Amanda attended the annual Young Atom Opticians (YAO) conference, which took place this year from 7 to 12 June 2026 on the beautiful island of Crete, at the Orthodox Academy of Crete (OAC) in Chania.

YAO is designed for early-stage PhD students and combines participant presentations with lectures from distinguished professors and principal investigators (PIs). This year’s lectures were delivered by Prof. Dr. Francesca Ferlaino, Dr. Dennis Schlippert, Prof. Dr. Leticia Tarruell, Dr. Tom Bienaime, Dr. Philippe Faist, and Prof. Marzena Szymanska.

After a week of fascinating talks, the highlight was Amanda winning the poster prize for her poster, “Optical transport system for an ultracold Er-K mixture in a box potential.”

Congratulations to Amanda on this achievement, and many thanks to the organising team for hosting another successful YAO conference!