International awards
Awards by universities of other countries and appointments to international scientific institutions are a wonderful way of recognising a researcher’s achievements. We are very pleased that a number of scholars of Heidelberg University received such honours in the past few months – among them were the following academics:
In recognition of his outstanding achievements in international law and international scientific exchange, Prof. Dr. Thomas Pfeiffer was awarded an honorary doctorate of the International Hellenic University in Thessaloniki (Greece). The laudatory speech at the award ceremony on 9 May 2015 in Thessaloniki was given by Heidelberg alumnus Prof. Dr Athanassios Kaissis, a member of the public university's governing board and scientific director in charge of two master's degree programmes in law. In his speech, he particularly acknowledged Prof. Pfeiffer's work in contract law and international procedural law, stressing its significance as a groundbreaking contribution to basic research. Thomas Pfeiffer is managing director of Heidelberg University's Institute for Comparative Law, Conflicts of Law and International Business Law and serves on the University Council. He was Vice-President of the University from 2007 to 2013, and Vice-President International Relations from 2010 onward.
Prof. Dr Britta Brügger of the Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center was honoured by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). She received the Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator Award for her outstanding work in the field of lipids research. Established by the ASBMB's Lipid Research Division, this award is given to young scientists with an excellent research performance. The Heidelberg biochemist discovered that membrane lipids have much more complex effects than was previously assumed. The award, which is endowed with $2,000, was presented during the annual ASBMB conference in Boston on 1 April 2015, during which Prof. Brügger also gave a lecture.
Foto: Privat
Physicist Prof. Dr Franz Wegner of Heidelberg University was awarded the Lars Onsager Prize of the American Physical Society (APS) for his lifetime achievement in science. The emeritus professor at the Institute for Theoretical Physics is the first German to be awarded this prize, which is endowed with $10,000. The prize is awarded for outstanding achievements in the field of theoretical statistical mechanics and the theory of quantum liquids. The laudatory speech stressed that Prof. Wegner had been selected for the award for "his far-sighted contributions, which have advanced our fundamental understanding of the terms of order and disorder, in particular the formulation of the Ising lattice gauge theory and his work on localisation transition and on the renormalisation group." The award ceremony took place on 2 March 2015 during the APS Spring Conference in San Antonio, Texas.
Belgian Egyptologist Prof. Dr Jean Winand will receive the 25,000-dollar Anneliese Maier Research Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. This prize provides funding for a research cooperation project with Prof. Dr Joachim Friedrich Quack of Heidelberg University's Institute for Egyptology, which hosts the project. The project aims at creating a modern dictionary of the Egyptian language. Jean Winand, a leading expert in the Egyptian language, is professor at the Université de Liège and at the Université libre de Bruxelles (both in Belgium). The Anneliese Maier Research Prize is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The researchers are nominated by scientific cooperation partners at German universities and research institutions. The Humboldt Foundation supports the joint research projects for a period of up to five years. The prize will be awarded in Leipzig on 15 September 2015.
Prof. Dr Michael von Albrecht and Prof. Dr Hans-Joachim Glücklich, both formerly of the Faculty of Philosophy of Heidelberg University, were honoured with the Dragomanov Medal. The National Pedagogical Dragomanov University in Kiev (Ukraine) awards this medal in recognition of "achievements in the communication of European values". Michael von Albrecht is an emeritus professor at the Department of Classical Philology, while Hans-Joachim Glücklich was honorary professor for the didactics of classical languages at Heidelberg University. The medals were awarded in Frankfurt/Main on 12 November 2014.
Foto: Privat
Prof. Dr Rolf-Detlef Treede, a pain specialist and holder of the Chair of Neurophysiology at Heidelberg University's Medical Faculty Mannheim, is the new President of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) . The scientist assumed the office during the 15th World Congress on Pain in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and will head the IASP until October 2016. Prof. Treede is managing director of the Centre for Biomedicine and Medical Technology Mannheim (CBTM), which is also the host institution of his chair. In his scientific work, he investigates the physiology of pain in general, such as cortical impulse processing and pain memory, and the neuropathic pain syndrome in particular.
