KIT-profes­sors first Hector Fellows

Three scien­tists receive Hector Science Award

HEIDELBERG/WEINHEIM. Dr. h.c. Hans-Werner Hector and his wife Josephine have appointed three profes­sors from the Elite Univer­sity Karlsruhe Insti­tute of Technol­ogy to Hector Fellows. Doris Wedlich, Peter Gumbsch und Martin Wegener are the first scien­tists to receive the Hector Science Award.

The distinc­tion as a Hector Fellow and the research award’s endow­ment of 150,000 € from the Hector Founda­tion II recog­nize the commit­ment and outstand­ing accom­plish­ments of the profes­sors in science, research and teach­ing. “Selected among the best out of a group of profes­sors, they repre­sent the light­houses in their respec­tive areas of work”, Dr. Hans-Werner Hector under­lined during the award ceremony.

The board of trustees of the Hector Founda­tion II, which was estab­lished in March 2008, nominated profes­sors for the Hector Science Award for the first time this year. By bring­ing the Fellows together, a round table of top-level scien­tists should be estab­lished who will then be able to inspire each other in their work and research. As Dr. Hector says, the goal is "to create a democ­ra­t­i­cally oriented canopy of modern scientists."

Wedlich, Profes­sor of Zoology, is head of depart­ment at the Karlsruhe Insti­tute of Technol­ogy (KIT) and thus respon­si­ble for research, teach­ing and innova­tion in the scien­tific disci­plines of biology, chemistry and process engineer­ing. Her research inter­ests include the molec­u­lar under­stand­ing of cell migra­tion, with a partic­u­lar focus on the entan­gle­ment of Wnt signal­ing and cell adhesion.

Gumbsch heads the Depart­ment of Mater­ial Mechan­ics at the Karlsruhe Insti­tute of Technol­ogy and the Fraun­hofer Insti­tute for Materi­als Mechan­ics in Freiburg and Halle. He researches defor­ma­tion and damage mecha­nisms in materials.

Wegener is profes­sor at the Insti­tute of Applied Physics at the Karlsruhe Insti­tute of Technol­ogy (KIT), Scien­tific Direc­tor at the Insti­tute of Nanotech­nol­ogy at KIT and Vice-Coordi­na­tor of the Karlsruhe School of Optics & Photon­ics. At the center of his research are artifi­cial materi­als, so-called metamaterials.