Lift Off! Sebastian Gfellner EAG Sponsored Student reports back from EANA2025
The EAG student sponsorship enabled me to participate in the Symposium for Early-Career Researchers in Astrobiology (AbGradE’25), organized by Astrobiology Graduates in Europe, and the following European Astrobiology Network Association conference (EANA25) in Lisbon, Portugal. As I have just submitted my doctoral thesis and uploaded a new preprint that will soon be submitted to a journal, it was a great time to advertise and present my recent research. I was fortunate to present my findings not only via an oral presentation at AbGradE’25 in front of early career astrobiologists but also as a poster at EANA25. This combination brought together the best of two worlds: feedback from people of the same stage and mutual exchange about personal and professional struggles and growth during the last months of writing the thesis and, beyond that, input, guidance, and support by experienced researchers and potential future peers.
With the icebreaker event organized by AbGradE and the early career meeting taking place right before the actual conference, it was the perfect starting point for meeting familiar faces and new friends to start the conference with confidence and an established group. It felt like a family meeting of like-minded people interested in the origin of life and the potential for life in the universe, with diverse backgrounds in each exciting story of how they became interested in astrobiology. Additionally, at EANA, there was only one lecture room and no parallel sessions. Therefore, it was possible to attend all the talks without having to choose and select, thus enabling a broad refresher course throughout all subdisciplines.
Regarding the event’s impact on my career, I can say that I now have a precise overview of potential funding possibilities for postdoctoral opportunities. Furthermore, I have recently uploaded a preprint that I plan to submit for publication. During my poster presentation, the editor of a special issue in astrobiology stood beside me, and we began discussing the context of my preprint. He then encouraged me to submit the manuscript to a journal that he represented. It was an amazing experience to have the possibility of talking directly to the editor-in-chief and discussing whether the preprint might fit. The possibility of personalizing such a process through direct contact was a great experience, only made possible by attendance at this event.
I felt welcomed by a community I had always dreamed of being a part of. Astrobiology has always fascinated me, and now, at this conference, after submitting my doctoral thesis, having my first paper published, and two preprints in the pipeline, I finally feel like I really belong there, and am part of this community that I have always admired. It is not that anyone did not make me feel welcome; rather, it was my personal growth during the last stages of the thesis that made me feel like a real scientist and truly believing in my own abilities. Therefore, although it was quite stressful after just submitting my PhD thesis, instead of resting, I was preparing for a presentation and poster. It is a privilege of being able to follow my intrinsic motivation and to share it with others who are like minded.
What I enjoyed the most at the event was what happened in between the sessions. The discussions during the coffee breaks, or when you needed sometime off you often meet someone to share this moment, which evolved into so much more: into tips of funding opportunities, sharing professional struggles and how to overcome them, or simply talking about previous excursions and traveling the world, or philosophical discussions about the potential impact of the discovery of alien life on us while sitting in a live jazz bar(!)
Lastly, I advise everyone to look out for satellite conferences especially those organized by/for early career researchers associated with conferences, such as AbGradE events before the EANA conference, and actively participate in them.
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