David was back in lovely Finland
The time of scientific conferences is back. Many of us are thrilled to put behind the years of covid / post-covid agony spent in front of a monitor and meet colleagues again face to face. Well, try to chat with your colleagues (you sometimes simply bump into) during a coffee break in an on-line meeting. In my view, these ad-hoc encounters are simply the best. Considering my history, no one will be surprised that my first conference trip was to Finland. In Espoo (a city of robots) I have attended the 19th Nordic Symposium on Catalysis (NSC) that took place exactly 20 years after my first NSC. It was a truly enjoyable meeting with lots of contacts for future collaborations besides presenting our hydrogenolysis research and spreading the word about the forthcoming Europacat (August 2023) that we will be hosting in Prague. Being already there, I paid a visit to Abo Akademi to meet former colleagues, see their new facilities (btw, really fantastic!), discuss our collaboration and present our research. As I was asked, I spoke also on my “career path” and its turns as time went by. I called it “From fossil to renewable – but always with catalysis :-)”. A truly interesting experience. Now, it is time to turn at least a few of the ideas born during this trip into new collaborations – be it catalyst synthesis, kinetic modelling or new reactions.
With Dmitry, first my supervisor, now my mentor and friend.
Presenting our research to colleagues at Abo Akademi.
A robot in Espoo :-)
