Ivana Nikić-Spiegel

Exciting news!🥳In mid-2025, I’ll be joining the LCSB at the University of Luxembourg as an Associate Professor! Interested in working at the intersection of cellular (neuro)biology, neuroimmunology, chemical biology & microscopy? Stay tuned for open positions or drop me an email

We're looking for new team member(s) to join us @TueNeuroCampus. The position(s) can be filled at the technician or research assistant level. The funding for these positions is currently available until 31.12.24. Interested? Please contact me by email. The advert link coming soon

Super proud of our new PhD! Existence is pain, as Nevena liked to put it and remind us of during difficult moments. But then there are great achievements and happy memories like these! @cheerful_neuron can now (finally) enjoy her life as a cheerful PhD! Congratulations again! 🥳

We're looking for a technical/research assistant to join my lab @TueNeuroCampus. Depending on the starting date, the position will be first limited to 1 or 1.5 years. If you're interested in cell & molecular (neuro)biology, contact me by email. The advert link will follow soon.

We're over the moon for our new PhD, esp. me seeing my 1st PhD student graduate! Impossible to put it all into words, but Aleksandra was brave to join my group at the very beginning & she didn't only survive but she did great & got this amazing PhD hat (& other presents)😉

Thanks. To be able to focus, for work I need instrumentals, but I will check Detour out. Speaking of instrumentals, I can also recommend Yiruma's music- either original piano pieces youtu.be/cMzyLBuFm4A or some of the guitar covers youtu.be/QMW61Jva00s

One of the biggest challenges (at least for me) when trying to manage crazy deadlines & heavy workloads is to stay calm & clear-headed. In some situations (like now😂) nothing helps, but youtu.be/WVP3fUzQHcg usually helps me focus & calms me down. Any other recommendations?

Over the course of the pandemic, the guest room lost its purpose & got a "bit" messy. TBH, the rest of the flat isn't much better. The fact that guests are arriving tomorrow means that cleaning is due, but after doing 2 rounds of grocery🛒& 1 round of laundry, I am stuck here😂

Always interesting: academics explaining aspects of different academic systems to each other. It's even more "interesting" when we try to explain the post-PhD career uncertainty to those outside of the academic bubble. We:"yes, very unlikely to get a tenured job, BUT...". They:

There's a bit of bias towards happy news here, but good news need to be celebrated,esp. when they involve multiple of my lab members. Still need to wait before sharing the details, but the bottom line is: while my students are being successful, I'm getting fat😂Today's🥳breakfast

I wonder what would be the results of such studies across Europe. And if universities can (finally) accept and actually try to address the fact that the lack of diversity in academia is more than a pipeline problem.

Some days it is all just a bit too much... HR preparing a wrong type of contract for one of my group members, contamination in our cell culture, "bugs" in a manuscript online submission system... Btw. it is only Monday-I wonder what the rest of this week will bring?🤔

In a week during which our beloved microscope decided to scare us with some technical hitches, a perfect microscopy troubleshooting song has been released!🎵🎶Why does everything seem so blurry? youtu.be/O8PuoS0uquM Déformation professionnelle, anyone? 😉

Perks of waking up in the middle of the night during the School on Fluorescence Markers for Advanced Microscopy in Les Houches! The view 👀

So happy to see our @neiltay_ being awarded #MSCA postdoctoral fellowship @TueNeuroCampus ! 🥳 As an @MSCActions alumna, I'm very honoured to now have a #MSCA postdoc in my group☺️Congratulations to Neil & all the applicants who submitted their proposals!

Something that made me super happy this year. For the 1st time in my career I have been invited to be an external examiner during a PhD defense! And not only once, but twice🤓1st stop - University of Bordeaux 🇫🇷, 2nd stop - Karolinska Institute 🇸🇪.

I like summers at German institutes. I remember even EMBL's 🔬facility being not so busy in August. As a group leader, I have much less meetings and tomorrow I have the whole lab for myself and I get the chance to take care of all our cells and viruses😄

I think I finally understand what Germans mean by "April, April, der macht was er will" ❄️

Playing with Poll Everywhere and trying to keep my spirits up while preparing lectures for another online semester with our @GTC_Tue students. I still hope that we will also have a chance to get to know them in person and not only on zoom