In the field of natural sciences, mathematics, and technical sciences, the University of Bayreuth's representation in the Bayreuth Academy of Sciences and Humanities has more than doubled over the last five years. In 2020, Prof. Dr. Michael Stoll, Chair of Computer Algebra, was elected a full member. Computer algebra develops algorithms for solving problems in the fields of algebra and number theory, among other things. Some of these algorithms are also useful in other areas of mathematics and its applications.
The geochemist and geologist Prof. Dr. Daniel Frost from the Bavarian Geoinstitute (BGI) at the University of Bayreuth has been a full member of the BAdW since 2017, and in 2020 he was admitted to the British Royal Society. Prof. Dr Hans Keppler, geophysicist, mineralogist, and volcanism researcher at the BGI, has been a full member of the BAdW since 2008. Frost and Keppler are Leibniz Prize winners of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and both belong to the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. With their research contributions on structures and processes in the Earth's interior, they are among the most internationally distinguished geoscientists in Germany.
The first Bayreuth natural scientist to be appointed as a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences is the experimental physicist Prof. Dr. Markus Schwoerer, Emeritus of Honour of the University of Bayreuth and President of the German Physical Society from 1996 to 1998. Like Prof. Dr. Anna Köhler, he has specialised in the study of the physics of semiconducting organic molecules.
"I am very much looking forward to interdisciplinary exchange and cooperation in the Section for Natural Sciences, Mathematics or Technical Sciences. Together we will be able to strengthen Bavaria as a centre of research and, in the process, provide impetus for research and teaching at the individual universities in the Free State of Bavaria," says the Bayreuth experimental physicist.
In 2020, Prof. Dr. Anna Köhler was awarded the Max Born Prize by the German Physical Society (DPG) and the British Institute of Physics (IOP), named after the German physicist, mathematician and Nobel Prize winner. A year earlier, the Royal Society of Chemistry, a leading international professional society based in London, awarded the Bayreuth physicist the "Alexander Todd - Hans Krebs Lectureship in Chemical Sciences" for her excellent research achievements.
