Becoming a Weekend Warrior - Jaynie Criscione

There are small victories here that I find in daily life: successfully saying Dutch words, finally discovering what PMD (Plastic/Metals/Drinks) waste bins are, and even finding where my mail goes when it’s not delivered (there’s a pick-up point at the grocery store). Adjusting to life here has been smoother than I imagined. But, there are small differences that you wouldn’t notice until they come up!

My lab work in these past two weeks has revolved around running experiments and analyzing over 1.2 billion data points from my experiments. The scripts we use are MATLAB and Origin. I fortunately know MATLAB, but I finally had to learn how to use the “debug” function to get my code to work. With Origin, I had to learn through trial and error. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to learn about new programs and I’m lucky to have great mentors to guide me!

Working in the lab. 

One weekend, Dante, Ayon and I went to Madrid. Spain is a very different country than Belgium, especially in their gorgeous architecture and time schedules of eating dinner at 10 pm and socializing past 6 am! The plane ride was a speedy two hours, yet countries that are close in Europe have significant cultural differences. I was able to meet with my boyfriend and his family and we enjoyed delicious Tapas. The food in Madrid is amazing, yet cheap!

Royal Palace in Madrid.

The next weekend, Dante, Arik and I traveled to Bruges. I went early to catch the free food and walking tour. One of the best parts of traveling is meeting new people and learning their background. I met a Hopkins alum, a UMD alum, and a Canadian law school graduate named Gwen. Gwen and I walked around Bruges for the rest of the day and had dinner together. Bruges has a romantic atmosphere with architecture like canals and bell towers.

Canal in Bruges

Though Leuven is a small city, the crowds are huge for the World Cup games! So far, we have watched all of the world cup games at the Oude Markt and it is one of the highlights of being here.

Celebrating the Belgium vs. England World Cup match in the Oude Markt. 

I’m excited to discover more about bacterial biofilm formation in competing strains, and also explore Paris and Amsterdam in the coming weekends. Stay tuned!

Microfluidics, Mountains, and Memories - Rayyan Gorashi

That saying, “time flies when you’re having fun” has never proved itself to be truer: both inside and outside of IMEC. It’s like every time I blink, it’s the start of a new work week and I’m more than ready to tackle the upcoming challenges.

It’s been refreshing to go back into the flow of work at IMEC after weekends that are busy with traveling. In the past two weekends, I traveled to Newcastle Upon Tyne in Northern England to visit my aunt and celebrate Eid with some of my cousins. I was glad to become acquainted with the surprisingly extensive Sudanese community over there; it lessened a bit of the homesickness that started to accumulate.

The following weekend was unexpectedly spent in Geneva, Switzerland – but fortunately so. The weather was nothing short of spectacular and it really added to the experience in the city. We went on a hike on Le Mont Saleve (which is situated just across the Swiss-French border) and were able to get a breathtaking view of Le Mont Blanc, translating to “The White Mountain.” Le Mont Blanc earned its name because of its snow-white peak, which remains white all throughout the year. Even in the midst of a warm summer, you’ll be able to spot the white peak for miles.

Attempting to do a handstand on Le Mont Saleve. Le Mont Blanc is in the background. 

Things have been picking up for the microfluidic project at IMEC as well. Thomas (my supervisor) was very supportive of a potential idea I had to incorporate into the current system; this past week has been spent doing some preliminary experiments on coverslips to gauge the behavior of the cardiomyocytes. Based on these results, we’ll hopefully be able to translate some of those conditions into the microfluidic device. I’m excited for what’s to come!

Working hard in the lab. 

Watching the Belgium vs England World Cup match at the Oude Markt. 

To Brugge and Beyond! - Ariel Slepyan

Life in Belgium is getting exciting now, and with recent world cup success, everyone here is strongly rooting for Belgium to win it all.

Belgium fans celebrate in Oede Mart

But when we aren’t celebrating goals and victories, I am spending a lot of time in the lab.

My project is really exciting, and is focused on sorting droplets inside of a microfluidic device. The project has applications for screening cells, drugs, and much more!

Droplet Junction in a Microfludic Device

On the weekends us interns can go explore the nearby cities and have been taking advantage of this great privilege.

This past weekend, some of the interns went to Bruges, a city off the coast of Belgium.

Bruges is a very cool tourist spot with beautiful architecture and lots of delicious food.

And in the spirit of Belgium, while we were there I bought a kilogram of chocolate (all in one big brick!).

Left to right: Dante Navarro, Jaynie Criscione, and myself in Bruges

Also last Friday IMEC hosted its annual summer festival! It was filled with free food, free drinks, and live music! It was a lot of fun, and the party ended up running for almost 8 hours!

Left to right: Dante Navarro, Jaynie Criscione, and myself at imec's summer festival

This next weekend us interns are planning on heading to Paris, and I’m super excited to learn about their culture and eat plenty of croissants :)

Overall, time in Belgium is really flying by, and it is hard to believe that we are almost done with our 4^th week!

Work Hard, Play Hard - Dante Navarro

Last weekend was my first weekend exploring outside of Belgium.  We ventured to Madrid, spending a few short days there to see and eat the essentials.  We toured the Palacio Real and Museo Prado, two buildings that seemingly never ended, showcasing the wealth of the past monarchy and centuries worth of artistic endeavors from the Spanish culture.

           

The weekend felt like a blur trying to fit an entire country’s capital into a few days, but it finally slowed down when I returned to work on Monday. I began working on my presentation for the next day. Currently I work in Leuven, but most of the app development and data analysis happens in Ghent which is another city in Belgium closer to the coast.  Initially from the first meeting with my team, I had a general understanding of what they expected from me in the coming weeks. They expected a iOS application that read in stress values and presented them in correlation to daily activities. My work is very independent which allows for a lot of creative freedom and adhering to self-prescribed deadlines.   Working through the first weeks, I constructed an application that read the users calendar and fit randomized data indicating how they felt in these moments based on an algorithm utilizing on biological values. Traveling to Ghent on Tuesday was extremely easy because of the interconnected train system in Belgium. The directions were vague, but the building was easily identifiable because it was shaped like a stack of books. After the presentation, I gained some very constructive feedback on features that I should include and how to connect to their database to include real data in my study. 

De Krook library in Ghent with the imec office on the top floor

Throughout the week I worked on some changes to my prototype applications, making several variations to test functionality and efficiency. At the end of the week back at imec, there was the annual summer festival that had an amazing amount of free food trucks with dishes ranging from tacos to Belgian waffles all the way to fried calamari. It was an incredibly fun atmosphere to enjoy with all of my friends from work.  

imec party with free food trucks!

After the weekend on Tuesday, a group of friends from work and I are making it a tradition to play basketball and enjoy dinner afterwards. This weekend I am looking forward to watching Belgium advance in the World Cup and maybe a trip to Paris...

Weekly Basketball Tradition 

Dinner after Basketball