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Vera Marie Titze

@veratitze.bsky.social
481 followers 341 following 79 posts

Minerva Fast Track group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, working on nanophotonics in living materials. Enthusiastic about interdisciplinary research preferably involving light waves. Runner and environmentalist. (she/her)

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Reposted by Vera Marie Titze
Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Help! Parton Community Council has 60 days to raise £70k to buy Parton Kirk (resting place of James Clerk Maxwell). They plan to turn it into a visitor centre celebrating our great hero! The other buyers could turn it into long-term storage 😬 Even £5 would help 🙏🧪⚛️ www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding...
justgiving.com
Help raise £70000 to Save Parton Kirk – JustGiving Crowdfunding
Iʼm raising money to Save Parton Kirk. Support this JustGiving Crowdfunding Page.
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Stay tuned if you are interested in a PhD on the interface of optics, photonics, and bio-based materials!
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
After months of organising, our @mpici.bsky.social PhD/PostDoc Symposium is in full swing! Great to see everyone enjoy the sun and the science ☀️🧪
Picture of a sun-flooded mezzanine with a scientific poster session. A gallery of posters is set up and people are gathering over coffee for vivid discussions.
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
In our latest collaboration of @vignolinilab.bsky.social and @bruno-jesus.bsky.social, we looked at how the geometrical arrangement of guanine nanostructures leads to the beautiful appearance of sea slugs. Check it out for more details and gorgeous images! 💡🧪
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Bruno @bruno-jesus.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Check out our latest paper on sea slug coloration in PNAS ! I'm extremely grateful to Samuel Humphrey and @vignolinilab.bsky.social for this collaboration. I've learned so much and had so much fun working with you, thank you! @univ-nantes.fr @mpici.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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Microenvironmental Ecology and Symbiosis @microsensing.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
www.linkedin.com/posts/michae...
linkedin.com
It is a pleasure to announce the next course on Microsensor Analysis in the Environmental Sciences, which will take place at the Marine Biological Station, Rønbjerg, Denmark from May 4 to May 13… | Mi...
It is a pleasure to announce the next course on Microsensor Analysis in the Environmental Sciences, which will take place at the Marine Biological Station, Rønbjerg, Denmark from May 4 to May 13, 2026...
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Reposted by Vera Marie Titze
Optica @optica.org · 08/03/2026
On this #InternationalWomensDay, today and every day, we celebrate the women solving societal challenges through #optics for a brighter future. Find out how Optica supports #WomenInSTEM: bit.ly/4bvbZ3s Pictured: Optica Women Scholars, OFC Nagel Lounge, OFC attendees
A photo of Optica Women ScholarsAttendees at the OFC Nagel LoungeAttendees at OFC
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
Excited to be starting my group “Ecophotonics” with a Minerva FastTrack fellowship! Big thanks to @vignolinilab.bsky.social for your support! Also grateful to my PhD supervisor Malte Gather, and collaborators & students from marine biology to physics. 🧪👩🏼‍🔬💡https://www.mpikg.mpg.de/6920542/ecophotonics
mpikg.mpg.de
“Ecophotonics”:Turning Nature’s Light Management Strategies into Sustainable Technology
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Slotted lens tubes are definitely the most satisfying little item I have recently gotten from @thorlabs.bsky.social 😏 useful for science but I can already see some cool scientific outreach / teaching… in that sense, happy international day of women & girls in science 🧪👩🏼‍🔬
Custom assembly of optical components containing multiple lenses that can be seen through wide slots in a lens tube. The system is illuminated with cyan light.
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Reposted by Vera Marie Titze
Max Planck Institute of Colloids & Interfaces (MPICI) @mpici.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
PhDs & PostDocs at MPICI: get to your keyboards & register for the MPICI #Symposium to get a glimpse into what everyone’s up to in the labs. ➡️ Register by 15 Feb. events.mpikg.mpg.de/event/21 ⬅️ 🗓️ 15 April FLASH TALKS | PITCH YOUR RESEARCH | POSTER SESSION | NETWORKING
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Reposted by Vera Marie Titze
Guillaume Jacquemet @guijacquemet.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Job 1: Postdoc in Bioimaging 🖥️🔬 We are looking for a method developer at the interface of Bioimaging, microscopy, deep learning, and image analysis. Ideally, you love Biological images, Python 🐍, open-source software, and "smart" microscopy. Apply here: abo.rekrytointi.com/paikat/index...
abo.rekrytointi.com
Researcher (postdoctoral level) in Bioimaging, 1.4.2026–31.08.2028
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
My phone camera is very bad so these are quite representative of the #northernlights I saw with my naked eye tonight in #potsdam
One-story house with yellow facade and a small garden in the front, green and pink lit up sky behind it, taken at night.Winterish pale leafless trees in the front and a well-defined green strip of aurora behind them. A single star can be seen on the night sky.
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Reposted by Vera Marie Titze
Maik Bischoff @maikbischoff.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
🚨 PhD Position Available 🚨 I’m recruiting a PhD student to join my lab at the Multiscale Imaging Centre (MIC), Münster, Germany. www.bischofflab.com/jobs Fully funded ✅ #Cellbio #Morphogenesis #Microscopy #Drosophila #PhD (Details Below) Original Posting: stellen.uni-muenster.de/jobposting/d...
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
First time grandpa gets a self-made xmas present since probably 2010… it’s my favourite photo from the lab in 2025, and led to a nice conversation with a 92yr old about structural color and market transfer of sustainable materials 🎄🎁👩🏼‍🔬🧪
Framed photograph of a microscopic view of a colony of flavobacterium IR1, showing swirling and vibrant hues of red and green. In the background is a decorated Christmas tree and a houseplant.
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
Time for one of my favourite festive recycling traditions of wrapping gifts in curated newspaper cutouts! This year featuring @zeit.de and some locations on the travel bucket list 😊🎁
Gifts wrapped in newspaper, using pieces with big pictures of animals or travel locations including a poppy field in the Uckermark and Edinburgh castle
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Reposted by Vera Marie Titze
napari @napari.org · 18/12/2025
We're a bit late in ringing in the giving season, but it is indeed upon us. Enjoy our special edition holiday logo ☃️ and, if you can spare a bit and appreciate napari, please donate to our development efforts! 🙏 CZI will match donations up to $75K. opencollective.com/napari/donate
the napari logo (a two-lobed island) modified to look like a snowman, with Christmas (red/green) colors
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
If you are a postdoc or postgraduate student at @mpici.bsky.social, mark 15.04.26 in your calendars for the 2nd edition of our institute symposium! Registration will open in January, we are super excited already 😊
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Busy week for me! Amsterdam Marathon Today after a day in Utrecht yesterday, #NANOP25 conference in Paris tomorrow! 😊 if you are there, let’s catch up! I promise I will change from rambling about marathon running to rambling about science!
Screenshot of my new marathon personal best with a time of 3h08.The dome of Utrecht with nice weather and some fall coloured trees
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Calm before the storm of welcoming around 7000 kids tomorrow to check out beautiful colours of nature under the microscope! #potsdamScienceDay
Selfie of me posing with a welcome sign providing directions to the Max Planck CampusA colourful peacock feather under the microscope
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
People from Berlin & Brandenburg: come to our family-friendly science day on 10. May! See below for more info (and for a video of my hand fooling around with some fun ~hands on~ experiments) 😄
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Michael Szell @mszll.datasci.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/03/2025
I have followed the #RoyalSociety #Musk fellowship case over the last months, which culminated in this disappointment: www.theguardian.com/technology/2025… As a consequence […] [Original post on datasci.social]
Dear Editor,

Thank you for asking me to referee this paper.

As much as I would like to accept your invitation, I have decided not to referee any article that is published by the Royal Society, after the Society's decision to keep Elon Musk as its fellow (see: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/25/royal-society-decides-not-to-take-disciplinary-action-against-elon-musk).

Elon Musk is leading a large-scale effort to destroy science and its benefits to humanity, therefore he is the anti-thesis to the Society's mission "to recognise, promote and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity". Fellows of the Royal Society argued that revoking Musk’s fellowship could undermine trust in science. Unfortunately, not revoking Musk's fellowship has underminded my trust in the Royal Society. The Royal Society is free to keep Musk's fellowship; in turn I am free to not provide my free labor to the Royal Society.
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Reposted by Vera Marie Titze
Reto Fiolka @retof.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Help Microscope folks: On a new Nikon TIRF objective, the collar got stuck in the position shown. Anyone else had that happen? Any way to unstuck it (warm up, other)?
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Reposted by Vera Marie Titze
Laser Focus World magazine @laserfocusworld.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Happy International Women's Day! We're celebrating a day early by sharing some of the amazing work of the women within our community we've covered so far in 2025. www.laserfocusworld.com/science-rese... #women #optics #photonics #quantum #scisky @jmurphoton.bsky.social
laserfocusworld.com
Celebrating women in optics, photonics, and quantum
To celebrate International Women's Day on March 8th, check out some of the cool optics, photonics, and quantum work being done by women.
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Hi photonics hive mind, who can recommend an open source python FDTD solver that runs on anaconda (windows)? 👩🏼‍🔬🧪💡
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Stephanie Kath-Schorr @kathlab.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
🧬🔬New paper online: Nucleic acid sensing using DNA-functionalized whispering gallery mode microlasers! Great collaboration with @thegatherlab.bsky.social @sorayacaixeiro @schubertlab.bsky.social @chemunicologne.bsky.social 🧪 #DNASensing #microlasers pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....
pubs.acs.org
DNA Sensing with Whispering Gallery Mode Microlasers
Nucleic acid sensing is crucial for advancing diagnostics, therapeutic monitoring, and molecular biology research by enabling the precise identification of DNA and RNA interactions. Here, we present an innovative sensing platform based on DNA-functionalized whispering gallery mode (WGM) microlasers. By correlating spectral shifts in laser emission to changes in the refractive index, we demonstrate real-time detection of DNA hybridization and structural changes. The addition of gold nanoparticles to the DNA strands significantly enhances sensitivity, and exclusively labeling the sensing strand or a hairpin strand eliminates the need for secondary labeling of the target strand. We further show that ionic strength influences DNA compactness, and we introduce a hairpin-based system as a dual-purpose sensor and controlled release mechanism for drug delivery. This versatile WGM-based platform offers promise for sequence-specific nucleic acid sensing, multiplexed detection, and in vivo applications in diagnostics and cellular research.
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
First time today being a sidekick in a scientific stock photo shoot! (the PI talks excitedly to postdocs while standing next to a microscope type of shots). Now I regret not brushing my hair this morning… 👩🏼‍🔬
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Max Planck Institute of Colloids & Interfaces (MPICI) @mpici.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Intl. Day of #WomenInScience: meet @veratitze.bsky.social ( @vignolinilab.bsky.social sky.social ) She builds microscopes to study light adaptation & management in nature & draws inspiration for the design of #sustainable materials for #nanophotonic applications ➡️ tinyurl.com/xhfxrkxn #WomenInSTEM
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Can’t believe I’m typing this but… FUCK IT IM PLANNING A STAND UP FOR SCIENCE PROTEST IN DC. If you want to be involved, be dm me. I’m nervous, I’ve never done this before, but we gotta be the change we want to see in the world.
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Caroline Murawski @murawskilab.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Exciting PhD position available in my group on "Infrared nanocrystal LEDs for biomedical sensing". The position is part of a research training group, which provides high-class, interdisciplinary training and lots of opportunities for collaboration.👇 lnkd.in/ebfkccMS Apply before February 14th.
lnkd.in
LinkedIn
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
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Reposted by Vera Marie Titze
Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 30/01/2025
National Science Foundation suspends salary payments, leaving researchers unable to pay their bills www.statnews.com/2025/01/30/t... Story by @ericboodman.bsky.social
statnews.com
National Science Foundation suspends salary payments, leaving researchers unable to pay their bills
An NSF online payment system remained down after the federal funding freeze was lifted, leaving early-career scientists scrambling to pay bills
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Any undergraduate students interested in optics, bio-inspired materials, biopolymers: check out this opportunity in our department at the @mpici.bsky.social 🧪💡
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Missed #microscopyMonday but couldn’t wait to share this gem 💡🧪👩🏼‍🔬
A microscopy image showing a swirl of red and green colours
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
POV they employed the GenZ girl as laser safety officer?! 👩🏼‍🔬💡🧪 😎
Power Point slides instructing users to wear laser safety goggles by showing the famous “we can do it” cartoon but with goggles superimposed
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Daniel Martínez PhD @dmartinezphd.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
My postdoc was partially funded by a ball of platinum that my mentor found during a lab clean out. Somehow the university treated as unclaimed treasure and he used the proceeds of the sale to cover some of my salary. Postdoc resulted in a little paper that was my most cited and led to 3 books!
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Our new department website is now online! See below for all the cool stuff going on at the @vignolinilab.bsky.social 💡
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Excited to be among the recipients of the 2024/25 Zia Fellowship! In today’s newspaper @zeit.de you can read more about the fellows and our science - or check out zeitfuerx.de/forschung/zia/ 👩🏼‍🔬💡
Introduction of the 3rd cohort of the Zia Visible Women in Science fellowship, aiming to inspire and support female scientists. My mission statement: “As a physicist, I want to develop technologies at the interface between optics, marine biology and materials science in order to understand and protect endangered ecosystems.”
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Spent the first 6mo of my post doc with a lot of reading, learning, planning, writing… feels amazing to finally be back it the lab! And feels even better to already see some interesting peaks in the spectrum, the second the sample is in focus 🤔🧪💡
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Hello again, re-introducing myself a year later, giving this app another go! My scientific vision has stood unaltered 😉 but I am now a first-year postdoc at the department for sustainable and bio-inspired materials at the Max Planck Institute of colloids and interfaces 💡🧪🌍
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 18/01/2024
Check out our protocol on integrating microscopic lasers into living cells and recording lasing spectra through hyperspectral confocal imaging! We provide open methods for applications like intracellular sensing and cell tracking 🧪💡 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Hyperspectral confocal imaging for high-throughput readout and analysis of bio-integrated microlaser...
A customized hyperspectral confocal microscope enables the tracking of living cells and sensing of cellular processes by characterizing bio-integrated microlasers with high spectral resolution.
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 26/12/2023
Wholesome and nerdy Xmas present from my sister: a book about learning to ferment your own food written by Juliette Patissier. Pretty excited to learn about #microbes on my quest to produce heavily caffeinated ginger #kombucha 🤓😍🌍
Open pages from a book about fermentation, containing an artistic illustration of microbes including bacteria, yeast, and fungi.
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 07/12/2023
This weekend I finished 2nd place at a local Xmas 10K race. The reward: a chocolate advent calendar and a voucher for 30L of beer. The german way of levelling the playing field for the next race I guess 😜
Award ceremony for the top 3 womenPicture of a group of runners including myself, taken  during the road race
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 25/11/2023
On today’s PhD thesis reading list: the very fundamentals of 2photon microscopy. Maria Goeppert-Mayer‘s thesis from 1931 is not just an instructive but also inspirational read (she was the second woman to win the Nobel price for physics, in 1963). 💡
Screenshot of the first page of Maria Goeppert-Mayer‘s dissertation titled „über Elementarakte mit zwei Quantensprüngen“
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Sebastian Schulz @nanophotonics.bsky.social · 21/11/2023
The School of Physics and Astronomy here in St Andrews is looking to hire a theoretical physicist working in condensed matter/photonics. All levels (lecturer through to Full Professor) are possible. t.co/78qjMODPEx
t.co
Lecturer/Reader/Professor (one faculty position in theoretical physics) - AC1354SB
Lecturer/Reader/Professor (one faculty position in theoretical physics) - AC1354SB, School of Physics and Astronomy, Salary: Lecturer £45,585 - £56,021 per annum / Reader £57,696 - £64,914 per an...
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 18/11/2023
Just a beautiful demonstration of #optics in nature. Makes me think of some of my favourite song lyrics “Sound is the colour I know, […] And sound of your breath in the cold, the sound will bring me home again. 💡🌍
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 07/11/2023
And this, kids, is why we always check the proofs carefully
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 02/11/2023
Writing my PhD thesis is surprisingly enjoyable and satisfying, but the thought of what’s after has been a cause of anxiety. Is it realistic to have an impactful academic career & have time for health, hobbies, family? Feel like we are constantly flooded with stereotypes and words of caution… 💡🧪
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 15/10/2023
Looking at @mickeykats.bsky.social recent post, the #photonics community should have a look at this! I got my code from them and they were very quick to reply 💯
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Vera Marie Titze @veratitze.bsky.social · 13/10/2023
#HiSciSky, I am a final-year biophotonics PhD student, working on nanolasers and microscopy and interested in bringing some of this technology to the field of marine science, conservation & sustainability. I also love running & the outdoors. Looking forward to connect 💡
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