For talented, creative, and passionate young female researchers working in the field of active and interactive materials
The WIMA is a young scientist award launched in 2021 initiated by DWI's working group "Equal Chances and Diversity", specifically targeting female scientists from the research field of active and interactive materials.
The aim is to specifically support women in their early academic careers and provide them with a platform to increase their visibility.
We are honored to host our 5th WIMA edition in Aachen this year.
The final of the award will take place on-site in Aachen on 18 September, 2025.
This is made possible by the generous financial support of the ALTANA Group, a global leader in specialty chemicals for innovative technologies, the Association of Friends of DWI and the Leibniz Research Alliance Leibniz Health Technologies.
In the end, three winners will be chosen and honoured with prize money of 15,000 EUR in total: 1st place 10,000 EUR prize money and 2,500 EUR for each of the 2 runner-ups.
The jury will be chaired by:
Petra Severit
Petra Severit, chemist by training, is a passionate, authentic and truly international leader with over 20 years of diversified background in engineering, R&D and business in global executive positions in the automotive supplier industry and the chemical industry. She has R&D management experience in product development, innovation, analytical laboratories, basic research and application development. Additional to the technical background she has work experience in strategy, strategic sourcing, business development and as managing director, as well as board member.
Sandra Van Vlierberghe
Sandra Van Vlierberghe’s research focusses on the development of photo-crosslinkable (bio)polymers and their processing capabilities using (laser-based) 3D printing techniques.
She has acquired expertise related to the synthesis, the modification and the processing of a variety of (bio)polymers including thermoplasts and hydrogels in the field of regenerative medicine during the last 15 years.
Viktorija Glembockyte
Viktorija Glembockyte is leader of the research group “Single Molecule Sensing” at Max Planck Institute for Medical Research. She works on unraveling the intricate details of molecular processes at the level of single molecules. Her goal is to use DNA nanotechnology as well as single-molecule fluorescence and super-resolution microscopy to gain a deeper understanding of fundamental biological interactions and to develop tools such as biosensors and long-lived fluorescent labels to manipulate these processes. Viktorija is the winner of WIMA 2024.
Laura Heinen
Laura Heinen's main research interest is developing energy-autonomous and metabolically active soft material systems. She is an idependent group leader at DWI. By energy-autonomous she thinks of systems that are capable of harvesting, converting and storing energy which (later) can be used to do work and sustain active material functions. By metabolically active Laura thinks of systems that possess internal reaction networks that are able to control the fluxes of energy and matter i.e., in particular the supply, regeneration and removal of building blocks. The central theme of her research is thus, how can we couple energy to non-equilibrium soft material systems so that we can understand, sustain, and control their lifecycles while new systemic material properties may emerge.