The Lise Meitner-Minerva Lectureship Award

Procedures and Rules for the Lise Meitner Lectureship Award:
The Lise Meitner Lectureship is a distinction given by the Lise Meitner-Minerva Center to a prominent quantum chemist whose work has had an important impact on the chemical community. The recipients of this award are invited to spend a week or so in The Center, where they interact scientifically with members of the Center and their coworkers.  The Award Lecture is usually given during the Conference and Advisory Board (“Beirat”) Meeting. The dates of these meeting are set by the Beirat Members.

Proposing Candidates: The candidates can be proposed by members of the Center, Beirat members, and past winners (“Fellows of the Lise Meitner Center”). All proposals should be done in writing to the Director of the Center, along with a short citation that gives the reason why the candidate should merit this award.

Proposals made by others are accepted on rare occasions after ratification by all the members of the center.

Selection of the Awardee: This is done by a center-wide ballot.

The Outstanding Young German Award Lectureship

Procedures and Rules for The Selection of the Outstanding Young German Award (OYGA) LECTURE:
This program was implemented in order to invite outstanding young German scientists to spend a period of up to two weeks in the Center.  The candidates for the OYGA Award are proposed by the Beirat members and the members of the Center.

Selection of the Awardee: This is done by a center-wide ballot.

The Lise Meitner-Minerva Lectureship Award

June 1998

December 1998

Prof. J. Gauss
University of Mainz (Germany)
"Spin-Restricted Coupled Cluster Theory for the Treatment of Open-Shell System"
Given at The Technion during the International Symposium on "Frontiers in Electronic Structure Calculations", Technion, December 14, 1998.

The Lise Meitner Award for the year 1999 goes to Prof. Ruth Lewin Sime from The Sacramento City College (USA) for her monograph "Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics". Throughout her academic career, Professor Lewin Sime has been active in "women studies programs" via courses she taught and designed. It is through this activity, that she has found herself engaged in the monumental work of writing the personal and scientific biography of Lise Meitner, one of the greatest scientists of the 20th Century. Her book, "Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics" has a cross-cultural message: Science is man-made. It is a distillation of man's intellect. It is a creative endeavor and it is also fallible-- very fallible like man- its creator. Ruth has succeeded to weave the human and social elements into the scientific drama and created thereby a true epic. Her book played an important role in the decision of the Center members to name the Center after Lise Meitner.

In 2000 we awarded two Lise Meitner Lectureship awards, one to Prof. John A. Pople from Northwestern University (USA) and the second to Prof. Kendall N. Houk from The University of Los-Angeles California (USA). Professor John Pople was elected as the 2000 Lise Meitner Lecturer for being the master of model computational quantum chemistry, for standardization and systematization of quantum chemical techniques and for developing the most important and widely used computational chemistry tools that have appeared in the last three decades. These achievements earned him, jointly with Walter Kohn the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Professor Kendall Houk was elected as the 2000 Lise Meitner Lecturer for his creative use of computational quantum chemistry to elucidate many mechanistic problems in chemistry and biochemistry. Professor Houk has been one of the foremost leaders who showed the importance of the interplay of theory and experiment.

The Lise Meitner Lectureship award for the year 2001 goes jointly to Prof. H.F. Schaefer, from The University of Georgia (USA), and to Prof. W. Thiel from the Max Planck Institute in Mulheim (Germany). Professor Henry Fritz Schaefer was elected as the 2001 Lise Meitner Lecturer for his ground breaking contributions in quantum chemistry. Henry Schaefer is one of the most prominent quantum chemists who has developed new-sophisticated methods, implemented them and applied them to 'real' chemical problems. Professor Schaefer was the first quantum chemist to use theoretical calculations to challenge experiment. These successful challenges have shown the power of the new technique, and have contributed to making it a standard technique which many chemists use all over the world. Professor Walter Thiel was elected as the 2001 Lise Meitner Lecturer for his wide-ranging contributions to semiempirical theory and for the development of molecular mechanics/quantum mechanics coupling techniques, which permit realistic descriptions of large molecules and enzymes, and open thereby vast research opportunities.

The Lise Meitner Lectureship award for the year 2003 goes to Prof. Josef Michl, from The University of Colorado (USA), for his creative and outstanding work on the quantum mechanical understanding of photochemical reactions and for his numerous contributions to the understanding of experimental data in a variety of problems in physical organic chemistry and silicon chemistry. Michl's work has been instrumental in solidifying the interplay between experiment and theory.

The Lise Meitner Lectureship award for the year 2004 goes to Prof. Leo Radom, from the University of Sydney (Australia). Professor Radom was one of the first chemists to understand the enormous potential of computational quantum chemistry, as a research tool in chemistry. His numerous contributions in testing, benchmarking, and applying the various methods were instrumental in ushering the new technique into mainstream chemistry.

The Lise Meitner Lectureship award for the year 2004/2005 goes to Professor Roald Hoffmann, from Cornell University (USA). More than any other chemist in the second half of the 20th Century, Roald Hoffmann has charted the mental map of chemists through his ground breaking studies in organic and inorganic-organometallic chemistry, and by his unequaled ability to be a teacher unto the masses. In so doing, Hoffmann was able to convert theoretical numbers into portable paradigms that motivated his fellow chemists to test the theoretical ideas and widen the chemical window.

The Lise Meitner Lectureship Award for the year 2006 goes to Prof. M. Parrinello and Prof. D. G Truhlar.
Michelle Parrinello is awarded for his development of density functional methods that allow the direct quantum mechanical and dynamic calculations of real problems. Michele's work has had a wide ranging impact on  many areas of chemistry involving catalysis, enzymatic processes and so on. its further prospects are vast.
Donald Truhlar is awarded for his major contributors to the enormous potential of computational quantum chemistry, as a research tool in chemistry, and through his numerous developments of practical methods for electronic structure, potential energy surfaces,  solvent models, reaction rates, and dynamics.

Prof. D. G Truhlar
University of Minnesota, USA
"Incorporation of Quantum Mechanical Effects in Dynamical Simulations of Complex Systems, Illustrated by Applications to Enzyme Kinetics"
 

The Lise Meitner Lectureship Award for the year 2007 goes to Prof. F. Weinhold.
Frank Weinhold is awarded for the application and development of ab-initio quantum mechanical techniques, specifically the NBO-based techniques, for the analysis of chemical structure, bonding and reactivity.

The Lise Meitner Award for the year 2008 goes to Prof. Tom Ziegler.
Tom Ziegler is awarded for his numerous contributions to the improvement of Density Functional Theory (DFT) and its application to transition metal compounds, to their reactivity and spectroscopy, to catalysis and polymerization.
Tom Ziegler's work has been instrumental in motivating chemists to apply DFT methods to large molecules containing transition metals.

Prof. T. Ziegler
University of Calgary, Canada

The Lise Meitner Award for the year 2009 goes to Prof. W.L. Jorgensen.
W.L. Jorgensen is awarded for his pioneering development of solvent models for treating chemical reactions.

Prof. W.L. Jorgensen
Yale University , USA

The Outstanding Young German Award Lectureship

The Outstanding Young German Scientist Award for year 2007 goes to Prof. F. Neese.
Frank Neese is awarded for his outstanding contributions in the development of quantum-chemical methods and codes (ORCA) for computing EPR and other spectroscopic parameters and for their application in the field of bioinorganic chemistry.

Prof. F. Neese
University of Bonn, Germany
"High-valent intermediates in nonheme iron enzymes: Combining spectroscopy and modern quantum chemistry"
[PDF, PPT]
 

The Outstanding Young German Scientist Award for the year 2008 goes to Prof. Filipp Furche.
Filipp Furche is selected as the Outstanding Young German Awardee for 2008 for his work on density functional theory including method development (TDDFT, analytic gradient), implementation in efficient codes (TURBOMOLE), and applications (CD spectra, excited states).

Prof. Filipp Furche
University of California ,Irvine, CA, USA
[PDF]

The Outstanding Young German Scientist Award for the year 2009 goes to Prof. Andreas Dreuw.
Andreas Dreuw is selected as the Outstanding Young German Awardee for 2009 for his work  in   TDDFT and related methods, energy and electron transfer processes,  
ultrafast photoreactions, etc.

Prof. Andreas Dreuw
University of Frankfurt , Germany