Scientific Awards, Memberships and Appointments

For the members of staff of our institute

2023

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai Sundmacher gave the 30^th Annual Roger Sargent Lecture on 7 December 2023 on invitation of the Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering at the Imperial College London on the topic „Integrated Computer-Aided Molecular, Material and Process Design for Efficient Chemical Production Systems”.
Dr.-Ing. habil. Tanja Vidaković-Koch will represent the German institutions and research institutes in the International Society of Electrochemistry from 2024 to 2026. She was elected for this role in November 2023 in an electronic election process. Regional Representatives act as a link between the Society and the members of their countries.
Prof. Dr. Peter Benner, Director and Head of the Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory department, was re-elected to the DFG (German Research Foundation) Review Board: 3.31 Mathematics for the term of membership 2024-2028.
Dr.-Ing. habil. Tanja Vidakovic-Koch, research group Electrochemical Energy Conversion, was elected for the first time to the DFG Review Board (German Research Foundation) 4.21 Process Engineering, Technical Chemistry, Subject: 4.21-05 Systems Process Engineering for the term of membership 2024-2028.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai Sundmacher, director and head of the Process Systems Engineering department, was honored with the Research Award 2023 of the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg on November 21, 2023. He received the prize in recognition of his cutting-edge research work and outstanding scientific achievements in the field of systems process engineering.
Dr. Sridhar Chellappa, CSC department, was awarded Best PhD Student 2023 of the Faculty of Mathematics at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg for his outstanding Ph. D. thesis on model order reduction of dynamical systems, an increasingly important field of applied mathematics at the interface with the engineering sciences.
Ronny Tobias Zimmermann, M. Sc., Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Bremer, Bianka Stein, Markus Ikert and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai Sundmacher (Head), all members of the Process Systems Engineering Department at the Max Planck Institute Magdeburg, were awarded one of the Environmental Prizes (Umweltpreis) of the state capital Magdeburg on November 16, 2023. They were awarded 1st place in the "Research" category. The prize was given for their invention of novel core-shell catalysts for the load-flexible operation of future Power-to-X processes. These easy-to-produce catalysts can be used to develop efficient, safe and cost-effective reactors and processes that enable the large-scale production of chemical energy sources.
Lars Pelz, scientist in the Bioprocess Engineering group, has been awarded with the ACTIP Fellowship Award 2023 for his Ph.D. project on In-depth characterization and cell culture-based production of influenza A virus defective interfering particles. The project “received an excellent score from the evaluators, based on its novelty, scientific impact, and relevance for the industrial use of advanced cell technologies.”
Shaimaa Monem Abdelhafez, Ph.D. student in the Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory group, won the First Place in the ACM SIGGRAPH 2023 Student Poster Competition for graduate work. Her submission "Improved Projective Dynamics Global Solves Using Snapshots-based Reduced Basis" was impressive in its execution and showed impressive benefits over existing physics-based simulation approaches. The conference is the most important conference in the field of computer graphics, with about 20,000 participants.
Dr. Léa Chuzel, alumna of the Bioprocess Engineering Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems Magdeburg, was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society on June 21, 2023 for her Ph.D. thesis on "Application of functional metagenomics to glycan analysis".
Karyna Oliynyk, Research Group Physical-Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering, was awarded one of the VDI Sponsorship Prizes of the Magdeburg regional group of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) for her master's thesis "Investigation and optimization of crystallization-based purification of artemisinin from the complex plant extract" conducted at Otto von Guericke University.
Johannes Kopton was awarded one of the VDI Sponsorship Prizes of the Magdeburg regional group of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) for his master's thesis within the framework of the research project of the Process Systems Engineering group "ProPhoS - Biochemical production systems using photosynthetic organisms".
Dr.-Ing. Marc Hein, Bioprocess Engineering group, was awarded with the "Outstanding Poster Award - 3rd Place" at the "Cell culture Engineering XVIII", 23 - 28 April 2023 in Cancun, Mexico for his poster with the title "Continuous harvesting of retroviral murine leukemia viral vector particles in a high cell density perfusion cultivation".
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern, Director and Head of the Research Group Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering, was newly inducted into the National Academy of Engineering of the United States of America in February 2023 for contributions to adsorption, preparative chromatography, and crystallization processes and to development and theory for resolving enantiomeric mixtures.

2022

Somayeh Zarai M. Sc., Research Group Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering, won the first poster prize at the 3rd Twitter Poster Conference on Adsorption organised by the International Adsorption Society on 14 December 2022 for her poster on "Determination of Adsorption Isotherm Parameters "from Multi-component Breakthrough Curves"
Dr. Francesca Cascella has been selected as the best Ph.D. student in the period 2021-2022 within the Faculty of Process and Systems Engineering at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg for her thesis on “Resolution of enantiomers of chiral compounds using crystallization processes: from fundamental studies to process development". She received the award during the annual Academic Ceremony held by the university on 29 November 2022 in the Johanniskirche of Magdeburg city.
In recognition of Magdeburg's achievements in the field of adsorption (PCF group, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern), a special session was held with internationally leading speakers under the title „Adsorption and Ion Exchange - In Honor of Prof. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern” on Nov. 14, 2022 during the AIChE Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. AIChE is the world's leading organization for chemical engineering professionals, with more than 60,000 members from more than 110 countries.
Teimurazi Gochitashvili, Ph. D. student at the research group Process Systems Engineering, was awarded together with his students team of the French university University of Évry-Val d'Essonne (Paris – Saclay University) a gold medal at the iGEM, a prestigious competition in synthetic biology on the iGEM Grand Jamboree from 26 to 28 October 2022 on Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles.
Lisa Wenzel M. Sc., doctoral student in the Synthetic Glycobiotechnology team of the Bioprocess Engineering Research Group, was awarded one of three prizes for the best poster at the Saccharides conference in June 2022, a symposium on the chemistry and synthesis of sugars and carbohydrates, glycobiology, glycans and health, structure and analysis of sugars. Her poster on "Synthesis of Synthetic Lipid-Linked Oligosaccharides for the In-vitro Glycoengineering of Peptides" was awarded.
PD Dr. Yvonne Genzel, team leader of the Upstream Processing team, received one of the three ESACT Medals for her contribution to the ESACT Course Series and her commitment being an active member of the Executive Committee of the European Society for Animal Cell Technology (ESACT).
Tilia Zinnecker M. Sc., Ph. D. student in the Upstream Processing team, was awarded with one of the Poster Awards at the Vaccine Technology Conference, from June 12-17, 2022 in Sitges, Spain. She was honoured for her poster presenting her research on “Automated single-cell cloning in chemically defined medium for new suspension MDCK cell lines and scale-down of influenza A virus production into ambr^®15 microbioreactors”.

2021

Dr.-Ing. Simon Bechtel, alumnus of the Process Systems Engineering group and the IMPRS Magdeburg, has been distinguished as the best Ph. D. student 2021 by the Department of Process and Systems Engineering of the Otto von Guericke University for his Ph.D. thesis on the Development of a novel, energy efficient process for the gas phase electrolysis of hydrogen chloride to chlorine.
ContiVir, a planned spin-off from the Max Planck Institute Magdeburg, has been awarded the 2021 "Innovation Prize of the German BioRegions" with regard to their research on and development of a purification tool to tackle vaccine bottlenecks. This national award honors outstanding ideas and patents with high economic potential in the field of modern biotechnology.
Laura König-Mattern, Process Systems Engineering group, was awarded with one of the prizes of the Bioöokonomie-Camp 2021 within the context of the Germany-wide Wissenschaftsjahr 2020/21 dedicated to bioeconomy.
Ruben Goldhahn was honoured for his master thesis on „Depolymerization of polyamide 12 with customized ionic liquids“ by the Magdeburg regional group of the Association of German Engineers (VDI). He is a master student of Process Engineering at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and team member of the Max-DePoly project in the MPI Process Systems Engineering goup.
Prof. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern has been appointed by the DFG, German Research Foundation, as a member of the Selection Committee for the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Programme. The decision on the prizewinners is made by the Joint Committee on the basis of a recommendation submitted by this Selection Committee for the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Programme. The members are particularly respected and experienced scientists and academics with a broad overview of the research landscape.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai Sundmacher has been elected as member of the "Technical Class" of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) in honour of his achievements in the engineering sciences in June 2021.
Prof. Dr. Alexander Zuyev, Senior Scientist in the research group Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory, has been elected as Corresponding Member of the "Department of Mathematics" of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
The International Adsorption Society (IAS) has appointed Prof. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern as IAS Fellow, in honour of the significant contributions he has made to the adsorption science community and for his longtime leadership in the IAS and for the FOA meetings.
Prof. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern held the Annual "Cary Lecture" on "Chromatography and crystallization: Competitors and partners to provide pure enantiomers and plant ingredients" as a virtual talk on 31 March 2021 at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA).
The School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering invites distinguished scholars in fields of significance to chemical engineering to speak as a visting lecturer in the "Ashton Hall Cary and Freeman H. Cary Lectureship Series".
Laura König-Mattern, Ph.D. student in the Process Systems Engineering group, has been granted a monthly 400 Euro scholarship by the Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Foundation, who supports talented young women with children in their scientific career.
Prof. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern, together with Prof. Peter H. Seeberger, MPI of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, and Prof. Kerry Gilmore, University of Connecticut, USA, will be awarded with the ACS Science Award for Affordable Green Chemistry by the American Chemical Society for their outstanding success in developing continuous chemical processes to produce artemisinin based combination therapies, important malaria medications, from plant waste material, air, and light.

2020

Dr.-Ing. Marcus Wenzel, alumnus of the Process Systems Engineering group, has been awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society in June 2020 for his research on the syngas production from CO₂.
Honorable mention by the Householder Prize Committee has been awarded to Dr. Pawan Goyal, research group Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory, for his thesis on "System-theoretic model order reduction for bilinear and quadratic-bilinear systems". The Householder Prize is awarded for the worldwide best Ph.D. theses in the field of "Numerical linear and Multilinear Algebra" for the past three years.
apl. Prof. Dr. Heike Lorenz, team leader in the research group Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering, has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the Section Industrial Crystallization of the Open Access Journal Crystals. Thus, she is also a member of the Editorial Board of the journal. Her term started in March 2020.
Dr. Jens Saak and Steffen W. R. Werner, research group Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory (CSC), have been awarded, together with Dirk Wolfram (nee Siebelts, CAU Kiel), for the best paper in the category applications of the journal at-Automatisierungstechnik in the year 2019 for their contribution "A comparison of second-order model order reduction methods for an artificial fishtail".
Dr. Matthias Stein, head of the research group Molecular Simulations and Design, has been appointed a honorary professor at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg in January 2020.
Prof. Dr. Peter Benner, Director and Head of the Research Group Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory (CSC), has been elected into the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) Review Board for the committee of „Mathematics“ for the period from 2020 to 2023. The election was held in October / November 2019.

2019

Dr.-Ing. Teng Zhou, team leader in the Process Systems Engineering group, has been appointed as a Junior Professor in the Faculty of Process and Systems Engineering at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. The aim is to develop new and better materials for engineering applications.
Dr.-Ing. Marcus Wenzel, Postdoc in the Process Systems Engineering group, has been distinguished as the best Ph. D. student by the Department of Process and Systems Engineering of the Otto von Guericke University in the period 2018 - 2019 for his Ph.D. thesis on Reverse Water-Gas Shift Chemical Looping for Syngas Production from CO₂.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern, Director and head of the group Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering, has been appointed as the president of the International Adsorption Society (IAS) for the period from July 2019 to June 2022.
Alexander Nikolay, alumnus of the Bioprocess Engineering group, has been chosen by the Animal Cell Technology Industrial Platform (ACTIP) as one of the six winners of the ACTIP Fellowship Award 2019-2020.
M.Sc. Steffen W. R. Werner, Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory group, has been awarded the "SIAM Student Chapter Certificate of Recognition" for the academic year 2018-2019. SIAM (Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics) honors students for outstanding service and contributions to SIAM Student Chapters by awarding selected students with certificates of recognition.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai Sundmacher, Director at the Max Planck-Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg, has been named a Fellow of the Max Planck School Matter to Life by the President of the Max Planck Society.
Sebastián López Castellanos, Ph.D. student in the research group Process Systems Engineering, was awarded by the Association of German Engineers (VDI) / District Magdeburg for his master thesis on Vesicles-On-A-Chip: A novel microfluidic-based method for the generation of giant unilamellar vesicles.
Dr. Pawan Goyal, Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory: Dr.-Klaus-Körper Award of GAMM, 2019, for his Ph.D. thesis on System-Theoretic Model Order Reduction for Bilinear and Quadratic-Bilinear Systems.

2018

Dr. Patrick Kürschner, former post-doctoral researcher in the research group Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory has been awarded a Mathematics Travel Award for 2018. Dr. Patrick Kürschner has been working in the research area of numerical linear algebra. Mathematics is an open access journal which provides an advanced forum for studies related to mathematics, and is published quarterly online by MDPI.
Jonathan Gänsch, Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering group: Best graduate in Master Studies in Process Engineering in 2018, Otto von Guericke Unversity Magdeburg, honoured by Dow Olefinverbund GmbH
Prof. Peter Benner, Director and head of the group Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory: Elected member of the SIAM council for a 3 year term, from January 1, 2019, on
Organizational team of the BIWIC 2016 - 23rd International Workshop on Industrial Crystallization: OttoAward 2018 by the City of Magdeburg for promoting the Major City of Magdeburg as an attractive location for science, business and tourism on November 20, 2018, Magdeburg.
Dr. Pawan Goyal, alumnus of the International Max Planck Research School Magdeburg and scientist in the group Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory: Best Ph.D. thesis in 2018 within the Faculty of Mathematics of the Otto von Guericke University, November 15, 2018, Magdeburg,
Marc Hein, Bioprocess Engineering: Best graduate in Biotechnology at TU Berlin, honoured by Verein Deutscher Ingenieure
Isabel Harriehausen, Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering: Poster Award for "Evaluation and productivity prediction of coupled processes with enantioselective chromatography and racemization", 17th International Symposium on Preparative and Industrial Chromatography and Allied Techniques (SPICA), October 2018, Darmstadt
Antonio Sorrentino, Process Systems Engineering: Best Poster Award, 69th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry, September 2018, Bologna, Italy
Francesca Cascella, Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering: Best Poster Award, 25^th International Workshop on Industrial Crystallization (BIWIC), September 2018, Rouen, France
Thomas Munkelt and Ivana Mutavdzin, Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering: Poster Award, ProcessNet Annual Meeting and 33rd DECHEMA Annual Meeting Biotechnology, September 2018, Aachen
Thiane Carneiro, Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering, hat auf dem 9th International Congress on Biocatalysis im August 2018 in Hamburg einen Posterpreis erhalten.
Jacqueline Kaufmann, training supervisor and lab assistent in the group Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering, was honoured for more than ten years voluntary examination activities by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, September 2018, Magdeburg
Georg Liesche, Process Systems Engineering: Best Paper Award for his talk on "Conduction-Convection-Radiation Heat Transfer in High Temperature Catalytic Reactors", International Conference on Fluid Flow, Heat and Mass Transfer, June 2018, Niagara Falls, Canada.
Dr. Jessica Bosch, alumna of the group Numerical Linear Algebra for Dynamical Systems: Otto Hahn Medal for junior scientists of the Max Planck Society, 69th Annual Meeting of the Max Planck Society. The prize was given for her work on the development of fast and robust solvers for phase field problems from many application areas in materials science, biology, image processing or machine learning, June 2018, Heidelberg
Alexander Nikolay, Bioprocess Engineering: Poster award for "The EB66® cell line for yellow fever vaccine production at high cell concentrations", Conference on Cell Culture Engineering XVI, May 2018, Tampa, Florida
Prof. Dr. Ing. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern, Director and head of the group Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering: Top 10 ranking of the "Power List 2018" of "The Medicine Maker"
Dr. Robert Flassig, alumnus of Process Systems Engineering: appointed to Technische Hochschule Brandenburg (University of Applied Sciences)
Dr. Jan Heiland, Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory: Junior Professorship "Numerical methods for Descriptor Systems" at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg
Dr. Matthias Stein, head of Molecular Simulations and Design group: Fellow of the British Royal Society of Chemistry, April 2018

Selected Awards 2016 - 2017

Dr. Patrick Kürschner, Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory: Dr.-Klaus-Körper Award of GAMM, 2017
Prof. Peter Benner, Director and head of Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory: SIAM Fellow, 2017
Dr. Robert Flassig, Process Systems Engineering: Award for Up- and Coming Lecturers in Higher Education, DECHEMA, 2017
Prof. Achim Kienle, External Scientifi Member and head of the group Process Synthesis and Process Dynamics: Research Prize, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, 2017
Dr. Thilo Muth, Bioprocess Engineering: Best Ph.D. Dissertation Award, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Proteomforschung, 2017
Dr. Steffen Klamt, head of the group:Analysis and Redesign of Biological Networks: Consolidator Grant, European Research Council, 2016
Prof. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern, Director and head of the group Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering: Emil Kirschbaum Medal, ProcessNet, 2016
Prof. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern, Director and head of the group Physical and Chemical Foundations of Process Engineering: Vice President of the International Adsorption Society, 2016
Prof. Kai Sundmacher, Director and head of the group Process Systems Engineering: Chair of DECHEMA Coordination Group “Chemical Energy Research“, 2016
Prof. Kai Sundmacher, Director and head of the group Process Systems Engineering: Member of DFG Panel 403 “Chemical & Thermal Process Engineering”, 2016
Dr. Matthias Voigt, alumnus of the group Computational Methods in Systems and Control Theory: Otto Hahn Medal, Max Planck Society, 2016
Dr. Martin Stoll, head of the group Numerical Linear Algebra for Dynamical Systems: Richard-von-Mises Prize of GAMM, 2016
Prof. Jörg Raisch, External Scientifc Member and head of the group Systems and Control Theory: Chair of IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control), Technical Committee for Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems, 2016
Dr. Stefan F. Heldt, Bioprocess Engineering: MTZ Award for Medical Systems Biology, 2016