If you're thinking about being a Student Reporter for Tropentag in the future, I really recommend it. Of course it's the 1st day and we're riding on a high of exhaustion, buzz from the energy at the conference and, yes, a buzz from the wine offered at the social gathering. But if the past 3 days are anything to go by, I'd say send off your application ASAP and pack your bags for Tropentag 2019 Kassel-Witzighausen. 

I don't want to speak to you about the conference, who won what award, or who presented what poster. I want to speak to you about the backstage action in room 057 in Block A. 

Ritti is a PhD student in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, scholar for the Carnegie Trust, and a trained Media Designer for Picture and Sound. Her PhD research focus is on Lyme disease in Scotland, but she is very passionate about food security and ethnobotany so she realised Tropentag 2018 was the perfect opportunity to expand beyond her research, discover the important research first-hand from the scientists, and explore her extracurricular interests to strengthen her position as a researcher. In the Student Reporter team, Ritti is in charge of social media (Twitter and Instagram), blogging and photography. By day, she is an anthropologist, by night an aerialist!

Cristina, from Moldova, is a PhD student in Sustainable Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics at the University of Life Sciences in Prague, Czech Republic. She is currently researching the lack of young labour in agriculture in the Ukraine. In the Czech Republic, she is a voting member for GREENPEACE and a YPARD country representative for Moldova. Cristina believes that attending Tropentag as a Student Reporter can give her a valuable experience and she can give an excellent feedback of her work and involvement. Cristina is in charge of taking interviews in the Student Reporter team.