Meeting of European SIAM and GAMM
Student Chapters 2018

25 September 2018, by Hannes von Allwörden

Photo: SIAM Chapter Berlin

On September 19-21, the SIAM chapter of TU Berlin invited all european SIAM and GAMM student chapters to come to MESIGA-18 in  Berlin for discussion and exchange. I had the great honour to be the first person in this meeting's history to represent both a SIAM and a GAMM chapter!

The meeting began by an inspiring presentation of each of the nine participating chapters' activities. We learned about regional specialities like Delft's Krylov Tigers football team, Berlin's tools seminar, or Magdeburg's shotgun presentation challenges. In spite of all the differences, we soon found some common ground: food -especially barbecue- helps to bring people together everywhere!

Being all early stage researchers in applied mathematics, of course we were curious in each others fields of study. The talks we heard ranged from DAEs over model order reduction to agent-based exploration of echo chambers and structural modeling of arterial walls, just to name a few. I had the opportunity to gave an introduction to my work on periodic solutions in microscopic traffic flow models. A special highlight was the spirited keynote lecture by an alumnus about his job in malware reverse engineering.

Social activities included a visit to c-base, a meeting point for e.g. Chaos Computer Club and the Berlin Wikipedia group, and its incredible "space-station"-basement as well as an excursion to Teufelsberg with a guided tour through the ruins of a cold war US-army listening station.

On Friday afternoon, the meeting ended with the chapter panel, were we discussed e.g. measures to enhance communication among us.

Many thanks to the organizing team for giving us such a warm welcome in Berlin and all the work they invested to make MESIGA-18 the great meeting it was!