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Awards & News

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Supporting women scientists into leadership

May 04, 2026

Eleonora Isotta and Jing Rao selected for the Sign-Up programme of the Max Planck Society more

Understanding the short circuit in solid-state batteries

April 23, 2026

green energy microstructure and properties structure and mechanics

Max Planck team explains dendrite propagation, paving the way for safer and longer-lasting next-generation batteries. They publish their findings in the journal Nature. more

Indo-German funding for research on hydrogen-based ironmaking

March 26, 2026

award structure and mechanics

Wiser programme supports collaboration between Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials and Indian Institute for Technology Indore more

Nina Kosian wins Best Poster Award

September 09, 2025

award structure and mechanics

Green hydrogen production through iron oxide electrocatalysts more

Networking with the smartest minds

July 03, 2025

award structure and mechanics

Dr. Lilian Vogl participates at this year’s Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting more

Awards & Honours 2013 - 2024

1st Place Young Researcher's Oral Presentation

Lalith Bhaskar gained the 1st place in the Young Researcher’s Oral Presentations for his talk “High strain rate nanoindentation of fused silica, molybdenum, and nanocrystalline nickel” at the Nanomechanical Testing in Materials Research and Development Conference. Oct 2024

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Best Poster Award 1st Place

Hendrik Holz received the Best Poster Award 1st Place at the ECI Nanomechanical Testing in Materials Research and Development IX conference for the Poster
“High strain rate nanoindentation on a low angle grain boundary in copper”. Oct 2024

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Best Poster Award 1st Place

Dr. Jing Rao’s poster titled “Hydrogen-induced hardening effect and the diffusion behaviour in bcc FeCr alloys by in-situ nanointendation” won 1st place at the ECI Nanomechanical Testing in Materials Research and Development IX conference.
Oct 2024

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Best Poster Award 1st Place

Shreehard Sahu’s poster “High-temperature micropillar compression of hematite: Insights and experimental challenges” was also voted in 1st place at the ECI Nanomechanical Testing in Materials Research and Development IX conference.
Oct 2024

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Best Poster Preview 2nd Place

Hendrik Holz gained the Best Poster Preview 2nd Place at the ECI Nanomechanical Testing in Materials Research and Development IX conference for the Poster
“High strain rate nanoindentation on a low angle grain boundary in copper”. Oct 2024

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European Placement Prize

Piotr Sokolinski was awarded with the European Placement Prize for his internship at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung (MPIE). The internship was organized through the University of Cambridge’s “Summer Vacation Placement” program. Supervisors were Dr. Vivek Devulapalli, Advanced Transmission Electron Microscopy, and Dr. Frank Stein, Intermetallic Materials. Feb 2024

Prof. James Elliott (on the right), head of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at Cambridge University awards Piotr Sokolinski with the European Placement Prize. © Piotr Sokolinski read more

Selected for “Sign Up!” Initiative

The Max Planck Society (MPG) selected Dr. Anwesha Kanjilal, postdoctoral scientist in the group “Mechanics at Chemical Interfaces”, to participate in the career development initiative “Sign Up!”. Jan 2024

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Georg Sachs Prize 2023

The German Society for Materials Science (DGM) awards the Georg Sachs Prize 2023 to Dr. James P. Best.

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Otto Hahn Medal

Dr. Bendikt Distl, former PhD researcher, has been awarded with the Otto Hahn Medal from the Max Planck Society. June 2023

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APDIC Best Paper Award 2022

The Alloy Phase Diagram International Commission (APDIC) awarded Benedikt Distl, Leonie Gomell, Angelika Gedsun and Frank Stein and three colleagues from the TU Bergakademie Freiberg and the RWTH Aachen University, the APDIC Best Paper Award 2022 for the best published manuscript on alloy phase diagram data in 2021.
Benedikt Distl, Alexander Walnsch, Rosie F. L. Mellor, Leonie Gomell, Mehdi Noori, Angelika Gedsun, and Frank Stein, "Al–Mo–Ti Ternary Phase Diagram Evaluation," MSI Eureka , 1-47 (2021).

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Acta Student Award 2022

The Acta Student Award was rewarded to Bárbara Bellón for the publication B. Bellón, A.K. Boukellal, T. Isensee, O.M. Wellborn, K.P. Trumble, M.J.M. Krane, M.S. Titus, D. Tourret, J. LLorca, “Multiscale prediction of microstructure length scales in metallic alloy casting”, Acta Materialia, Vol 207, 2021, 116686.

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William Bonfield Best Review Paper Prize 2021

Dr. Frank Stein (MPIE) & Prof. Andreas Leineweber (TUBAF) have been awarded by Springer with the William Bonfield Best Review Paper Prize for their publication
“Laves phases: a review of their functional and structural applications and an improved fundamental understanding of stability and properties”.
MPIE: Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung; TUBAF: TU Bergakademie Freiberg

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Best Poster Award

Saba Ahmad gained the Best Poster Award for the poster “Strain-Induced phase transition in Σ3 [111] (211) tilt grain boundaries in Al” on the Microscopy Conference, Joint Meeting of Dreiländertagung & Multinational Congress on Microscopy MC 2021.

ERC Advanced Grant

Prof. G. Dehm has received an ERC Advanced Grant for the project with the acronym “GB-Correlate” from the European Research Council. 2018
The project GB-CORRELATE explores the presence and consequences of grain boundary phase transitions (often termed “complexions” in literature) in pure and alloyed Cu and Al.

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Best Oral Communication

Lamya Abdellaoui was awarded the Prize of the best oral communication in the 1st International Meeting on Alternative & Green Energies “IMAGE’18”.
The talk “Influence of microstructure of Ag_16.7Sb₃₀Te_53.3 bulk thermoelectrics on their performance” was held in Mohammedia, Morokko, May 2018.

Honour Gordon Research Conferences

Prof. Gerhard Dehm has been honoured by the Gordon Research Conferences for his contributions and his acting Chair on the conference “Thin Film and Small Scale Mechanical Behavior 2018”

Editors' Suggestion Physical Review Letters 2018

The publication of Dr. Christian Liebscher and his co-authors was selected for an Editors’ Suggestion in Physical Review Letters.
Christian H. Liebscher, Andreas Stoffers, Masud Alam, Liverios Lymperakis, Oana Cojocaru-Mirédin, Baptiste Gault, Jörg Neugebauer, Gerhard Dehm, Christina Scheu, and Dierk Raabe
“Strain-Induced Asymmetric Line Segregation at Faceted Si Grain Boundaries”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 0157

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.015702

2018 MDPI TOP REVIEWER AWARD

Dr. Matteo Ghidelli was awarded with the MDPI TOP REVIEWER AWARD for the appreciation of an outstanding contribution to the quality of MDPI journals.

Certificate of Excellence in Reviewing 2017

Acta Materialia/ Scripta Materialia awarded Dr. Christoph Kirchlechner with the Certificate of Excellence in Reviewing in recognition of significant contributions made to the quality of the journals.

Best Student Talk Award

Wei Luo has been honoured with the Best Student Talk Award at Nanobrücken 2017, European Nanomechanical Testing Conference and Hysitron User Meeting.

Heinz Maier-Leibniz-Preis 2017

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the President of the German Research Foundation honoured Dr. Christoph Kirchlechner with the Heinz Maier-Leibniz-Preis for his outstanding scientific work.

APDIC Best Paper Award 2016

Dr. Frank Stein and the co-authors have been honoured with the APDIC Best Paper Award 2016 for the best published manuscript on alloy phase diagram data in 2015 by The Alloy Phase Diagram International Commission (APDIC).
F. Stein, C. He, O. Prymak, S. Voß and I. Wossack , "Phase equilibria in the Fe–Al–Nb system: Solidification behaviour, liquidus surface and isothermal sections," Intermetallics, 2015, vol 50, pp 43-58.

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Best Poster Award

Nataliya Malyar has received the Best Poster Award at the Gordon Research Conference on “Thin Film & Small Scale Mechanical Behaviour” for the poster “Dislocation slip transfer at Cu grain boundaries analyzed by μLaue diffraction”. 2016

1st Place according to expert public – vox populi

Dr. Alena Michalcová received the “1st Place according to expert public - vox populi” in the competition “The most beautiful colour or black-and-white micrograph of non-ferrous metals” at the Aluminum and nonferrous Metals 2015 Conference, Bystrice nad Pernstejnem, Czech Republic, Oct 2015

Best Talk Award 3rd Place

Nicolas J. Peter was awarded the Best Talk Award-3^rd Place at the 9th International Nanoscience Student Conference INASCON 2015 for his contribution “Helium irradiation-induced effects on tensile properties of interface-containing bi-material nanostructures”. University of Basel

Poster Award - 1st Place

Vera M. Marx won the Poster Award in 1st place at the Engineering Conference International Series “Nanomechanical Testing in Materials Research and Development IV” with the poster “The mechanical and adhesion behavior of a Cr interlayer between Cu and polyimide”. ECI 2013

Controlled Substance Award

Prof. Gerhard Dehm was honoured with the Controlled Substance Award for Conferee Most Addicted to ECI Conferences at the Engineering Conferences International, Composites at Lake Louise 2013.

Metallography-Prize 2013

Angelika Bobrowski, Heidi Bögershausen and Joachim Laimmer have won this year’s Metallography Prize of the German Society for Material Science. They have founded the “Society for Metallography Rhine-Ruhr” in 2000. This society engages in off-the-job trainings and professional exchanges to contribute in raising awareness for this job profile.