The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation: six international research talents to receive The 2015 Sofja Kovalevskaja Awards chosen

Six international research talents each receive up to €1.65 million in award money to establish their own research groups in Munich, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Bochum and Hannover.

BONN, 13-8-2015 — /EuropaWire/ — The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has chosen six international research talents aged between 31 and 33 to receive one of Germany’s most valuable research awards: the winners will each be granted up to €1.65 million. The 2015 Sofja Kovalevskaja Awards furnish promising young researchers with risk capital for innovative projects at an early stage in their careers.

The award winners will spend up to five years conducting research at German universities and research institutions, establishing their own working groups at their host institutes. The awards will be conferred on the 2015 recipients by the Federal Research Minister Johanna Wanka and the President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Helmut Schwarz.

Please note: The award ceremony will be held on 17 November in Berlin. A press invitation will follow.

The new award winners, their home countries, countries of residence, research areas and host institutes are:

• Rikkert Frederix, Netherlands/Switzerland, Elementary Particle Physics, Technische Universität München, Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics Group in Garching
• Mikhail Kudryashev, Russia/Switzerland, Biophysics/Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Frankfurt am Main
• Karin Lind, Sweden, Astronomy, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg
• Ioan M. Pop, Romania/USA, Solid State Physics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
• Clara Saraceno, Argentina/Switzerland, Laser Physics, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Chair of Physical Chemistry II
• Zhuang Xiaoying, China, Technical Mechanics/Engineering Science, Leibniz University Hannover, Institute of Continuum Mechanics

The Sofja Kovalevskaja Award is financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and was originally announced every two years. Thanks to additional funding from the ministry, after the last round in 2014, it has been possible to grant awards to outstanding junior researchers once again this year.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Every year, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables more than 2,000 researchers from all over the world to spend time researching in Germany. The Foundation maintains a network of well over 26,000 Humboldtians from all disciplines in more than 140 countries worldwide – including 51 Nobel Prize winners.

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