Study? Research? Oldenburg students do both! The university held a photo competition to highlight the diversity of their research, and has now awarded prizes to four images. These and all the other photos submitted by students are on display online.
In the lab, on an excursion, in the archives, or gathering data – in the 56 submitted photos, UOL students show their research in a variety of settings. Leandra Nickel, who is studying Landscape Ecology, took her photo on a frosty and foggy morning at the Idagroden salt marshes, where she was on an excursion with other students on her master's degree programme as part of a research project. The jury consisting of one lecturer from each of the six schools, two students and several members of staff from the Department for Studying and Teaching selected her image "Nature in focus" as the winning photo.
The essence of a little-known professional field
The future landscape ecologist and now award-winning photographer says the image captures the essence of her little-known chosen profession. "The research and the people who carry it out remain in the background, because what moves them – nature – is the focus," she explains. The image shows a student recording geodata via a GPS antenna as part of various samplings, vegetation surveys and measurements documenting the long-term changes taking place in the salt marshes as a result of climate change. The gathered data is to provide a basis for developing protective measures for these increasingly rare habitats.
Second place went to a photo by Anna Siebert, who is doing a degree in German Studies as well as art and media, and opted for the unusual setting of a darkroom. In her bachelor's thesis, she plans to examine the resurgence of analogue photography in the digital age, and in keeping with this idea she photographed a fellow student developing an analogue film in a photo lab. She does photography as a hobby, mostly digital but sometimes also analogue, and this is what led her to her research topic.
A symbol of the wonders of nature
The photo that won third place is titled "visible vision" and was taken under a microscope by Janne Brokate, a student on the Molecular Biomedicine master's programme. Brokate stained the cells of a retina using fluorescent antibodies as part of her Bachelor's thesis, and captured this in her image. For her, "What at first glance looks like abstract art is a symbol of the wonders of nature," she explains. "Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder but sometimes also in the observation of an eye."
In addition to the three jury prizes, an audience prize was also awarded. Master's student Ole Hausendorf emerged as the winner in an online vote in which 391 students took part. His photograph "Structural Connectivity in the Human Brain" shows around 20,000 neuronal connections in the human brain. Hausendorf created the image in a practical module in the Neurocognitive Psychology degree programme using Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) to visualise structural differences in the brains of patients with Parkinson's disease. It is hoped that the insights gained using DTI scans will contribute to the early detection of specific symptoms of Parkinson's disease.
The winners received 300, 200 and 100 euros in prize money, respectively, for the jury prizes, and 100 euros for the audience prize. The photo competition was sponsored by the Universitätsgesellschaft Oldenburg (UGO) and organised by the university to mark its 50th anniversary.
