Macromolecular Colloquium Freiburg

Michael R. Buchmeiser received his Doctoral Degree in Organometallic Chemistry in 1993 from the University of Innsbruck, Austria (Prof. Dr. H. Schottenberger). He was awarded an “Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship” and spent one year at the MIT, USA, within the group of Prof. Richard R. Schrock (Chemistry Nobel Prize 2005). In 1998, he finished his “Habilitation” in Macromolecular Chemistry at the University of Innsbruck were he then held a Faculty Position as Associate Professor from 1998-2004. From 2000-2001, he was Visiting Professor at the Graz University of Technology, Austria. In 2004 he accepted a Faculty Position (C-4 Professor) at the University of Leipzig, Germany. In addition, from 2005-2009, he served as Vice Director and Member of Board at the Leibniz Institute of Surface Modification (IOM), Leipzig, Germany. He was offered Faculty Positions (Full Professor of Polymer Chemistry) from the University of Halle (Germany, 2004), the University of Leoben (Austria, 2005), the TU Dresden (Germany, 2007), and the Saarland University, Germany, in combination with the position of the Scientific Director of the Leibniz-Institute of New Materials (INM, 2012), which he all declined. In 2009, he accepted a Faculty Position (Full Professor) at the University of Stuttgart (Germany) and as Member of the Executive Board of the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research (DITF) Denkendorf. Since 2018, he is also spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center CRC 1333 “Molecular Heterogeneous Catalysis in Confined Geometries”. His research interests include polymer synthesis, particularly polymerization catalysis, polymer materials science, particularly the synthesis of functional polymeric materials, e.g., for molecular heterogeneous catalysis and for batteries, fiber-matrix composites and high-performance fibers, in particular cellulose, carbon and ceramic fibers. So far, he has published more than 550 scientific papers and has filed more than 65 patents. For his scientific work, he received the “Professor Ernst Brandl Research Award 1998”, the “START Award-2001” the “Novartis Award 2001”, the “Otto-Roelen Medal of the German Catalytic Society” (2010) and the Hermann F. Mark Medal (2022). 

Brigitte Voit received her PhD in Macromolecular Chemistry 1990 from University Bayreuth, Germany. After postdoctoral work in 1991/1992 at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, USA, she joined Technische Universität München. After habilitation in 1996, she was appointed 1997 full professor for the chair “Organic Chemistry of Polymers“ at Technische Universität Dresden as well as Director of the Division Macromolecular Chemistry at the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research (IPF) Dresden. From 2002 to 2022 she was also Scientific Director of IPF. At TU Dresden she is member of the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) and Dresden International Graduate School for Interdisciplinary Life Sciences (DIGS-ILS). She is active in the European Polymer Federation (president 2014/2015), member of acatech (National Academy of Science and Engineering), and holder of the Staudinger Award (from German Chemical Society).

Her scientific interest is in sustainable and functional polymer architectures for engineering application as well as for use in biomedicine, smart systems and organic electronics.