Scientists at the MPIE
Dr. Christoph Kirchlechner is head of the new group „Micro-/Nanomechanics of Materials" since March 2013. He finished his PhD studies about plasticity at the micron scale in 2011 at the Erich Schmid Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Leoben (Austria) and worked for one year as a postdoc at the University of Leoben. In 2012 he received the sub auspiciis Praesidentis rei publicae honours from the Austrian president. Since 2012 Kirchlechner works as an assistant professor at the University of Leoben. In his research at the MPIE he examines in situ micro- and nanomechanics of materials with synchrotron based characterisation techniques.
Dr. Stefan Wippermann is the new head of the "Atomistic Modelling Group" in the department "Interface Chemistry and Surface Engineering". He worked as a post doc at the University of California (Davis/ USA) supported by a scholarship of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft before joining the MPIE in 2013. His PhD thesis dealt with the understanding of substrate-supported atomic-scale nanowires from ab initio theory at the University of Paderborn and received the university's yearly award for an outstanding dissertation in 2011. Currently, Wippermann works on first principles electrochemistry in aqueous systems and on nano-composite materials with tailored electronic and optical properties for photovoltaics. With the latter project Wippermann successfully participated in the "NanoMatFutur'' competition, organized by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and is one of seven participants now invited to submit a formal grant application to the BMBF.