Message from the Dean

Dear students,

Welcome to the AY 2024-2025! It’s a pleasure to welcome 77 new students, joining the ISTA Graduate School on 16 September, as part of the 2024 PhD cohort. The ISTA scientific community celebrates this event through a Welcome Day, during which poster presentations will offer insights of the exciting research carried out at ISTA, and festive social activities will bring our scientists together. I am thankful to the first-year buddies, and all the other student volunteers who contribute to make our welcome event a success.

The new student cohort has been selected among more than 6K applications from all over the world. The new students have successfully completed a thorough selection process and now join an Institute that values educating the future generation of researchers as part of its mission. ISTA offers a stimulating international environment with cutting edge laboratories in a beautiful natural scenery; the Institute fosters interdisciplinary research and offers opportunities to explore connections of research with technology transfer at XISTA, and science education at VISTA.

The unique structure of the ISTA Graduate School places students at the center of the learning journey, allowing to tailor their research path, through rotations in various laboratories. An effective system is in place to support students navigate the PhD, including scientific advice provided by expert mentors and supervisors. As a student, you will be offered all the needed tools to succeed in this journey, and you may be inspired by our recent graduates. At this year’s graduation ceremony in June, ISTA honored 24 PhD graduates coming from 20 different countries. In this occasion, Michal Hledík from the Barton group, Marco Valentini from the Katsaros group and Djordje Zikelic from the Chatterjee group received the Outstanding PhD Award, and Harold P. de Vladar, who was one of the first Institute’s postdocs, received the ISTA Alumni Award.

In August, this year’s 47 ISTerns presented their research experiences at the ISTernship poster session, which provided another opportunity for the community to come together. A big thank you to all the faculty, postdocs, and students who welcomed ISTerns into their groups and mentored them for the summer.

At ISTA we all take pride in contributing to the learning path of students and interns and in supporting the circulation of scientific knowledge.

I am confident that ISTA will foster another fruitful academic year!

I wish you all a wonderful start,

Eva Benkova, Dean