TUM Community

A GUEST YEAR AT TUM

But back to the beginning: Jonathan Veinot’s relationship with TUM began more than a decade ago with a big bang – specifically, a volcanic eruption. At that time, he was one of more than 120 scientists from 16 countries who met at the Evangelische Akademie Tutzing to discuss the latest developments in the field of colloidal nanoparticles. On the last day of the conference, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted, and air traffic in much of Northern and Central Europe had to be suspended for several days. Jonathan Veinot was stranded. “And what does a silicon chemist do when he’s stuck?” he asks, laughing as he gives the answer himself: “He goes out and looks for other silicon chemists.”

Jonathan Veinot knew that a renowned expert in this field was working at TUM. So he knocked on the door of TUM Professor Bernhard Rieger from the WACKER Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry. “I was lucky that he didn’t throw me out right away, as I appeared unannounced,” says Jonathan Veinot. But the two professors immediately hit it off, stayed in touch, inviting each other to conferences, and two years later, Jonathan Veinot came to TUM as a guest researcher for a research year with Professor Rieger.

ESTABLISHING TRUST AMONG SCIENTISTS

Throughout his scientific career, Jonathan Veinot has collaborated with colleagues from all over the world. “There is no question that one of my most rewarding experiences was my stay in Germany at TUM. I believe the reason for this is that we were able to spend a lot of time together in person. This made it easy for us to build personal trust and friendships,” he says.

Jonathan Veinot wanted to share this enriching experience with his students, and thus the idea for a doctoral exchange program was born. The vision: an international graduate school where doctoral students in Germany and Canada could visit each other and work together on hybrid materials, polymers, and nanomaterials. Bernhard Rieger and Jonathan Veinot wrote emails, made phone calls, knocked on doors, and eventually brought together nine TUM and eight UofA professors from the fields of physics, engineering, and chemistry who were willing to engage in the program.

A HOME FOR CURIOSITY

Jonathan Veinot is a chemist through and through. From an early age, he was fascinated by the smell of gasoline and the rainbow-colored shimmer of oil on water. Today, he is motivated by his fascination with nanoparticles, which are so small that they have size dependent properties that can revolutionize many aspects of our everyday lives. “Curiosity and fascination always need a place where they can grow and universities play a central role in helping this happen,” he says.

Creating and fostering places of scientific exchange is an important concern for the chemist. “In this sense, I also take my role as a TUM Ambassador very seriously,” says Jonathan Veinot. He received the award in December 2015 from the president of TUM. Each year, international guest scientists who have enriched TUM with their scientific expertise and international experience during their stay are honored in this way. TUM Ambassadors are links between TUM and the international academic research and industrial community.

Jonathan Veinot takes this mission very seriously and promotes TUM in Canada whenever the opportunity arises. “TUM calls itself the ‘entrepreneurial university.’ And entrepreneurship is about seizing opportunities when they arise,” summarizes Jonathan Veinot. “After the volcanic eruption, I took the initiative, and this wonderful collaboration emerged as a result. That’s why I always tell my students and doctoral candidates: Seize the opportunity to spend time at TUM. For me, it was a life and career changing opportunity that began more than ten years ago.”