Awards and Distinctions

The remarkable achievements of our CENIDE members and their teams make impressive reading. Although not all of them can be presented here, we would like to highlight a representative selection of just some of their awards and distinctions.

One of the aims of Junior Professor André Gröschel is to program polymer nanoparticles so that they self-assemble in predefined structures. This could be a way for complicated structures to be generated of their own accord, without the use of energy and without expensive machinery. For the project the chemist was granted an Emmy Noether Junior Research Group in 2017, which is receiving 1.3 million euros in funding from the DFG.

Light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) are versatile, but so far they have been incapable of delivering white light. A team led by Dr.-Ing. Ekaterina Nannen of the Solid State Lighting research group from the Chair of Electronic Materials and Nanostructures has succeeded in manufacturing white prototypes. The junior research group won the “LED Professional Science Award” in 2017 for its efforts.

The outstanding achievements of PD Dr. Vladimir V. Shvartsman (Lupascu research group) were recognised with the Gottschalk Diederich Baedeker Prize in 2016. The solidstate physicist is an internationally recognised expert in atomic force microscopy.

For his pioneering research on colloid synthesis through laser ablation and his outstanding habilitation in the Faculty of Technical Chemistry I at the UDE, the chemist Dr. Philipp Wagener was awarded the Gottschalk Diederich Baedeker Prize in 2017.

Also in 2017, CENIDE member Prof. Matthias Epple of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry and Prof. Dr. Astrid Westendorf of the Institute of Medical Microbiology at Essen University Hospital won the special “Medicine and Science” prize of the “Essen forscht und heilt” action group.

The physicist Prof. Dietrich Wolf was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by Budapest University for Technology and Economics in 2017. Thirty years of joint research have produced 55 scientific articles, with research on topics including friction and electrical transport in molecules and nanostructures.

In 2016 the Technical University of Munich awarded an honorary doctorate to CENIDE member Prof. Ferdi Schüth, Director of the Mülheim Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung. He received the accolade during the opening of the TUM Catalysis Research Center.

The mechanical engineer Prof. Kannan M. Krishnan investigates how the performance of processors and nanomagnetic materials can be optimised. The winner of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation research prize was the guest of the Farle research group in 2016 and develops novel magnetic nanomaterials for biomedical applications and new logic patterns for IT devices.

Also receiving one of the coveted postdoctoral fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2016 was early career researcher Dr. Marin Petrovic, who was a guest of the Meyer zu Heringdorf research group in the Faculty of Physics and able to work on the fascinating methodology of low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM).

Ultrafast storage using lasers and new materials for the computer industry is one of the goals of the Humboldt scholar Dr. Ljupka Stojčevska Malbašić. As a physicist and mathematician, she researches how laser beams can influence materials and was the guest of the Bovensiepen research group in 2016.

Finding new strategies in the fight against cancer is the goal of Prof. Dr. Xiao-Yu Hu from Nanjing University. As the holder of a Humboldt research fellowship for experienced scientists, she joined the Schmuck research group in 2016 as its guest.

Prize-winning doctoral and final dissertations, lectures and poster presentations at international conferences, and excellent creative teaching activities are further testament to the wealth of expertise and dedication of our scientists:

During the 16th German Ferrofluid Workshop, Dr. Joachim Landers of the Wende research group was awarded the dissertation prize of the German Ferrofluid Society for his outstanding doctoral thesis “Study of magnetic relaxation dynamics in soft matter nanoparticle composite systems”.

During her doctorate on “Rational Design and Biomedical Application of Multifunctional Gold Nanoparticle Bioconjugates” in the Barcikowski research group, Lisa Gamrad developed probes with which to distinguish between bovine sperm with male and female genetic information. The chemist received the advancement award of the German Society for Biomaterials (DGBM e.V.) in 2017 for her new development.

For her paper on “CuInS2 Quantum Dots for Applications in Large-Area White QD-LEDs”, doctoral candidate Svenja Wepfer won an “Outstanding Poster Award” at the 9th International Conference on Quantum Dots in Korea in 2016. Wepfer works in the Nannen research group on quantum-dot-based light emitters for large-area lighting.

For his poster on “Synthesis and characterization of perovskite nanoparticles for oxygen evolution catalysis”, Baris Alkan of the Schulz/ Wiggers research group was awarded the poster prize of the European Aerosol Society in 2017.

“Synthesis and Characterisation of Small Gold Nanorods for Cellular Uptake by Neutrophil Granulocytes and Use in the Photothermal Therapy” – for his good combination of physical chemistry, biology and medicine, Master’s student Michael Erkelenz of the Schlücker research group received the Best Poster Award at the “Bunsentagung 2017”.

For “Efficient gas-phase synthesis of substratefree graphene compared to the liquid-phase method”, junior scientist Adrian Münzer of the Wiggers research group received a Best Poster Award. The award was presented in 2017 at the conference of the European Materials Research Society (EMRS) in Strasbourg.

A “Distinguished Lecturer Award” was presented to the physicist Prof. Michael Farle in 2017 by the IEEE Magnetics Society.

The physicist PD Dr. Ulf Wiedwald succeeded against international competition in gaining an appointment in 2017 as Visiting Professor at the internationally renowned National University of Science and Technology in Moscow.

Dr.-Ing. Patrick S. Kurzeja was appointed in 2017 to the “Junges Kolleg” (Young College) of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts. In the Wolf research group, Patrick Kurzeja has been simulating micro- and nanoparticles in liquids to learn more about effective properties such as viscosity and elasticity from behaviour on the small scale.

Junior Professor Dr. Michael Giese (Organic Chemistry), Dr.-Ing. Stefanie Hanke (Materials Science, Engineering) and Junior Professor Dr. Kadijeh Mohri (Fluid Dynamics, IVG, Engineering) have been members of the Global Young Faculty, a joint initiative of Stiftung Mercator and the University Alliance Ruhr, since 2017.