On January 18th and 19th, 2023 we welcomed our new PhD students at Universität Duisburg-Essen as well as PhD and MASc students at University of Waterloo. These young scientists are part of our international research training group 2D-MATURE funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – German Research Foundation and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).