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The Journal Reporting on the community
WINTER 2020
Doctoral candidate Jim Barthel wants to inspire students with science comics
Getting animated about science A recently released comic book explains
the current limitations of artificial intelligence and why fully self-driving cars are still some way off, what cancer is and how it’s treated, and how mathematicians try to optimise everything from postal delivery to the fastest route on Google Maps. If this doesn’t sound like an ordinary comic book, that’s because it was written by 22 doctoral candidates at the University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg Institute of Health and Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology.
“The comics are based on true science,” says Jim Barthel, a doctoral candidate at the University of Luxembourg who worked on the mathematics optimisation story. “It’s not a science fiction comic. You will not see things that are not true, at all.” Moreover, the storylines are 100% based on actual research taking place in the grand duchy right now. The comics were published as part of the university’s Doctoral Education in Science Communication initiative, which provides science communication training
for doctoral candidates across Luxembourg, states Barthel. The idea is to teach PhD students how to effectively explain complex scientific research to the general public. Professor Bruno Teheux in the university’s maths department came up with the comic book idea, and then the call went out to all science PhD candidates in the country to participate. Barthel joined the project in November 2018, partly because “I am completely convinced by the fact that Luxembourg is not [well] enough informed about →