Vjosa Blakaj - TU Munich
1. Briefly describe your current position, research focus, and your role within MCQST.
I am a Ph.D. student working on questions regarding entropy and catalysis within quantum information theory, in the research group of Michael Wolf, at TUM’s mathematics department. Together with Jiri Guth Jarkovsky, we are the Ph.D. representatives at MCQST.
2. Could you please describe your role as IMPRS & Ph.D. representative in executive committee?
Joining the IMPRS-QST family last year and immediately afterward the MCQST executive committee, as a Ph.D. representative, really taught me a lot. As an IMPRS student, not only am I part of an amazing research group here at TUM but also part of a larger multidisciplinary community intersecting different research institutions and universities in Munich. As an MCQST Ph.D. representative, not only do you get insights into MCQST but you are also involved in decision making and get to contribute to what MCQST stands for. As such, you are part of the executive committee that meets every couple of months to address different matters that affect the community. My role here is to facilitate communication to Ph.D. students, as well as occasional help with co-organizing MCQST events targeting my group. For instance, the 2022 MCQST conference is slowly approaching, and we are free to suggest speakers, whose work interests us. In these meetings, of course, we are also welcome to bring our own topics of interest to discuss. Overall, we can actively contribute to shaping MCQST, and how it can best support us as Ph.D. students.
As an MCQST Ph.D. representative, not only do you get insights into MCQST but you are also involved in decision making and get to contribute to what MCQST stands for.
3. What are you looking forward to over the holidays?
There are so many things I look forward to over the holidays. Being with my family, a lot of my mom's homemade food, carrot cakes, and many television holidays movies is what this season is about. As much as I enjoy my time and work in Munich, surrounded by great, kind scientists and friends, I always look forward to the time I get to fly back home. My sisters most probably would have taken care of decorating the house and putting the tree up by the time I'll get home, so my part would be to just put presents under the tree. Sure, the frigid weather might make one hibernate at home, but the combination of time off work and the festive atmosphere makes this holiday a great time to go out and reunite with many friends too. And of course, the cherry on top is waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread and mom's freshly brewed coffee.