BANDUNG, fmipa.itb.ac.id – In this chemistry and society lecture series 2, the speaker was Eunike Mahayoni. She is a Chemistry ITB alumnus class of 2012 and graduated her bachelor’s degree in 2016. During her study at ITB, she did Final Project in the Organic Chemistry Research Group with the topic of “Natural Product Chemistry” supervised by (the late) Prof. Yana Maolana Syah. She then took her master’s degree in Korea, KIST University of Science and Technology in the field of Nanotechnology from 2017 to 2020. Then, she continued his doctoral degree at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne, France, in the field of Materials Chemistry from 2020 to 2023. She is currently pursuing postdoctoral research on the topic of Solid-State Batteries research.

While she was studying for a master’s degree in Korea, she was involved in a material development project to degrade sulfur mustard, a chemical weapon that is still used by North Korea. Currently, she is involved in the development of solid-state battery technology. She explained the journey from this technology to the applications and projects that she is currently developing.

At the end of the session, she gave tips and suggestions regarding building an academic CV. Becoming a scientist requires desire, discipline, and high curiosity. Additionally, when choosing to study abroad, it is necessary to map personal interests, skills, and geographical factors of the place you want to go. Previously, she also explained about considering the social conditions where the study location would be taken.

In the question and answer session, there were questions about the reasons she took different fields when pursuing masters and doctoral degree. She said that she enjoyed studying organic chemistry. However, when she went through the thesis session, she discovered a high interest in answering questions related to inorganic chemistry. Hence, the studies she took for her masters and doctoral degree were in the field of inorganic chemistry. The results of her sharing contained two learning materials, namely continuously exploring one’s potential and enthusiasm for studying. It can be concluded that the speaker has had a lot of experiences to get to that point. Additionally, the ability to speak various languages is also an important asset in pursuing a career in the academic world abroad. The ability to make good network and look for opportunities to pursue education and careers abroad is also essential in building relationships and teams. At the end of the session, she talked about funding in pursuing education and conducting research. This is very useful for chemistry students who want to continue their education abroad (Irgi Henesta)