Chemist Robert Hein, biolo­gist Viola Introini, and AI researcher Maxim­il­ian Dax receive the award

This year's Hector Research Career Devel­op­ment Award goes to chemist Robert Hein, biolo­gist Viola Introini, and AI researcher Maxim­il­ian Dax. With this award, the Hector Fellow Academy (HFA) is support­ing the research careers of outstand­ing researchers in the postdoc­toral phase for the sixth consec­u­tive year.

“Receiv­ing the Hector Research Career Devel­op­ment Award is a great honor for me—not only because of the high reputa­tion of the HFA, but also because I strongly identify with its goals, especially its inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research approach,” explains award winner Robert Hein. Robert Hein has been a junior profes­sor at the Univer­sity of Münster since early 2025. There, he heads his own research group at the Insti­tute of Organic Chemistry and the Center for Soft Nanoscience. His work focuses on the synthe­sis and charac­ter­i­za­tion of novel molecules that respond to electri­cal stimuli. He is partic­u­larly inter­ested in how the molecules temporar­ily change their color, lumines­cence, or shape in the process. In addition to funda­men­tal questions, his research also aims at concrete appli­ca­tions, e.g., in sensor technol­ogy, energy storage, or the devel­op­ment of respon­sive surfaces and functional materials.

Award winner Viola Introini conducts inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research into malaria. She heads the “Vascu­lar Infec­tion” research group at the Max Planck Insti­tute for the Science of Light and at the Max Planck Center for Physics and Medicine in Erlan­gen. Together with her team, she is inves­ti­gat­ing how malaria affects the human body on a biolog­i­cal and genetic level. To this end, she devel­ops and uses patient-based models of artifi­cial blood vessels: "With the support of this award, I plan to (...) develop a physi­o­log­i­cally relevant 3D model of the microves­sels of the retina based on real images of patients with cerebral malaria. This model will repli­cate the blood-retinal barrier, provide insight into malaria pathol­ogy, and help us under­stand the processes taking place in the brain (...)." With the help of these models, Viola Introini hopes to decipher the under­ly­ing mecha­nisms of malaria more precisely and, on this basis, develop targeted effec­tive thera­pies for humans.

We are delighted to announce that among the approx­i­mately 120 appli­ca­tions for the Hector RCD Award, a former young scien­tist from the Hector Fellow Academy came out on top: Maxim­il­ian Dax. Today, he heads a research group at the ELLIS Insti­tute Tübin­gen and the Max Planck Insti­tute for Intel­li­gent Systems. During his doctoral studies, he was super­vised by Hector Fellow Bernhard Schölkopf. With his indepen­dent project on AI-based analy­sis of long gravi­ta­tional waves, he success­fully asserted himself in the compet­i­tive field of his disci­pline, computer science, and now has the oppor­tu­nity to further deepen the research topic he began during his doctoral studies. He is excited to advance AI research with the help of the Hector RCD Award: “With this awae natural sciences, partic­u­larly astron­omy, and hopes to contribute to new scien­tific discov­er­ies through AI.rd, the Hector Fellow Academy is support­ing my research into the devel­op­ment of new methods of artifi­cial intel­li­gence for the analy­sis of long-duration gravi­ta­tional wave signals. This project aims to improve our ability to extract physi­cal infor­ma­tion from complex measure­ments in the age of next-gener­a­tion obser­va­to­ries.” Maxim­il­ian Dax combines funda­men­tal research in the field of proba­bilis­tic artifi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) with applied research in the natural sciences, partic­u­larly astron­omy, and hopes to contribute to new scien­tific discov­er­ies through AI.

Since the award was estab­lished, a total of 20 outstand­ing young scien­tists in the postdoc­toral phase have been honored with the Hector RCD Award and become tempo­rary members of the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary network of the Hector Fellow Academy. The next appli­ca­tion phase for the Hector RCD Award will take place in fall 2026.