Former Fellows – Outgoings
Dr. Karolina Schickle
Head of the group "Bioceramics" at the Chair of Ceramics and Institute of Mineral Engineering
Guest Stay
Department of Biomaterials and Composites, AGH University of Science and Technology
Materials and Surface Chemistry Group, Jagiellonian University
Host
Prof. Dr. hab. inż. Elżbieta Pamuła
Prof. Dr. hab. Andrzej Kotarba
Duration of Stay
June 27 - August 22, 2022
Karolina Schickle visited the AGH University of Science and Technology and the Jagiellonian University in Poland in the summer of 2022 as a Theodore von Kármán Fellow. During her stay, she was able to advance her research and intensify cooperation with the two Polish partners through jointly planned third-party funded projects.
I would like to thank you very much again for this great opportunity! As a mother of two small children, the opportunities that I have to take part in such activities abroad are very limited. As such, I am even more pleased that you have made this possible for me. My stay in Krakow was very successful and has provided a solid basis for further research activities and applications for third-party funding.
Karolina Schickle
Dr. Lara Heij
Specialist in Pathology at the Clinic for General, Visceral and Transplant Surgery, Uniklinik RWTH Aachen
Guest Stay
Oxford University Hospital, Department of Oncology
Host
Dr. Shivan Sivakumar
Duration of Stay
November - December 2022
Lara Heij was a Theodore von Kármán Fellow at Oxford University in the winter of 2022. During her one-month stay, she learned the technique of single-cell suspension.
It was a very successful month, filled with meetings, and I was able to achieve a lot. I met up with my close associate Dr. Shivan Sivakumar, who introduced me to his team members and associates within Oxford and London University. I shared my research projects with them and we worked on cell isolation protocols in the laboratory.
Lara Heij
Dr. Nicole Treichel
Research associate at the Institute of Medical Microbiology
Guest Stay
University of Trento, Laboratory of Computational Metagenomics, Department CIBIO
Host
Ph.D. Nicola Segata
Duration of Stay
August 27 - September 26, 2022
Nicole Treichel was a Theodore von Kármán Fellow at the University of Trento, Italy, in the summer of 2022. She was able to apply the knowledge and skills she gained there to prepare the application for the extension of the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center 1382.
Over the course of the four weeks, I deepened my bioinformatics knowledge and established the methods I learned on our servers. This allows me to continue the project now after my return. I was able to exchange ideas with my colleagues in Italy, both on technical matters and on life as a scientist. I am very happy about the newly established contacts and look forward to continuing the cooperation, possibly with a return visit by colleagues from Italy.
Nicole Treichel
Dr. Claas Digmayer
Research Assistant at the Chair of Text Linguistics and
Technology Communication, Human-Computer Interaction Center
Guest Stay
University of Texas, IC² Institute, Austin (USA)
Host
Dr. Gregory Pogue
Duration of Stay
September - November 2022
Claas Digmayer was a Theodore von Kármán Fellow at the University of Texas in the fall of 2022. There he investigated both the requirements for establishing renewable energies based on community values, and also the characteristics of high-quality value propositions of entrepreneurs.
Overall, I rate my stay at the IC² Institute as extremely positive: I had outstanding support and was able to make a wide range of new contacts - especially thanks to the invitation to the Institute's weekly 'Lab Meeting', in which representatives of large companies give presentations on currently relevant topics such as human resource development and AI use. The intensive exchange of ideas with experts from a wide range of research fields provided me with many new approaches and perspectives. This in turn led to an extremely productive time and a very good output that I can use for my current research project DC-Socio-Economics at RWTH Aachen University.
Claas Digmayer
Dr. Dominik Bongartz
Research group leader at the Chair for Process Systems Engineering (AVT.SVT). In the fall of 2022, he was appointed as tenure-track assistant professor at KU Leuven, Belgium.
Guest Stay
Imperial College London, Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering
Host
Prof. Dr. Benoît Chachuat
Duration of Stay
April - July 2022
Dominik Bongartz attended the Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering (CPSE) at Imperial College London in the spring/summer of 2022. During his four-month stay, he was able to build on previous work of researchers at CPSE as well as his own work and develop new methods to efficiently solve nonconvex optimization problems.
During my stay, I had the chance to interact with various PhD students, postdocs, and professors from my field. In the field of Process Systems Engineering, the Sargent Centre is a unique environment in that respect. […] Personally, I was not only able to broaden my network, but I was also able to gain many valuable insights into adjacent fields, develop new ideas, and get feedback for my own research.
Dominik Bongartz
Dr.-Ing. Philipp Demling
Research associate at the Chair of Applied Microbiology
Guest Stay
The Novo Nordisk Center for Biosustainability (CFB)
Danish Technical University (DTU)
Host
Dr. Suresh Sudarsan / Dr. Andreas Worberg
Duration of Stay
May - September 2022
Philipp Demling visited the Novo Nordisk Center for Biosustainability (CFB) and Denmark's Technical University (DTU) in the summer of 2022 as part of his Theodore von Kármán Fellowship. During his stay, he was able to establish valuable contacts that enabled a cooperation between CFB, DTU and RWTH Aachen University in the project "Scale-up of polyphosphate production and purification".
Overall, the stay at the CFB at the DTU has helped me professionally and personally. The results achieved represent substantial progress within the project, which we can now continue to build on together. I was able to make many new contacts that will be useful both for my career and for the cooperation between RWTH Aachen University and DTU.
Philipp Demling
Prof. Kerstin Konrad
Head of the Clinical Neuropsychology Teaching and Research Department
Guest Stay
Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore
Host
Prof. Victoriy Leong
Duration of Stay
September - October 2022
Kerstin Konrad was at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in the fall of 2022, working in the Baby-LINC Lab. During her stay, she had the opportunity to learn about parent-child dyad studies in a technically highly innovative environment and was also able to secure a first joint project grant at NTU in the field of "Science of Learning".
All in all, the stay at NTU in Singapore inspired and excited me so much that I am convinced that this is only the beginning of a longer-term, fruitful scientific cooperation.
Kerstin Konrad
Bernd Hentschel
Senior researcher and deputy head of the Teaching and Research Area Virtual Reality and Immersive Visualization
Guest Stay
University of Oregon, Eugene, USA
Host
Professor Hank Childs, PhD
Duration of the Stay
Four weeks in April 2017
Dr. Bernd Hentschel went to the University of Oregon as a Theodore von Kármán Fellow in the spring of 2017. During his stay there, he worked with other researchers in the group "Computing and Data Understanding at eXtreme Scale, CDUX" in the field of visualization of extremely large data sets.
A full interview with Bernd Hentschel is available online.
The work in Hank's team can in essence be described by two words: open and straightforward. (...) I was welcomed with open arms and was able to quickly join in the work on site and contribute to the research. Made possible by the funding, my research stay was a great success – on a personal level as well as professionally. Hank and I agree that we have started a collaboration that will stay with us for a long time to come. Many thanks!
Bernd Hentschel
Linda Hildebrand
Junior Professor for Recycle-Friendly Construction at RWTH Aachen University, Faculty of Architecture
Guest Stay
Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles
Host
Professor Deepak Rajagopal
Duration of the Stay
March to April 2017
In the spring of 2017, Linda Hildebrand visited UCLA, the University of California at Los Angeles. During her five-week research stay, she collaborated with scientists from the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and contributed to research and teaching in the areas of life-cycle assessment methodology and data structures.
At UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, or IoES, I mostly worked with Professor Deepak Rajagopal, who is passionate about researching and teaching eco-balance assessment. The collaboration with my colleagues there was very open. Typically I work with architects and engineers, who are concerned with many topics aside from environmental ones, and so it was really stimulating to work at an environmental institution. The exchange of American and European perspectives proved to be very fruitful for both parties.
Linda Hildebrandt
A full interview with Linda Hildebrand is available online.
Dawei Wang
Postdoc at the RWTH Aachen University Institute of Highway Engineering – ISAC, Faculty of Civil Engineering. After receiving his post-doctoral lecturing qualification from RWTH in 2017, he was appointed as a professor at the Harbin Institute of Technology, China.
Guest Stay
Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, China
Hosts
Si Yuan und Qinyan Xing
Duration of Stay
May 2017
Professor Dawei Wang visited the Department of Civil Engineering at Tsinghua University, China, as a Theodore von Kármán Fellow in the spring of 2017. During his stay, among other activities, he set up a research group focusing on the numerical simulation of highly stressed roads and runways for aircraft as well as mechanically and thermally stressed pavements. Furthermore, he gave a lecture on the topic of "Construction Technology for Traffic Infrastructures."
As with my first stay at Tsinghua in 2015, I sought to further promote the collaboration between the two universities, in the form of joint publications, events, projects, and to intensify the exchange of researchers and students […]. One of my personal highlights was to see that the Chinese students take a strong interest in Germany. Many of them would like to get to know Germany and RWTH with the help of an exchange program. For this reason, it is important to me to promote intercultural exchange.
Dawei Wang
A full interview with Dawei Wang is available online.
Lutz Pauli
Postdoc at the Chair for Computation Analysis of Technical Systems, head of the modelling structural unit in the Computational Science and Engineering Profile Area or CompSE
Guest Stay
Cardiovascular Biomechanics Computation Lab, CBCL for short, at Stanford University, California, USA
Host
Professor Alison Marsden
Duration of Stay
March to May 2017
Dr. Lutz Pauli went to Stanford University in the US as a Theodore von Kármán Fellow in the spring of 2017. During his two-month stay he worked with researchers at the Cardiovascular Biomechanics Computation Lab, CBCL, on more efficiently including simulation processes into the surgical process.
I believe the idea of integrating simulation processes into surgical processes possesses a lot of potential, which is why I wanted further training in this field. Thanks to the Theodore von Kármán Fellowship I had funding to pursue this training. […] At the end of my stay we had many ideas for future collaboration. We are currently submitting a project proposal for the first collaboration together with a company in Aachen that is developing a new cardiac support system.
Lutz Pauli
Complete interview with Lutz Pauli.
Sabina Jeschke
Professor of Mechanical Engineering at RWTH Aachen and Head of the institute cluster IMA/ZWL & ifU
Guest Stay
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
Host
Professor Mitchell M. Tseng
Duration of Stay
October to November 2014
Sabina Jeschke went to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology as a RWTH Fellow in the fall of 2014. During her four-week research stay, she gave a lecture on the topic "Big Data – On Distributed Artificial Intelligence " at the engineering department and began plans for research collaboration with HKUST in the field of mobile robotics. A joint Master's program offered by RWTH, HKUST, and MIT was also initiated.
Aside from the intensive scientific discussions with Mitch Seng and his students, which provided me with valuable input for my research, the entire atmosphere at HKUST was very inspiring.
Many thanks to RWTH, the organizers and designers of the Theodore von Kármán-Fellowship Program, who made these informative experiences possible in many ways. The good organization of the program made the application, grant, and settlement process regarding the scholarship very simple – I'd recommend it to anyone! Thank you!
Sabina Jeschke
A full interview with Sabina Jeschke is available online.