First Kármán Fellowships Awarded
RWTH Aachen promotes the interdisciplinary and international university network with the Theodore von Kármán Fellowship.
ERS International supports international collaborative research projects that are innovative and open up long-term perspectives. RWTH scholars who want to spend a period of research abroad are eligible to apply for funding.
Furthermore, recognized researchers from all over the world have the opportunity to complete an interdisciplinary research project at RWTH Aachen. A prerequisite for funding from ERS International is that two to three RWTH Aachen researchers from different faculties jointly invite and host the visiting scholar.
RWTH Rector Ernst Schmachtenberg has presented the fellowship certificates to the first Kármán Fellows, RWTH scientist Dr. Ha Vinh Lam Nguyen and Dr. Yutaka Kato from Keio University, Tokyo.
Nguyen, research associate at the Department of Molecular Spectroscopy at RWTH Aachen, just completed a four-week research project at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, USA. The Vietnamese researcher, who came to Germany in 2004, received diploma degree and her doctorate from RWTH Aachen. Before returning to RWTH, she worked as a postdoc at the Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systemes Atmmosphériques, a research laboratory between Paris-Est Créteil University, Paris Diderot University, and CNRS.
Nguyen has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Procter & Gamble Award for Best Diploma Thesis in Chemistry, and the Borchers Medal from RWTH Aachen for her dissertation, which was awarded with distinction.
Dr. Yutaka Kato, who came to Aachen in April, is currently Senior Instructor at the Department of Neuropsychiatry, Keio University. At RWTH Aachen, he is conducting joint research with RWTH professors Klaus Mathiak, Janina Fels, and Irene Mittelberg. His expertise is ideally suited to complement and advance two current multidisciplinary research projects at RWTH Aachen, “HumTec Natural Media – NeuroPeirce,” and the interdisciplinary seed fund project “Spatial Perception in MEG and fMRI.“
The Theodore von Kármán Fellowship is funded by the Exploratory Research Space at RWTH Aachen University, ERS for short, which has been initiated under the Excellence Initiative and now forms a core element of the University's institutional strategy.
ERS promotes and funds interdisciplinary research projects and provides a platform for scientists who join forces to develop highly innovative, challenging research ideas.