A Relaxing Afternoon Filled with Great Science

Impressions from the 2026 CaCTüS symposium
 

At the end of this month, the CaCTüS scientific symposium at the Max Planck Campus in Tübingen marked the conclusion of this year’s “Computation and Cognition Tübingen” summer internship, and it was a pleasure to attend. Twelve interns went on stage to report on what they had built and learned over three months of work under the guidance of researchers from the Max Planck Institutes for Biological Cybernetics and for Intelligent Systems, the University of Tübingen, the ELLIS Institute in Tübingen, and the Tübingen AI Center.

CaCTüS itself is by no means a large student exchange program, nor does it aim to be. It was launched to offer talented emerging scientists facing personal, financial, regional, or social barriers a genuine opportunity for first-rate research experience: three months in a research laboratory, fully funded and working alongside experienced scientists. This year, 419 applications were received from 55 countries, 38 percent of them from women. Ultimately, twelve interns from nine countries were accepted. With this cohort, CaCTüS has now supported 45 interns from 22 nations over the past five years, a little jubilee in itself.

Among this year’s participants, two presentations particularly stood out to Susan Fischer, one of the main coordinators of the program. Jawa Habib worked in the Developmental Computational Psychiatry Lab, a joint facility of the University of Tübingen and the MPI for Biological Cybernetics, under the supervision of Lenard Dome. Mohammed Ouail Oucherif completed his internship in the field of computational neuroscience at the MPI for Biological Cybernetics under the supervision of Roxana Zeraati and Shervin Safavi. At the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the ELLIS Institute in Tübingen, and the Tübingen AI Center, Glory Kuzayet Bagai worked on machine learning methods as well as on machine learning focused on safety and efficiency. She was supervised by Joanna Sliwa and the Max Planck Research Group on Machine Learning Focused on Safety and Efficiency.

All three presentations displayed the kind of quality Susan Fischer sees in young researchers who have been entrusted with real problems to tackle, and not just menial tasks: meticulous, a little nervous, and visibly proud of what they had managed to accomplish in such a short time. “Let us be clear: three months is not a long time. What is impressive to me are genuine contributions to ongoing lab work, not somewhat simulated research. That is, ultimately, the purpose of the program,” says Susan Fischer.

The room on of the symposium was filled with the people who had made this summer possible in the first place: advisors, mentors, alumni, and members of the CaCTüS coordination office (thereunder Carolin Lewis, Drew Robson, Leila Masri, Lea Nagel, and Susan Fischer), as well as Wolfgang Hanrieder from the Hanrieder Foundation for Excellence, and Johanna Pöllath from the Max Planck Förderstiftung, a funding foundation of the Max Planck Society whose support keeps the program’s accompanying activities running. It was a fitting conclusion, not a grand event. Simply an unpretentious afternoon during which those present listened attentively to one another and exchanged ideas about their work.

“If there is one insight to take away from this year’s symposium, it is simple: opening a door for a small group of students each year may seem modest given the magnitude of the obstacles many of them face, but it is not nothing. Judging by Friday’s presentations, it seems to be working,” Fischer adds.