Over 600 specially qualified young researchers from almost 80 countries have the once in a lifetime opportunity to exchange views with 35 Nobel Prize winners on the latest research results and to establish contacts from 30th June until 5th July 2013 at the 63rd Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates. Among those nominated are the doctoral students Stefan Naumann and Max Schwilk from the University of Stuttgart. The young researchers successfully concluded a multi-level, international selection process and are among the most promising future talents in the field of chemistry.
From left: Stefan Naumann, Max Schwilk. (Photos: Private) |
“The lectures by the Nobel Prize winners will provide an exciting cross section through the
diverse field of chemistry“, emphasised Stefan Naumann, who is doing his doctorate at the Institute
for Polymer Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart (Prof. Michael Buchmeiser). The 27-year old is
also particularly looking forward to making contact with other young researchers. “I think staying
in Lindau will be characterised by the feeling of belonging to a global community.“
Stefan Naumann was born in Heilbronn in 1986 and studied chemistry at the University of
Stuttgart. For his degree in 2010 he received the prize from Friends of the University of
Stuttgart. Since then he has been working in the framework of his doctorate on the synthesis and
application of catalysts for the manufacturing of polymers. Particularly attention is hereby paid
to the investigation of easily applicable, metal-free and thermally latent systems. These enable
storable monomers/catalyst mixtures to be manufactured, which can be polymerised at any given time
through being simply heated up, which makes the technical application on a large scale considerably
easier. In addition, these systems can be applied in modern processing techniques.
Max Schwilk is also looking forward to making international contacts and to the lectures by great researchers. “Maybe I’ll have the chance to get into conversation with one or another Nobel Prize winner”, is what the 26-year old doctoral student at the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry is hoping for. In the working group of the Leibnitz Prize winner Prof. Hans-Joachim Werner, Schwilk, who studied in Stuttgart, Rennes and Strasbourg, deals with quantum mechanical methods to calculate molecular properties. Methods have already been developed at the chair in recent years with which molecular properties as well as the dynamics of chemical elementary reactions of small molecules can be simulated very precisely in reasonable computing time. In the framework of an ERC grant awarded by the European Research Council to Prof. Werner, Schwilk is now looking for ways to also enable such calculations for significantly larger molecules. In so doing the computing time should behave in a linear way to the size of the molecule. In addition, the programme should also be efficiently executable on large computer architectures with very many processors, such as, for example, at the Stuttgart High Performance Computer Centre. “If we can realise these two points, it should be possible, for example, to calculate complex biochemical molecules and reactions or to simulate more precisely and better understand thermodynamics and the kinetics of catalytic chemical processes“, said Schwilk.
Laureates from all fields of chemistry are expected at the 63rd Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates, including Dan Shechtman and Brian Kobilka (2012), Akira Suzuki (2010), Ada Yonath (2009), Martin Chalfie (2008), the Stuttgart alumnus Gerhard Ertl (2007) as well as Aaron Ciechanover (2004). The physics Nobel Prize winners Theodor Hänsch and Roy Glauber (2005) have committed to participating. For one week Nobel Prize winners and young researchers will be listening to lectures together, debating on current topics and establishing valuable contacts.
Further information and arranging interviews:
Andrea Mayer-Grenu, University of Stuttgart, Department of University Communication, Tel.
0711/685-82176,
Email: andrea.mayer-grenu (at) hkom.uni-stuttgart.de.
Max Schwilk will also be reporting on his impressions at the meeting as a blogger at the
Lindau Nobel Online Community, presented by the newspaper “Spektrum der Wissenschaft”.
http://lindau.nature.com/lindau/