VAA Award for Young Chemist from Würzburg

Ulrich Mayerhöffer, who successfully defended his PhD thesis with distinction on "Synthese, Eigenschaften und funktionale Anwendung von NIR absorbierenden Squarainen" on February 15, 2012, was chosen as an awardee by the VAA Foundation. This prize is awarding dissertations displaying a considerable enhancement for research in chemical pharmaceutical research and chemical engineering which are promising for practical industrial research applications. 

According to his PhD-Supervisor, Professor Frank Würthner, the PhD thesis of Ulrich Mayerhöffer is designated by remarkably scientific results and referred to as “of especially high scientific value”. In his thesis U. Mayerhöffer developed squaraine dyes bearing dicyanovinyl acceptor units towards application in bulk heterojunction solar cells. In addition he noticed that some of dyes exhibit remarkable fluorescence properties in the near infrared spectral range which is of high interest for bioimaging studies. In total the research carried out by Dr. Mayerhöffer during his PhD thesis resulted in six publications in top journals, three of those in “Angewandte Chemie”.

Ulrich Mayerhöffer received already other awards before. Thus, he was honored by the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy of the University of Würzburg for his outstanding diploma exam in 2008 and he was supported by a stipend from “Fonds der Chemischen Industrie” from 2009-2011.

After finishing his Doctoral Work in Würzburg, Ulrich Mayerhöffer joined the Lonza Group AG, Visp, Switzerland, in the R&D Department (Process Development).

The VAA Foundation, located in Cologne, entitling itself as “Berufsverband und Berufsgewerkschaft“, is a recognized labor union. Its history goes back 90 years and therefore the VAA is one of the eldest employees organizations in Germany. The award ceremony will presumably take place on October 17, 2013 at the University of Konstanz.