Awards and honors for outstanding scientists at the MPI Magdeburg

Scientific Awards, Memberships and Appointments

Honours for the employees of our institute

2026

Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stefanie Duvigneau, Research Group Process Synthesis and Process Dynamics, has accepted a position at the Technische Universität München, effective March 1, 2026, where she will head the Chair of Bioprocess Intensification in the School of Engineering and Design.
Dr.-Ing. Ronny Tobias Zimmermann, team leader in the Process Engineering Research Group, has accepted a position at the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt, effective March 1, 2026, where he will hold the professorship of Process Design and Simulation in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

2025

Prof. Dr. Sohini Kar-Narayan, Director and Head of the Department of Materials Systems Engineering, has been appointed Honorary Professor for the field of ‘Advanced Material Systems for Energy Technology, Sensors and Actuators’ at the Faculty of Process and Systems Engineering at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg in December 2025.
Prof. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern, Emeritus Director, was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy, Sofia, in November 2025 in recognition of his outstanding achievements.
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Peter Benner, Director and Head of the Department of Numerical Methods in System and Control Theory, was elected as a member by the General Assembly of acatech, the German Academy of Science and Engineering, in October 2025.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai Sundmacher, Director of the Process Engineering Department, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy (UCTM) in Sofia, Bulgaria, on 5 November 2025 in recognition of his services to Bulgarian higher education and to the expansion of German-Bulgarian cooperation in education and science.
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Sara Grundel, Alumna of the research group Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory, was appointed to a Professorship of Applied Mathematics at the Centre for Mathematics and Natural Sciences at HTWK Leipzig from 1st October 2025 on.
Dr. Laura König-Mattern, alumna of the Process Engineering Department, will be awarded second prize of the Deutscher Studienpreis (German Study Prize). She will receive the prize given by the Körber-Stiftung (Körber Foundation), worth €10,000, in the Natural Sciences and Technology section for her doctoral thesis on “Systematic Solvent Screening and Design for Biomass Fractionation Processes,” which she successfully completed at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg in 2024.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai Sundmacher, Director of the Process Engineering Department, has been reappointed a Fellow of the Max Planck School Matter to Life due to his outstanding scientific profile by the President of the Max Planck Society for the period from October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2029.
Dr.-Ing. Ronny Tobias Zimmermann, team leader in the PSE group, was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society on June 25, 2025. He was honored for his research work in the field of reactor and catalyst pellet design for load-flexible chemical energy storage using Power-to-X processes.
Dr.-Ing. Sven Göbel, alumnus of BPE group, dealt with the characterization, optimization and intensification of bioreactor processes for the production of oncolytic viruses in his dissertation. In May 2025, he was honored with the DECHEMA Industrial Bioprocess Award 2025 for his outstanding research work.