Junior Scienctist Symposium 3.0: New Horizons

Welcome

We are delighted to welcome you to the third edition of the Junior Scientist Symposium. This full-day event is dedicated to empowering early-career researchers with practical tools, valuable insights, and meaningful connections to support your professional journey—whether in academia or beyond.

Our program combines interactive workshops, inspiring talks, and networking opportunities designed to help you thrive in collaborative environments, leverage emerging technologies, and explore diverse career paths in the biomedical sciences.

Join us for a day of learning, dialogue, and community as we shape the future of quantitative biomedicine together.

Objectives

This symposium aims to foster professional growth and broaden career perspectives for students, postdocs, and early-career researchers in quantitative biomedicine. Key objectives include:

• Developing negotiation skills, for effective collaboration and conflict resolution (workshop #1).

• Strengthening science communication, through clear and impactful pitch presentations (workshop #2).

• Bridging academia and industry, through personal career stories from professionals in the biomedical sector.

• Encouraging open dialogue, through a panel discussion on career choices, transitions, and opportunities beyond academia.

• Facilitating meaningful networking, by creating opportunities for discussion and informal connections throughout the symposium.

The day will conclude with an apéro, providing a relaxed space for continued conversations and community building.

Workshop #1: Successfully negotiating a win-win result

In any work environment, negotiating with colleagues, bosses and clients will be an unavoidable challenge . Successfully engaging in negotiations means understanding how to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes for each party: the win-win scenario. In this highly interactive seminar, you will learn to employ the power of games and play, better deal with conflict and also attain better negotiation results. Using methods based on the Harvard approach, this workshop is all about empathy, understanding interests and creating value. It will also be quite strategic, with a focus on systematic preparation to facilitate that creative process.

Dr. Mark Young, the founder of Rational Games, is an independent author, trainer and consultant with many years of practical and academic experience in the area of negotiation, mediation and conflict management skills.

Workshop #2: Pitch It! - Make Your Point

Scientific and university life is full of situations in which good ideas compete for limited attention. You may need to explain your research to someone outside your field, introduce yourself at a conference, present a project, contribute to a discussion or speak to a potential employer. A good pitch is about making complex ideas clear, relevant and easy to understand. In this interactive workshop, you will learn how to turn your research, ideas, experience and personal strengths into clear, concise and memorable messages. You will develop a simple and proven pitch structure, create an engaging opening and adapt your message to different audiences.

Gerald Kern is a communication trainer and presentation coach who specializes in helping researchers, academics and professionals communicate complex ideas with clarity and impact.

Afternoon session: Speakers from different careers

The afternoon session will focus on career opportunities beyond academia, bringing together six professionals from diverse scientific backgrounds to share their career journeys and current roles across life science, outside of direct academic research. Through their talks, participants will gain first-hand insights into the challenges and opportunities that shape careers outside the traditional academic pathway. The session will conclude with an interactive panel discussion, where the speakers will reflect on their own transitions, discuss the realities of working beyond academia, and answer questions from the audience. Our very own Dr. Simon Albertini will moderate the panel discussion.

Our experts who will share their insights are:

• Dr. Anna Rominski (Roche Diagnostics)

• Dr. Selina Niggli (SNSF)

• Dr. Lukas Heeb (Nestle)

• Dr. Monica Loi (Bristol-Myers Squibb)

• Dr. Daniel Trejo Banos (Swiss Data Science Center)

• Saurabh Verma (Johnson and Johnson CH)