Imaging of Matter
Mildred Dresselhaus Guest Professorship Program creates fantastic network
3 April 2024
The celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Mildred Dresselhaus Program in March 2024 was marked by a special spirit: 14 high-calibre women scientists who had come from all over the world to celebrate the program, to exchange ideas with each other and with their Hamburg cooperation partners and to show young researchers what a successful career in science can look like.
At the same time, the conference, to which the Cluster of Excellence "CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter" had invited, once again made the award winners visible in a special way - in their lectures, but also in an exhibition in the foyer of the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL), where the scientists who had travelled to Hamburg were presented with pictures and quotes. It was clear how much the awardees appreciated this recognition and how extraordinary it was for some of them.
Paying tribute to Mildred Dresselhaus, the award winners, and our commitment
In general, the two-day conference showed how relevant and important the idea of the program from ten years ago still is, namely, to honor outstanding women scientists and to create role models. "We also felt it was important for the program to have a close connection to our research. And that's how our guest professorship program came about, which has given us a fantastic network over the past few years," recalls Cluster spokesperson Prof. Francesca Calegari, who is responsible for the area of diversity, on the origins of the Mildred Dresselhaus program.
"Today we are paying tribute to Mildred Dresselhaus, the award winners and our commitment for women to reach equal opportunities," said Prof. Norbert Ritter, Dean of the MIN Faculty, emphasizing the importance of the conference in his welcoming address. One of the highlights was the presentation of the current prizes, which are part of the program in addition to research stays in Hamburg.
The Senior Prize
The Senior Prize was awarded to Prof. Lin X. Chen from the Chemical Science and Engineering Division of Argonne National Laboratory and the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University. Lin Chen is recognized worldwide for her work on excited state transition metal complexes, e.g., as designed for solar energy conversion materials, via femtosecond optical and both steady-state and time-resolved X-ray absorption spectroscopy tools. The laudatory speech was given by Prof. Christian Bressler from the European XFEL and the Department of Physics at the University of Hamburg.
The Junior Prize
Dr. Liuyan Zhao, Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan, USA, accepted the Junior Prize. Her research focuses on probing, understanding, and eventually controlling emergent electronic and magnetic phases in quantum materials. The laudatory speech was given by Prof. Andrea Cavalleri, Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD).
Lin X. Chen and Liuyan Zhao presented their outstanding research in 30-minute talks before Eileen Schwanold, Diversity Manager of the Cluster, thanked all the award winners for coming with a typical Hamburg gift: "Thank you all for enriching our celebration in such a wonderful way and for sharing your expertise with our community."