With many of our events going virtual (yay!), we think our team deserves a big round of virtual applause 👏.  We are working hard behind the scenes so you can advance your virtual training, be it attending a virtual conference or a virtual course – yes, you read correctly – courses! We are super excited to bring them to life, but more on that in another post😉.

Meet Elisabeth “Liz” Wintersteller. She is the Course and Conference Officer who turned this year’s BioMalPar conference into a hugely successful virtual event. We admit it was a bit stressful to organise an event with more than 400 participants in a completely new format in such a short time, but Liz’s light-hearted and cheerful personality made it all possible.

At EMBL since: April 2019
Number of conferences/courses organised: 4

Favourite place in Heidelberg:
Adenauerplatz; I like to sit in the park, look at the fountain and enjoy a cup of coffee.

If you weren’t a Course and Conference Officer what would you be?
I would own a “Würstlstandl” – an Austrian sausage cart.

If you were a superhero what power would you like to have?
Flying, to get everywhere quickly.

Favourite book:
Schlafes Bruder by Robert Schneider

What are the challenges/differences of organising a virtual conference?
I miss seeing the excited faces of the participants upon arrival.

How have you adapted your role during lockdown?
It wasn’t too difficult to adapt to working from home, but I miss the team lunches!

Upcoming virtual events in 2020 Liz is organising: 

EMBL Conference: Microfluidics: Designing the Next Wave of Biological Inquiry. 13 – 15 July 2020

EMBO | EMBL Symposium: The Molecular Basis and Evolution of Sexual Dimorphism. 14 – 16 September 2020