Former UniCat Scientist awarded the Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Lecture Prize 2016

18 July 2016
Physicist Regine von Klitzing honored for her important contributions to polymer physics

The European Physical Journal E  (EPJ E) – Soft Matter and Biological Physics has awarded German physicist Regine von Klitzing the 2016 EPJ E Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Lecture Prize. The journal editors chose von Klitzing for her important contributions to polymer physics, particularly concerning the structure of polyelectrolyte assemblies and functionalized/responsive microgels.

Regine von Klitzing is full professor at the Technische Universität Berlin where she directs the Physicochemistry Laboratory for Colloid and Interface Science. She was a member of UniCat starting from the very early beginning of UniCat in 2007 until 2013 in Research Fields C1 and E3.

This is the fifth time this prestigious prize, named after the 1991 Nobel laureate who founded EPJ E, has been awarded. The EPJ E Pierre-Gilles de Gennes lecture will be delivered by von Klitzing in Grenoble, France, during the 4th International Soft Matter Conference which takes place from 12 to 16 September 2016. 

Regine von Klitzing studied experimental physics in Braunschweig and Göttingen.  In 1996, she received her PhD from Mainz University, performing her PhD thesis work on polyelectrolyte multilayers. She then moved to Bordeaux for her post-doctoral studies at the CNRS-CRPP (Centre national de la recherche scientifique - Centre de recherche Paul Pascal), working on foam films.

In 1998 she started to work on the structuring of polyelectrolytes in thin films and received her habilitation qualification from the Technische Universität Berlin in 2003. Then she became Group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam at the department of Prof. Helmuth Möhwald. From 2004 until  2006, von Klitzing was Associate Professor for Physical Chemistry at Kiel University. Since 2006 she has been Professor for Physical Chemistry at TU Berlin.

Recently, she accepted an offer from the Technische Universität Darmstadt for a full professorship in physics and will start there in March 2017. Regine von Klitzing has become famous for her contributions to the structuring and dynamics of polymers and colloidal dispersions under geometrical confinement.

The EPJ E Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Lecture Prize is sponsored by the European Physical Journal (EPJ) co-publishers, which consist of the Italian Physical Society (SIF) and the publishers EDP Sciences and Springer. It is awarded to outstanding scientists for their contribution to soft matter research.