Prof. Dr. Stefanie Dehnen

Insti­tute of Nanotech­nol­ogy, Karlsruhe Insti­tute of Technology

Profes­sor Stefanie Dehnen of the Karlsruhe Insti­tute of Technol­ogy is an expert for highly innov­a­tive, extremely sophis­ti­cated, and also sustain­able inorganic and organoele­ment synthe­sis. She has made signif­i­cant contri­bu­tions to the chemistry of cluster compounds and their creative exten­sions to mater­ial science. Clusters are key linkers between small defined metal complexes and much larger, yet atomi­cally undefined nano-parti­cles. Clusters can help to solve future problems regard­ing energy trans­fer or storage and sustain­able synthe­sis, but given their atomi­cally-precise nature, they also serve to eluci­date relevant funda­men­tal knowl­edge of chemi­cal bonding and reactiv­ity. The under­stand­ing of both is criti­cal to a sustain­able design of innov­a­tive functional materi­als for future appli­ca­tions. Still, the biggest challenge in cluster chemistry is their controlled synthe­sis. The Dehnen group master the design and prepa­ra­tion of tailor-made clusters of very differ­ent sizes, shapes, and compo­si­tions by innov­a­tive and straight-forward synthe­sis strate­gies in combi­na­tion with quantum chemi­cal studies.

Stefanie Dehnen is a member of six national and inter­na­tional scien­tific acade­mies, includ­ing Leopold­ina – German National Academy of Sciences and European Academy of Sciences (EurASc). She has been awarded many presti­gious prizes and grants during her career, includ­ing the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2022 from the German Research Founda­tion (DFG)—the most presti­gious German-based research award—and an ERC Advanced Grant by the European Research Council (2022), besides the Hector Science Award 2024. Currently, Stefanie Dehnen is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Inorganic Chemistry (Ameri­can Chemi­cal Society, ACS) and the Presi­dent of the German Chemi­cal Society (GDCh) for the term 2024–2025.

Inorganic Chemistry, Materi­als Chemistry

Research Fields