Mentoring Hessen is a joint project of Hessian universities with the aim of supporting women who aspire to a career in science or in industry. The project supports female students, doctoral candidates, post-docs, prospective professors and managers. The women, who are primarily in the natural sciences, are supported through 1:1 mentoring, special training programmes and networking opportunities to help them manage transition phases and prepare for their careers.
As a long-standing partner of Mentoring Hessen, GSI supports mentees in the "ProCaree.MINT" and "ProCareer.Doc" funding programmes through its dedicated mentors. A further programme line "ProAcademia" is to be added to the GSI portfolio in the future.
Excursion "Mentoring Hessen meets GSI 2025"
This year, we look back on 20 years of successful cooperation with Mentoring Hessen. The Hessian career network empowers women in science and business on their career paths and promotes exchange between experienced mentors and mentees.
To mark this anniversary, an excursion to our campus took place on November 19, 2025. 16 female students, 4 (post-)doctoral researchers and 4 professionals (mentors) gained insights into the diverse activities and job profiles at GSI/FAIR.
In addition to tours of our research areas, including the accelerator tour (led by Dr. Janet Schmidt) and the tour of nuclear astrophysics / fragment separator (led by Dr. Emma Haettner), the excursion also provided an opportunity for personal exchange and networking. In a question-and-answer session, GSI colleagues from various departments provided insights into their everyday working lives, flexible and intercultural working methods and shared their experiences from fields of work in which men are predominantly represented.
The Human Resources Development Group would like to thank all colleagues who enriched the event with their personal experiences and commitment - a successful highlight at the end of our anniversary year:
Dr. Bettina Lommel, Dr. Birgit Kindler, Prof. Dr. Hannah Elfner, Dr. Janet Schmidt, Dr. Emma Haettner, Miriam Viktoria Klich, Dr. Helena May Albers, Thi-Nga Dang, Ilona Jünger Neis, Dr. Ina Schubert
Mentoring Hessen and GSI celebrate 20 years of cooperation partnership in 2025
For 20 years, the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research has been a reliable partner in the Hessian career network for women* in science and business: initially in the MentorinnenNetzwerk (Mentor Network), one of three predecessor projects of Mentoring Hessen, and since 2017 in the joint project Mentoring Hessen. Over the past 20 years, this cooperation has resulted in a total of 72 tandems with GSI mentors. In addition, since 2017, several female doctoral students from GSI have also participated as mentees in the Mentoring Hessen mentoring programs.
A particular focus has always been on empowering women in science, promoting exchange between female scientists, and building sustainable networks. With the events entitled “Mentoring Hessen meets GSI” we organized a digital networking meeting in 2022 and an excursion with participants from the mentoring network in 2023. In addition to personal exchange, these formats also offered the opportunity to get to know GSI as an employer, as well as our diverse research areas and teams.
This long-standing commitment is significantly shaped by the female mentors at GSI who are involved in Mentoring Hessen. Currently, eleven female employees at GSI are actively involved in the network and accompany female students and (post)doctoral researchers on their career paths. To highlight their experiences and perspectives, we have collected some of the mentors’ voices.
Our GSI mentors in the network – voices from the field:
- Dr. Bettina Lommel (Head of Target Laboratory, Spokesperson for the Scientific and Technical Council of GSI, Chair of the Assembly of Scientific and Technical Councils of the HGF, Vice President of the International Nuclear Target Development Society (INTDS))
- Prof. Dr. Christina Trautmann (former Head of Materials Research at GSI, former Professor at TU Darmstadt, former member of the Mentoring Hessen Steering Group)
- Dr. Monica Wamers (Staff Member of the Scientific Management, Head of the Committees & Panels Department)
- Prof. Dr. Hannah Elfner (Professor at Goethe University Frankfurt, Theory Coordinator at GSI)
- Dr. Janet Schmidt (Head of Site Management, Project Manager FAIR Machine Assembly)
- Dr. Birgit Kindler (Deputy Head of Target Laboratory, Deputy Equal Opportunities Officer GSI/FAIR, Member of the International Nuclear Target Development Society (INTDS))
* Mentoring Hessen welcomes all women* (trans and cis), including non-binary people and everyone who identifies as women*.
2025
This year, we look back on 20 years of successful cooperation with Mentoring Hessen. The Hessian career network empowers women in science and business on their career paths and promotes exchange between experienced mentors and mentees.
To mark this anniversary, an excursion to our campus took place on November 19, 2025. 16 female students, 4 (post-)doctoral researchers and 4 professionals (mentors) gained insights into the diverse activities and job profiles at GSI/FAIR.
In addition to tours of our research areas, including the accelerator tour (led by Dr. Janet Schmidt) and the tour of nuclear astrophysics / fragment separator (led by Dr. Emma Haettner), the excursion also provided an opportunity for personal exchange and networking. In a question-and-answer session, GSI colleagues from various departments provided insights into their everyday working lives, flexible and intercultural working methods and shared their experiences from fields of work in which men are predominantly represented.
The Human Resources Development Group would like to thank all colleagues who enriched the event with their personal experiences and commitment - a successful highlight at the end of our anniversary year:
Dr. Bettina Lommel, Dr. Birgit Kindler, Prof. Dr. Hannah Elfner, Dr. Janet Schmidt, Dr. Emma Haettner, Miriam Viktoria Klich, Dr. Helena May Albers, Thi-Nga Dang, Ilona Jünger Neis, Dr. Ina Schubert
2023
On 23 November, a group of female students from the mentoring programme "Mentoring Hessen", in which female scientists at GSI have been involved for many years, visited our campus.
After an excursion last year could only take place virtually due to the pandemic, we were now able to welcome the participants to "Mentoring Hessen meets GSI" on site.
The female students from science degree programmes were treated to a programme consisting of talks about GSI/FAIR, the research being conducted here, a tour of the facility and a presentation by four female scientists, who presented their career profiles and areas of work. The excursion was rounded off with a networking session, during which the visitors had the opportunity to talk to our colleagues.
PEN would once again like to express its sincere thanks to the colleagues who enriched this excursion with their contributions:
Bettina Lommel, Carola Pomplun, Angela Bräuning-Demian, Daria Boscolo, Andrea Jedele, Regina Hess, Beata Walasek-Höhne, Magdalena Gorska-Ott, Alicja Surowiec, Birgit Kindler and Gabriele Otto.
2022
In February 2022, 30 mentees and mentors from Mentoring Hessen paid a virtual visit to GSI and FAIR. GSI/FAIR employees gave an online tour of the facility, from the ion sources to the experiments, and provided an insight into the diverse activities at the research centre: How are ions accelerated and how do the accelerators operate? What happens when ions hit materials or human cells? How can we use collisions of atoms and atomic nuclei to understand what happens inside planets and stars? How do you produce the targets for the accelerated ions?
