"Don't let reality confuse you": lessons of Mari Ángeles Vozmediano in her ad honorem

The ICMM hosts the congress 'A view from the Dirac cone', in which colleagues of the researcher throughout her life have told how the scientist has influenced their work.

"No more surprises, I can't cry anymore." Mari Ángeles Vozmediano, research professor at the Institute of Materials Science of Madrid (ICMM), CSIC, is getting ad honorem title this year. Her colleagues did not want to miss the opportunity to honor her. In a two-day congress entitled 'A view from the Dirac cone', GeliFest, researchers from all over the world have come together (in person or online) to tell how Vozmediano has influenced their past, present and future work.

Starting on Monday, April 24, with the very director of the Vozmediano thesis, Professor Aharon Davidson (Ben-Gurion University), the event has been a fantastic amalgamation of theoretical physics (and Dirac cones), anecdotes and learning that have made laugh and cry equally to the honoree.

Eduardo Castro (CF-UM-UP, FCUP, Portugal), Karl Landsteiner (UAM-CSIC Institute of Theoretical Physics), José Ángel Silva Guillén (IMDEA Nanociencia), Adolfo G. Grushin (Institut Néel, CNRS, Grenoble), Alberto Cortijo (UAM), Fernando de Juan (Donostia International Physics Center, UPV-EHU, IKERBASQUE) and Belén Valenzuela (ICMM-CSIC) have created an international event out of nothing in which tutors, colleagues, and pupils of Mari Ángeles Vozmediano have come together.

The researcher, who studied graphene before Nobel recognition and who was invited to the Nobel symposium in 2010, has left a mark on many researchers around the world, and an impact that goes far beyond simple science because she has guided students in a unique, very personal way, very different from what a few years ago would be expected of a teacher. The result has been some work and life lessons that have been remembered at this event: "Respect for work", summed up one of her colleagues. "Don't let reality confuse you," recalled one of her students to the smile of the attendees. Those are the words of Vozmediano, of course.

"I have realized how happy I have been," recognized Vozmediano visibly moved in her thanks at the end of the act. In her words, she recognized the "value" of those who have also remembered that the road has not always been laughs: "Thank you for the courage to say that there have been difficult times, they were also for me", she pointed out, insisting that her most significant learning has been being in such good company all these years: "If there has been fun, it is thanks to you, to your sense of humor," she said.

The researcher herself has even talked about her 'impostor syndrome': "It's real, it happens to me every time I speak, in science and in life", she acknowledged, to later add that it is amazing when she has had an idea and that idea later has turned him into something extraordinary. "Maybe I did something good in my life, you certainly were," she concluded.

Although she said he couldn't cry anymore, the truth is that she did, because she had some surprise gifts left (after receiving a paint made by Maxim Chernodub's wife): a personalized mug, a sweatshirt with the photo of her team that she hasn't taken long to wear in front of everyone... and a blackboard with chalks, of course.

-- Ángela R. Bonachera - ICMM Communication Unit -