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Studenten im Sommer auf dem Campus Nord, rote Zahnräder im Hintergrund © Roland Baege​/​TU Dortmund
HIGH RANKING RESEARCH AWARD

Humboldt Professorship awarded in Berlin

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Picture of the award ceremony © Humboldt Foundation​/​​Jens Jeske
Sabine Döring, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, awards Prof. Edvardas Narevicius the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship in Berlin.

Twelve top international researchers were awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at a ceremony in Berlin on Thursday, 11 May. Prof. Edvardas Narevicius, who moved from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel to the Department of Physics at TU Dortmund University last year, is one of the award winners. He is regarded worldwide as a pioneer in ultra-low temperature chemistry and is a member of the Research Center for Chemical Sciences and Sustainability of the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr).

The Alexander von Humboldt Professorship is the most highly endowed international research award in Germany. Robert Schlögl, President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, welcomed the award winners to Germany and encouraged them to conduct research in freedom and to advance knowledge, particularly in the field of basic research. Sabine Döring, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, also offered her congratulations: "Every year, we honour internationally outstanding scientists with this special prize. We are delighted that this year's award winners are contributing their excellence to Germany as a research location."

Specialist for ultracold reactions

The TU Dortmund successfully nominated Prof. Edvardas Narevicius for the Humboldt Professorship a year ago. After brief appointment negotiations, the 49-year-old chemist moved to the Ruhr area for the winter semester and had all his laboratory equipment shipped in a freight container from Israel to Dortmund. This was also the first international appointment that TU Dortmund University was able to conclude as a member of the UA Ruhr for the newly founded Research Alliance Ruhr.

Portrait of Edvardas Narevicius © Martina Hengesbach​​/​​TU Dortmund
Prof. Edvardas Narevicius

"The call to the Ruhr region for a Humboldt Professorship at the Research Center Chemical Sciences and Sustainability is a great opportunity to further develop my previous research," says Professor Narevicius. "Of course, moving to another country is always a big change. But as a family, we made a conscious decision to do so."

Pioneering studies for astrophysics and quantum research

Prof. Edvardas Narevicius is a pioneer in the experimental study of quantum effects in molecular collisions, which can only be detected near absolute zero. At these low temperatures, subtle quantum effects can be observed in reactions in which the molecules do not behave like particles but like waves. Quantum mechanics provides many surprising effects here - for example, particles can overcome energy barriers through quantum tunnels, allowing reactions to proceed just as quickly as at room temperature. Prof. Narevicius achieves these extremely low collision energies by manipulating the speed of atoms and molecules with strong magnetic fields. With this method, he was able to make fundamental contributions to molecular physics and chemical dynamics at the lowest temperatures, as well as observe and analyse quantum effects for the first time, which had long been sought. Prof. Narevicius develops the experimental apparatus used for these investigations with his wife, the technical physicist Julia Narevicius. The apparatuses enable new groundbreaking studies that are just as relevant for astrophysics as they are for quantum research.

Research Center Chemical Sciences and Sustainability
The professorship "Ultracold Reactions" of Prof. Edvardas Narevicius is assigned to the Research Center "Chemical Sciences and Sustainability" of the UA Ruhr. The Research Center aims to understand chemical products, processes and reactions at the molecular level and to use this knowledge for environmentally friendly and economically competitive innovations. At the same time, Prof. Narevicius is already an associate member of the Cluster of Excellence "RESOLV - Ruhr explores solvation", which Ruhr-Universität Bochum and TU Dortmund University have been jointly supporting since 2019.

Alexander von Humboldt Professorship
The Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, funded by the BMBF, brings top international researchers to German universities. With funding of up to five million euros, the award offers optimal financial conditions and maximum flexibility for top-level research in Germany. The twelve new Humboldt Professors are moving from abroad to the universities of Aachen, Darmstadt, Dortmund, Dresden, Erlangen, Jena, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Mainz and Saarbrücken. Seven of them are conducting research on artificial intelligence.

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