Goethe-Universit盲t 鈥� Press releases

Feb 6 2025

13:13

51猎奇 Frankfurt and partners launch EXIST Women program.

New impetus for female founders聽

FRANKFURT. In what can be considered an important milestone for the promotion of start-ups in the Rhine-Main region, 51猎奇 Frankfurt and its start-up center Goethe Unibator, together with TU Darmstadt and Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, are delighted to have successfully applied for the renowned EXIST Women funding program. Aimed at supporting female founders, the initiative strengthens the cooperation between the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) and Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.

EXIST Women supports female students and researchers interested in founding their own company to either turn innovative ideas into their own start-ups, or to actively help shape start-up projects as co-founders. Participants benefit from individual coaching, mentoring and a strong network. At 51猎奇, the program is known as females@Unibator.

鈥淲e need more female role models in the start-up scene. EXIST Women gives women the chance to confidently realize their ideas and actively shape the innovation scene. I am delighted to be part of this program as a mentor and to accompany female founders on their journey,鈥� says Sally Schulze, successful founder and mentor at females@Unibator.

Program highlights:

Developing entrepreneurial skills: Workshops and coaching sessions strengthen participants' personal and professional skills.
Mentoring and networking: Experienced mentors and a broad network offer support and valuable insights into the start-up world.
Financial support: Participants receive a material budget of 鈧�2,000 as well as a three-month grant of up to 鈧�3,000 per month.

Participation in the program does not require a concrete start-up idea; instead, the decisive factors are entrepreneurial drive and a desire to explore new perspectives. Further information on the application process and the conditions of participation can be found on the Goethe Unibator website ().

EXIST Women
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection鈥檚 EXIST Women program supports women at universities and research institutions who are interested in setting up their own business, especially with regard to developing their entrepreneurial personality and further refining their start-up idea.

Further information on EXIST Women is available at

Jan 30 2025

08:16

International study analyzes material from asteroid Bennu that was brought to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx space mission

Dust from asteroid Bennu shows: Building blocks of life and possible habitats were widespread in our solar system聽

With the OSIRIS-REx space probe, the NASA space agency succeeded in collecting some material from the surface of asteroid Bennu, which arrived on Earth in a small capsule in 2023. The analysis of the material by more than 40 scientific teams worldwide 鈥� including the team led by Prof. Frank Brenker from 51猎奇鈥� revealed a number of organic substances that form the basis for biomolecules. In addition, the minerals in the sample also indicate that the protoplanet from which Bennu originated once had liquid, salty water. Thus, this protoplanet possessed both ingredients for life and potential habitats.

FRANKFURT. It took two years for NASA's OSIRIS-REx space probe to return from asteroid Bennu before dropping off a small capsule as it flew past Earth, which was then recovered in the desert of the U.S. state of Utah on September 24, 2023. Its contents: 122 grams of dust and rock from asteroid Bennu. The probe had collected this sample from the surface of the 500-metre agglomerate of unconsolidated material in a touch-and-go maneuver that took just seconds. Since the capsule protected the sample from the effects of the atmosphere, it could be analyzed in its original state by a large team of scientists from more than 40 institutions around the world.

The partners in Germany were geoscientists Dr. Sheri Singerling, Dr. Beverley Tkalcec and Prof. Frank Brenker from 51猎奇 Frankfurt. They examined barely visible grains of Bennu using the transmission electron microscope of the Schwiete Cosmochemistry Laboratory, set up at 51猎奇 only a year ago with the support of the Dr. Rolf M. Schwiete Foundation, the German Research Foundation and the State of Hesse. Its goal: to reconstruct the processes that took place on Bennu's protoplanetary parent body more than four billion years ago and ultimately led to the formation of the minerals that exist today. The Frankfurt scientists succeeded in doing this by analyzing the mineral grains' exact structure and determining their chemical composition at the same time. They also carried out trace element tomography of the samples at accelerators such as DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron) in Hamburg.

鈥淭ogether with our international partner teams, we have been able to detect a large proportion of the minerals that are formed when salty, liquid water 鈥� known as brine 鈥� evaporates more and more and the minerals are precipitated in the order of their solubility," explains Dr. Sheri Singerling, who manages the Schwiete Cosmo Lab. In technical terms, the rocks that form from such precipitation cascades are called evaporites. They have been found on Earth in dried-out salt lakes, for example.

鈥淥ther teams have found various precursors of biomolecules such as numerous amino acids in the Bennu samples," reports Prof. Frank Brenker. 鈥淭his means that Bennu's parent body had some known building blocks for biomolecules, water and 鈥� at least for a certain time 鈥� energy to keep the water liquid." However, the break-up of Bennu's parent body interrupted all processes very early on and the traces that have now been discovered were preserved for more than 4.5 billion years.

鈥淥ther celestial bodies such as Saturn's moon Enceladus, or the dwarf planet Ceres have been able to evolve since then and are still very likely to have liquid oceans or at least remnants of them under their ice shells," says Brenker. 鈥淪ince this means that they have a potential habitat, the search for simple life that could have evolved in such an environment is a focus of future missions and sample studies."

OSIRIS-REx
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provided overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission's science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provided flight operations.

Publication: Tim J. McCoy et al.: An evaporite sequence from ancient brine recorded in Bennu samples. Nature (2025)

Background information
Daniel P. Glavin et al.: Abundant ammonia and nitrogen-rich soluble organic matter in samples from asteroid (101955) Bennu Nature Astronomy (2025)

Inauguration of Schwiete Cosmo Lab (October 2023)

Picture downloads:

Captions:
1) Studies of the smallest amounts of material: Cosmochemist Professor Frank Brenker shows three grains of a meteorite that the 51猎奇 team used to test research methods in advance. The quantity and type corresponded to the material from the asteroid Bennu. Photo: Uwe Dettmar for 51猎奇.
2) A few specks of dust: The samples analyzed in the transmission electron microscope of the Schwiete Cosmo Lab at 51猎奇 are barely visible. Arrows indicate three of the samples. Photo without arrows: NASA
3) In the Schwiete Cosmo Lab: Dr. Sheri Singerling inserts a sample carrier into the transmission electron microscope of the Schwiete Cosmo Lab at 51猎奇 Frankfurt. Photo: Uwe Dettmar for 51猎奇
4) In the Schwiete Cosmo Lab (2): Dr. Sheri Singerling analyzing the TEM images of the material from Bennu. Photo: Uwe Dettmar for 51猎奇

NASA photo and image material:

and

Contact for further information:
Professor Frank E. Brenker
NanoGeoscience / Cosmochemistry
Institute for Geosciences
51猎奇 Frankfurt
Tel.: + 49 (0)69 798 40134
f.brenker@em.uni-frankfurt.de

LinkedIn: @sheri-singerling @goethe-universitat-frankfurt

Jan 28 2025

10:05

We smell faster than expected: Biologist at the University of Bonn聽discovers the temporal dimension of olfaction聽

A gateway to memory: Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Early Career Award 2025 goes to Tobias Ackels

Biologist Prof. Dr. Tobias Ackels (40) from the University of Bonn will be awarded the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Early Career Award 2025, the Scientific Council of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation announced today. The prizewinner has discovered that mammals smell faster than they breathe. He has shown that their nerve cells can derive new information from a dynamic scent cloud up to 40 times per second. Ackels has thus disproved the previously held assumption that the sense of smell is slow. At the same time, his research has opened a new door to understanding brain function as a whole, and he is exploring ways of using this fundamental mechanism for the early diagnosis of dementia.

FRANKFURT. Many animal species would not be able to survive without their sense of smell. They rely on it to locate food sources, find mates and avoid predators. For nocturnal animals, it is the most important tool for sniffing their way around dark spaces. That being said, 鈥渟melling鈥� is no easy feat, given that every smell is made up of many different molecules and every natural scent cloud in turn consists of many different odors. Until now, a sniff was considered the smallest unit of information in odor processing 鈥� an assumption Tobias Ackels has proven to be false. To do so, he constructed an odor application device that allows him to release individual or mixed odors through valves in precise millisecond pulses. The experiment showed that even between each individual sniff, mammals absorb information that can control their behavior.

In mice, as in humans, odors are registered by olfactory cells in the nasal mucosa. Each of these nerve cells carries only one type of olfactory receptor. Mice have more than 1,000 such types, humans around 350, with a few thousand olfactory cells each carrying the same receptor. Once an odorant binds to this receptor, it triggers a 鈥� relatively slow 鈥� signaling cascade inside the cell: It transmits an information wave via the main cable (axon) of the relevant olfactory cell, which in turn leads to a kind of circuit station in the olfactory bulb at the base of the brain. Information from the axons of a single receptor type鈥檚 olfactory cells converges inside each such switching station (glomerulus) 鈥� with a slight time delay, because these cells are widely distributed in the nasal mucosa and therefore not all reached by 鈥渢heir smell鈥� at the same time. This delayed convergence increases the information content delivered by the signals from the olfactory cells, which are mapped as a scent reservoir in the nervous input of the olfactory bulb, stored in the nasal mucosa after each breath, thereby making it receptive to rapidly changing stimuli that would otherwise be lost. Tobias Ackels first confirmed this hypothesis in a computer model and then in fluorescence microscopy measurements of nerve cell activity in mice exposed to such stimuli.

Simulating the situation in a natural environment, Ackels then presented synchronously or asynchronously correlated mixtures of two scents to a group of thirsty mice, whereby synchronous odors come from the same, and asynchronous odors from different places. Half of the mice were rewarded with water when they recognized a synchronous stimulus, the other half when they recognized an asynchronous stimulus. Both groups learned the difference and mastered it up to a frequency of 40 Hertz 鈥� suggesting that, to orient themselves in space, mammals can use this ability to differentiate between the sources of different odor signals at lightning speed. This ability is also important for us humans: we can smell a forest fire, for example, before we see it.

Ackels showed that this ability is encoded in the output of the olfactory bulb, i.e. in the mitral and tufted cells that, without taking a detour via the diencephalon, send the odor information from the glomeruli directly to the cortex of the olfactory brain and the limbic system, both of which are particularly strongly linked to emotion and memory. The only mediators integrated into these circuits are interneurons, granule cells in particular, which renew themselves in the olfactory bulb throughout life 鈥� disproving the former dogma that adult nerve cells are no longer capable of dividing. With the support of the European Research Council (ERC), Tobias Ackels is currently investigating how these cells contribute to extracting information from the olfactory bulb and communicating it to higher brain regions. Given that interneurons are increasingly regarded as the conductors of feeling and thinking, his findings could be of exemplary importance. There are also increasing signs that olfactory deficits precede the structural changes, memory impairment and clinical symptoms associated with dementia and could therefore be used for early detection 鈥� which could open the door for a translation of his basic research, a prospect about which Tobias Ackels is in close contact with clinicians at the Deutsches Zentrum f眉r neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases) in Bonn.

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Tobias Ackels studied biology at RWTH Aachen University from 2005 to 2011. He received his doctorate there in 2015 with a thesis on signal processing in the olfactory system of mammals. From 2015 to 2023, he was a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Andreas Sch盲fer鈥檚 group at the Francis Crick Institute in London. In August 2023, he returned to Germany and took up a W2 professorship at the University of Bonn, where he heads the Sensory Dynamics and Behavior group at the Institute of Experimental Epileptology and Cognition Research at the University Hospital Bonn. In the same year, he was awarded an ERC Starting Grant.

The prize will be awarded 鈥� together with the main prize 2025 鈥揵y the Chairman of Paul Ehrlich Foundation鈥檚 Scientific Council in Frankfurt's Paulskirche on March 14, 2025 at 5 p.m.

Pictures of the award winner and detailed background information 鈥淥n the trail of the deepest sense鈥� are available for download at:

Further information
Press Office Paul Ehrlich Foundation
Joachim Pietzsch
Phone: +49 (0)69 36007188
E-mail: j.pietzsch@wissenswort.com

Jan 23 2025

13:15

First step on the way to a video of the black hole

The black hole M87*: What has changed in one year

In 2019, the international Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration published the first image of a black hole, of M87* from the center of the galaxy M87. The measurement data on which the image was based was obtained in 2017. The EHT Collaboration has now also analyzed the data from the 2018 measurement campaign. The result: the brighter region in the ring around M87* has shifted, which can be attributed primarily to turbulence in the gas rotating around the black hole 鈥� the accretion disk. The researchers were also able to confirm that the axis of rotation of M87* points away from the Earth. In the long term, a kind of video is to show the dynamics of the black hole.

FRANKFURT. Six years after the historic release of the first-ever image of a black hole, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration unveils a new analysis of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy M87, known as M87*. This analysis combines observations made in 2017 and 2018, and reveals new insights into the structure and dynamics of plasma near the event horizon.

This research represents a significant leap forward in our understanding of the extreme processes governing black holes and their environments, providing fresh theoretical insights into some of the universe's most mysterious phenomena. 鈥淭he black hole accretion environment is turbulent and dynamic. Since we can treat the 2017 and 2018 observations as independent measurements, we can constrain the black hole鈥檚 surroundings with a new perspective,鈥� says Hung-Yi Pu, assistant professor at National Taiwan Normal University. 鈥淭his work highlights the transformative potential of observing the black hole environment evolving in time.鈥�

The 2018 observations confirm the presence of the luminous ring first captured in 2017, with a diameter of approximately 43 microarcseconds 鈥� consistent with theoretical predictions for the shadow of a 6.5-billion-solar-mass black hole. Notably, the brightest region of the ring has shifted 30 degrees counter-clockwise. 鈥淭he shift in the brightest region is a natural consequence of turbulence in the accretion disk around the black hole,鈥� explains Abhishek Joshi, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 鈥淚n our original theoretical interpretation of the 2017 observations, we predicted that the brightest region would most likely shift in the counterclockwise direction. We are very happy to see that the observations in 2018 confirmed this prediction!鈥�

The fact that the ring remains brightest on the bottom tells us a lot about the orientation of the black hole spin. Bidisha Bandyopadhyay, a Postdoctoral Fellow from Universidad de Concepci贸n adds: 鈥淭he location of the brightest region in 2018 also reinforces our previous interpretation of the black hole鈥檚 orientation from the 2017 observations: the black hole鈥檚 rotational axis is pointing away from Earth!鈥�

Luciano Rezzolla, chair of theoretical astrophysics at 51猎奇 Frankfurt, Germany, remarks that 鈥� black holes as gigantic as M87* are expected to change only on very long timescales and it is not surprising therefore that much of what we have measured on 2017 has emerged also with observations made in 2018. Yet, the small differences we have found are very important to understand what is actually happening near M87*. To use an equivalent that may help, we do not expect to see a difference in the structure of the rock when comparing two photos of Mount Everest taken with a separation of one year. However, we do expect to see differences in the clouds near the peak and we can use them to deduce, for instance, the direction of dominant winds or the three-dimensional properties of the rock that we cannot deduce from a simple two-dimensional photo. This is what we have done in our theoretical analysis of the new data, much of which has been done in Frankfurt, and which has allowed us to better understand how matter falls onto M87* and the actual properties of M87* as a black hole. More of these observations will be made in the coming years and with increasing precision, with the ultimate goal of producing a movie of what actually happens near M87*.鈥�

Using a newly developed and extensive library of super-computer-generated images 鈥� three times larger than the library used for interpreting the 2017 observations 鈥� the team evaluated accretion models with data from both the 2017 and 2018 observations. 鈥淲hen gas spirals into a black hole from afar, it can either flow in the same direction the black hole is rotating, or in the opposite direction. We found that the latter case is more likely to match the multi-year observations thanks to their relatively higher turbulent variability,鈥� explains Le贸n Sosapanta Salas, a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam. 鈥淎nalysis of the EHT data for M87 from later years (2021 and 2022) is already underway and promises to provide even more robust statistical constraints and deeper insights into the nature of the turbulent flow surrounding the black hole of M87.鈥�

The EHT collaboration involves more than 400 researchers from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America. The international collaboration is working to capture the most detailed black hole images ever obtained by creating a virtual Earth-sized telescope. Supported by considerable international investment, the EHT links existing telescopes using novel systems, creating a fundamentally new instrument with the highest angular resolving power that has yet to be achieved.

The individual telescopes involved are ALMA, APEX, the IRAM 30-meter Telescope, the IRAM NOEMA Observatory, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT), the Submillimeter Array (SMA), the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT), the South Pole Telescope (SPT), the Kitt Peak Telescope, and the Greenland Telescope (GLT). Data were correlated at the Max-Planck-Institut f眉r Radioastronomie (MPIfR) and MIT Haystack Observatory. The postprocessing was done within the collaboration by an international team at different institutions.

The EHT consortium consists of 13 stakeholder institutes: the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the University of Arizona, the University of Chicago, the East Asian Observatory, 51猎奇 Frankfurt, Institut de Radioastronomie Millim茅trique, Large Millimeter Telescope, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, MIT Haystack Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Radboud University, and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

Publication: Kazunori Akiyama et al. The persistent shadow of the supermassive black hole of M87. Astronomy and Astrophysics (2025)

Picture download:

Caption: Observed and theoretical images of M87*. The left panels display EHT images of M87* from the 2018 and 2017 observation campaigns. The middle panels show example images from a general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulation at two different times. The right panels present the same simulation snapshots, blurred to match the EHT's observational resolution.

Further information:
Professor Luciano Rezzolla
Institute for Theoretical Physics
51猎奇 Frankfurt
Phone: +49 (69) 798-47871
rezzolla@itp.uni-frankfurt.de

Jan 22 2025

14:37

Olena Fedchenko appointed to new Gisela and Wilfried Eckhardt endowed professorship for experimental physics 鈥� Funding provided by the estate of former physics student Gisela Eckhardt 鈥� City of Frankfurt names central square after Raman laser鈥檚 inventor

One of late laser pioneer Gisela Eckhardt鈥檚 legacies: A new endowed physics professorship at 51猎奇聽

Until a few years before her death, it was unthinkable that laser specialist Gisela Eckhardt, inventor of the Raman laser, would one day bequeath about 鈧�11.5 million to 51猎奇 Frankfurt. After all, Eckhardt had turned her back on the university with resentment after completing her doctorate here in 1958 and emigrating to the U.S. Sixty years later, however, the erstwhile physics student designated 鈥渉er鈥� 51猎奇 as her heir, thereby laying the foundations for an endowed professorship in experimental physics 鈥� to which solid-state physicist Prof. Olena Fedchenko was appointed this month. The city of Frankfurt has honored the late laser pioneer by naming one of the squares in its Bockenheim district after Gisela Eckhardt. Fedchenko will give her inaugural lecture as part of the honorary celebrations on January 30.

FRANKFURT. It is thanks to the legacy of late laser specialist Gisela Eckhardt that 51猎奇 was recently able to establish a professorship for experimental physics in the field of the solid-state spectroscopy of electronically correlated materials and now fill it with solid-state physicist Olena Fedchenko. A Frankfurt native, Gisela Eckhardt is the first alumna whose bequest 鈥� in addition to signifying a late reconciliation with her alma mater 鈥� has enabled the university to set up an endowed professorship. When Gisela Eckhardt, n茅e Elsholtz, began her longed for physics studies in 1947, she was the only female student in her year, and soon experienced the everyday obstacles encountered by a woman in a male-dominated research environment. A delayed diploma exam, a delayed doctoral thesis 鈥� even decades later, Gisela Eckhardt still lamented the time she lost during her studies as a result of her doctoral supervisor. By that time, she had long since moved to the U.S.A., where she emigrated in 1958 with her husband 鈥� whom she had met during their common student days. In Malibu, California, the Mecca of physics research at the time, she was not only able to fulfill her dream of conducting research. Thanks to a discovery in laser research in 1962, her renown spread far beyond her own institute: Harvard University named her one of the early pioneers of laser physics.

A feature in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about precisely this discovery 鈥� the Raman laser, which is still widely used in medicine, chemistry and biology today 鈥� brought Gisela Eckhardt back in touch with her university in 2017. At age 90, at the invitation of 51猎奇, she visited her former faculty 鈥� which meanwhile had three female professors and several female young researchers. Childless and already widowed, Gisela Eckhardt decided to leave to her university the funds for an endowed professorship in experimental physics. The laser physics pioneer passed away on January 30, 2020, at the age of 93. In her last will and testament, she bequeathed more than 鈧�11.5 million to 51猎奇: The long-term financing of the new endowed professorship, which bears her name and that of her husband Wilfried Eckhardt, is made possible by an endowment fund鈥檚 earnings.

51猎奇 President Prof. Enrico Schleiff is very grateful for the alumna鈥檚 late reconciliation with her alma mater, which was made possible by the initiative shown by Private Hochschulf枚rderung [the Private University Funding Office] and the physics faculty. 鈥淭here is one thing Gisela Eckhardt, donor of the new professorship for experimental physics, wanted all her life: to conduct research as a physicist, freely and without restrictions 鈥� something that was hardly possible for her as a woman in post-war Germany. I am certain it would give her twice the joy to see that not only were we able to fill the professorship with a woman, but we were able to specifically recruit Olena Fedchenko to it 鈥� a brilliant scientist who conducts research in a similar field to Gisela Eckhardt herself. Olena Fedchenko is a great asset to our physics faculty, where she strengthens our experimental expertise in solid state physics.鈥�

Experimental physicist Olena Fedchenko receives Gisela and Wilfried Eckhardt endowed professorship

The thematic proximity of experimental physicist Olena Fedchenko's area of expertise to laser pioneer Gisela Eckhardt would certainly have been in line with the wishes of the new Gisela and Wilfried Eckhardt endowed professorship鈥檚 donor. On January 1, 2025, this professorship was assumed by Olena Fedchenko, an expert who is particularly renowned in the field of electron spectroscopy, which holds great potential for use in modern solid-state research. 鈥淲ith this expertise, Olena Fedchenko strengthens one of our faculty鈥檚 three scientific research foci, that on 'condensed matter and quantum materials',鈥� says Prof. Cornelius Krellner, managing director of the Institute of Physics. 鈥淗ere in Frankfurt, we already have broad theoretical and experimental expertise when it comes to analyzing the complex problem of interacting particles in solids. With Olena Fedchenko's research group in experimental electron spectroscopy, we have now added a crucial link bridging theory and experiment 鈥� providing us with the key that is essential to unlocking important future technologies.鈥�

Olena Fedchenko studied and completed her doctorate in physics and mathematics at Sumy State University (Ukraine), specializing in solid-state physics. After working as a research associate at that university鈥檚 Institute of Applied Physics, she moved to Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in 2015. As a postdoctoral researcher here, she was involved in two collaborative research centers and several projects run by Germany鈥檚 Federal Ministry of Education and Research, contributing to the development of photoemission technology at DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron). In 2019 and 2024, her work was nominated as DESY Highlight of the Year; the latter year she was also nominated for the Charles S. Fadley Award for outstanding contributions to basic research in photoemission spectroscopy with hard X-rays.

Inauguration of Frankfurt鈥檚 new Gisela Eckhardt Square: Festive event held January 30 also features Prof. Olena Fedchenko鈥檚 inaugural lecture

Gisela Eckhardt will also receive a special honor in the city where she was born: At the suggestion of the Bockenheim local advisory council and the Physikalischer Verein, the City of Frankfurt is naming a previously nameless square on Ohmstra脽e after the Frankfurt native. Gisela Eckhardt Square will be officially inaugurated on January 30, the fifth anniversary of Gisela Eckhardt's death.

Prof. Dr. Olena Fedchenko will give her inaugural lecture during the subsequent festive event organized by the Physikalischer Verein, of which Gisela Eckhardt has been an honorary member since 2018 (time and place: 7 p.m., Robert-Mayer-Stra脽e 2, 60325 Frankfurt; ).

Further information on the inauguration of the new Gisela Eckhardt Square is available here (in German):

You can find a more detailed account of how 51猎奇 came to endow a professorship for experimental physics here (in German):

Images for download:

Caption 1:
Frankfurt native Gisela Eckhardt studied at 51猎奇 and is considered one of the pioneers of laser physics after discovering the Raman laser. (Photo: private)

Caption 2:
As the incumbent to the new Gisela and Wilfried Eckhardt endowed professorship, Olena Fedchenko decisively strengthens the experimental competence in solid state physics at 51猎奇鈥檚 Faculty of Physics. (Photo: Kateryna Fedorenko)

51猎奇

Press releases 鈥� 2025

51猎奇 PR & Communication Department聽

New impetus for female founders聽

Dust from asteroid Bennu shows: Building blocks of life and possible habitats were widespread in our solar system聽

A gateway to memory: Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Early Career Award 2025 goes to Tobias Ackels

The black hole M87*: What has changed in one year

One of late laser pioneer Gisela Eckhardt鈥檚 legacies: A new endowed physics professorship at 51猎奇聽