Sandra Luber erhält Hellmann-Preis

Prof. Dr. Sandra Luber erhielt als erste Frau den Hans G. A. Hellmann-Preis. Sie hat den Preis erhalten für die innovativen Beiträge zur theoretischen Behandlung von Struktur und Dynamik kondensierter Materie, insbesondere hinsichtlich Spektroskopie und Katalyse.

Der Hans G. A. Hellmann-Preis wird von der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Theoretische Chemie vergeben. Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft ist ein Zusammenschluss von deutschen, österreichischen und schweizerischen theoretischen Chemikern. Der Preis wird jährlich seit 1999 vergeben für hervorragende wissenschaftliche Leistungen aus dem Gesamtbereich der Theoretischen Chemie.

Sandra Luber studied chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where she received the Master’s degree (MSc ETH Chemistry) in 2007. She completed her PhD (Dr. sc. ETH Zurich) in (relativistic) quantum chemistry and theoretical spectroscopy in 2009. After a postdoctoral stay (2010) in the field of bioinformatics at Biozentrum of the University of Basel, Switzerland, she joined Yale University, USA, studying, among others, quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics approaches and nature’s photosystem II (2010-2011). After 10 months in industry (2012) at BASF SE in Ludwigshafen, Germany, she became project group leader at University of Zurich. The habilitation thesis was finished in July 2016 and she has been SNSF professor since March 2017.

Besides a number of awards at various music competitions, research awards include the IBM Research Prize for Computer Modelling and Simulations in Chemistry, Biology, and Materials Science, Forschungskredit, and the ETH medal for an outstanding PhD thesis.

Moreover, she has been the first theoretician to receive the Clara Immerwahr Award and the first female scientist to obtain the Hellmann Award of the Arbeits-gemeinschaft Theoretische Chemie (awarded annually since 1999) and the Robin Hochstrasser Young Investigator Award. Additionally, she is the recipient of the Werner Prize 2018 of the Swiss Chemical Society.