Next Generation Awarded

The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Universitätsprofessoren und -professorinnen für Chemie (ADUC; Association of German University Professors in Chemistry) honors up to three habilitation candidates each year for work reported in original and significant publications.

The prizes were presented at the Chemiedozententagung meeting of the ADUC in Berlin, Germany, on March 11, 2013. The winners were:

Franziska Schoenebeck, ETH Zürich, Switzerland, was recognized for her work on the reactivity and mechanisms of palladium-catalyzed reactions by a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches.
Schoenebeck studied chemistry at the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany, and the University of Glasgow, UK, and received her Ph.D. from the latter institution in 2008 for work supervised by John A. Murphy. From 2008–2010, she was a postdoctoral researcher with Kendall N. Houk at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, and in 2010, she was appointed assistant professor at the ETH Zürich.

Schoenebeck´s research involves the use of computational and experimental tools in the design of new catalysts and the development of novel applications in organic chemistry. Recently this has included the reduction of benzenes and redox reactions in palladium catalysis.

Manuel Alcarazo, Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, received the prize for his work on the synthesis of strong π-accepting polycationic phosphines and their use in metal-catalyzed rearrangement reactions, as well as applying the concept of frustrated Lewis pairs in small-molecule activation.
Alcarazo studied chemistry at the University of Seville, Spain, and gained his Ph.D. in 2005 from the Instituto de Investigaciones Químicas, Seville, Spain, under the supervision of José M. Lassaletta. He did postdoctoral research in the group of Alois Fürstner at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, before joining the faculty there as Junior Group Leader in 2008.

Alcarazo’s research has recently included the study of N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC)/fullerene adducts and metal-free hydrogenation reactions.

Guido Clever, University of Göttingen, Germany, was honored for his work on self-organized nanoscale coordination cages.
Clever studied at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and worked with Thomas Carell at the University of Marburg and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, both Germany, for his Ph.D., which was awarded in 2006. He then moved to Tokyo University, Japan, where he was a postdoctoral researcher with Mitsuhiko Shionoya (2007–2009) and a project assistant professor (2009–2010). He was made junior professor at the University of Göttingen in 2010.

Clever and his research group are interested in supramolecular coordination chemistry, in particular molecular cages and capsules and DNA–supramolecular hybrid structures. Recently this has included light-triggered guest uptake and release by a coordination cage and counterion dynamics in an interpenetrated coordination cage.

Selected publications of Franziska Schoenebeck: