Deutscher Studienpreis of the Körber-Stiftung was presented to Laura König-Mattern

We warmly congratulate our alumna Dr. Laura König-Mattern on this outstanding award and honour.

Dr. Laura König-Mattern was awarded second prize in the Deutsche Studienpreis (German Study Prize). She received the Körber Foundation's prize, worth €10,000, in the Natural Sciences and Technology Section for her doctoral thesis on ‘Systematic Solvent Screening and Design for Biomass Fractionation Processes’.

Dr. Laura König-Mattern, former PhD student at the Max Planck Institute in Magdeburg, received second prize in the Körber Foundation's German Study Award from Bundestag President Julia Klöckner on 4 December 2025.

In her dissertation, she developed algorithms for biorefineries that show how algae and wood can best be broken down into their basic molecular building blocks. As an alternative to fossil raw materials, these building blocks form the basis for the production of bio-based chemicals.

This was the first time the prize had been awarded to a scientist in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt.

Laura König-Mattern received the award in the presence of her scientific mentees and mentors. Dr. techn. Liisa Rihko-Struckmann is team leader in the Process Engineering Research Group at the Max Planck Institute in Magdeburg, and Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Kai Sundmacher supervised the doctoral thesis as an assessor at the Faculty of Process and Systems Engineering at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg.

We warmly congratulate our alumna Dr. Laura König-Mattern on this outstanding award and honour.