David Eilenstein is a research associate at GSI/FAIR Biophysics and has an unusual hobby. Besides his work as an image processing software developer, he regularly participates in “Ninja Warrior Germany”. Every year, the TV show searches for athletes who master challenging parkours in best time. In this interview, he reveals why this hobby has a positive effect on his tasks at GSI and why he would miss working as a software developer.
The interview was conducted by Lucia Teresa Hidalgo Garcia, Raminta Gudelyte, Nils Hansen, Marie-Sophie Lindemann and Lennart Jung, who study “Science – Media – Communication” at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). As part of the course “Media and Public Relations”, in which KIT and GSI/FAIR cooperate, students conducted interviews with young researchers at GSI/FAIR.
Via detours
David Eilenstein describes his own career as a “huge chaos” and has to laugh about it himself. After starting and dropping out of several courses of study, he decided to study “Optotechnology and Image Processing” at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. He paused his studies for his job as a parkour trainer, but noticed after two years that he missed logical thinking. He resumed his studies and a professor recommended a working student position at GSI. Even as a child, he often passed by the GSI site, he says. In school, he became aware of the element “Darmstadtium” in chemistry, which was discovered at GSI and named after the city. He started working as a student trainee at GSI in April 2018, and also wrote his bachelor’s and master’s theses at the Darmstadt research center. He has stayed until today and likes the creative tasks and versatility on site. “Here I have the opportunity to drive basic research myself. Especially at GSI, I can solve challenging problems and follow up on them.”
Making research results visible
David’s daily work consists of programming, but also of interacting with scientists: His job is image processing in scientific projects, especially in biophysics. In image processing, information is processed from available images using algorithms. It is the bridge between the experiment and the evaluation of an experiment. For this purpose he uses his self-developed image processing software called “ImageD”.
He is currently using the program to observe the behavior of cells. In an experiment, biologists took photos of cells over a longer period of time. The task of David Eilenstein’s software is to identify cell nuclei in the images and reconstruct their movements and divisions. After half the time, the cells are irradiated and analyzed afterwards to see how this affects the behavior of the cells.
Of his goals in life, David Eilenstein says, “I want to spend as much time as possible on the things I enjoy most and minimize the other things as much as possible.” One of the things he enjoys most is the sport of “Ninja Warrior” and participating in the televised show “Ninja Warrior Germany.”
More than a hobby: Ninja Warrior
© TVNOW / Markus Hertrich, 02.06.2020
He took up gymnastics at the age of nine and eventually switched to parkour. Through his coaching job, he got to know the show Ninja Warrior and has been taking part himself every year since 2017. To prepare for the show, David Eilenstein built a climbing frame in his living room. This attracted the interest of other participants, who asked him if he could build such structures for them so that they could also train better. “Now I use a computer program to build sports equipment and ninja sports facilities for athletes and for professional operators.” GSI offers him the flexibility he needs to do that. For his part-time position, he could specify the distribution of work hours among the days of the week as he wished. “The only problem is the limit of hours of each day to 24,” he says with a laugh. David Eilenstein’s hobby has a positive influence on his job in this regard. To build the ninja scaffold, it is crucial to be able to think three-dimensionally and know what the model will look like in reality. The same is the case for his job at GSI. David needs to be able to visualize exactly what will happen during an experiment so he can then represent it in two or three dimensions. Another aspect is the social component. In both areas, good communication is very important to achieve the desired goals.
For him, the fascination of science lies in its fact orientation. It is not personal opinions that are important, but the fact of how a finding can be proven. As a tip for other scientists and young people interested in a career in science, David Eilenstein says, “Sometimes it makes sense to just follow through with something and then see where you end up. The rest will fall into place.”