Jul 08, 2022
Early-career researchers at TU Dresden awarded Commerzbank Prizes
On July 8, 2022, promising early-career researchers at TU Dresden were once again awarded Dissertation Prizes from the Dresden Kulturstiftung Foundation of Commerzbank and the Dr. Walter Seipp Prize from the Commerzbank Foundation. For 25 years, the Commerzbank Foundation and the Dresden Kulturstiftung Foundation of Commerzbank have honored exceptional dissertations written by early-career researchers, thus directly advancing the next generation of scientists.
The art historian Dr. Elisabeth Ansel is one of the prize winners. She received
Prof. Ursula M. Staudinger and Burkhard von der Osten with the two winners of the Dissertation Prizes, Dr. Matthias Geyer and Dr. Elisabeth Ansel.
a Dissertation Prize for her Art History dissertation titled “Jack B. Yeats. Constructing National Identity in Irish Modernism” (Jack B. Yeats. Nationale Identitätskonstruktionen in der irischen Moderne). In her work, she scrutinizes the idea of a homogeneous Europe and offers new perspectives for the development of marginalized regions of the continent. She also presents research on the creation of national identity – which has to date primarily been applied in sociology, literature, and history – from an art history perspective, making this topic applicable to her field.
The physicist Dr. Matthias Geyer was also awarded a Dissertation Prize for his dissertation titled, “Models for Spin-Dependent Transport in Helical Molecules,” which he completed at the Chair of Materials Science and Nanotechnology. With his mathematical formulations, he radically expands our understanding of chirality-induced spin phenomena that have so far been largely unexplained and only observed experimentally, thus opening up new opportunities for further work on these phenomena, as well as on innovative technical systems such as organic semiconductors and quantum computers. The two winners were additionally awarded 1,000 euros in prize money.
Heike Heuberger, Prof. Michael Schroeder, Dr. Melissa Adasme and Prof. Ursula M. Staudinger (from left to right) after being presented with the Dr. Walter Seipp Prize.
The Dr. Walter Seipp Prize, which is endowed with 4,000 euros, was awarded to the bioinformatician, Dr. Melissa Adasme. She completed her dissertation “Structure-based drug repositioning by exploiting structural properties of drug’s binding mode” at TU Dresden’s Biotechnology Center (BIOTEC). In her work, she addresses a particularly timely topic in light of the Covid-19 pandemic: finding new uses for established drugs. With a structure-based approach, her research fills a gap in pharmaceutical research, in which there was previously no established systematic method for addressing this problem, allowing for potentially faster identification of potential drugs, e.g. for the treatment of Covid-19.
The awards ceremony took place in the Ballroom of the Rector’s Office at TU Dresden, accompanied by an opening statement by the Rector of TU Dresden, Prof. Ursula M. Staudinger, as well as keynote speeches by Burkhard von der Osten, Managing Director of Commerzbank AG Dresden, and Heike Heuberger of the Executive Board of the Commerzbank Foundation.
More information:
https://tu-dresden.de/forschung-transfer/services-fuer-forschende/preise-fuer-forschende/universitaetspreise/commerzbank-preise