On Friday, the 25th of August 2017, Martin defended his PhD thesis entitled „ The canonical circuit of the avian forebrain “. Martin presented us a fantastic tour de force through the circuitry of the avian pallium and was able to embed his findings and ideas into a detailed framework of previous studies and theories (he concluded that pretty much all of them were (partly) wrong). During the subsequent discussion the word most often used by the reviewers and Martin was “column”. We all are pretty sure that Martin was dreaming of columns the next night. Martin could nicely respond to all questions and successfully defended his ideas. It was just great! Obviously, the committee unanimously decided that he had performed extremely well and decided to award him the rarely awarded grade of a Dr. rer. nat. with summa cum laude. Afterwards, Martin proudly could wear his mortar board that was decorated with… (guess what?): of course columns!!!

Congratulations Martin! We are proud of you!