieces were auctioned, and many of us bought her jams and liquors. We are grateful to have something to stay with us after person of many interests and talents left for Germany, where she will take up a position on the scientific management team of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Müncheberg, Berlin area. As a goodbye gift, she got a photo album with moments of her time in Umeå and a gift voucher for a 4-story bookstore in Berlin, so she can live out her love for books as soon as she returns to her home country. Also, some of her friends took it upon themselves to make her a traditional German doctoral hat, which was well-received. Thank you so much for everything Kerstin, and we wish you all the happiness in your future endeavors!
The same goes for Konrad, who left for Iceland last week for a sabbatical, after a final fika with us: farewell and all the best for the future!