Eteri is a Minerva group leader (REALM) at the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden. Her scientific interest lies in the design and discovery of novel classes of solid-state materials. In particular, she is interested in crystallographically complex compounds that show peculiar magnetic and superconducting properties. In her work, she combines a background of fundamental research in physics, chemistry, and material science. Besides answering fundamental science questions, she is interested in how her work can contribute to society more directly.

 

 

 

Laura is an experimental physicist who has spent more than three decades with the development of new biomedical imaging methods. Her vision is to “measure and visualize what was not visible before” in the body. She holds a full professorship at the Comprehensive Heart Failure Center of Würzburg University Clinics. Furthermore, she is the founding director of the Department of Cardiovascular Imaging and Chairwoman for Molecular and Cellular Imaging.  Her research focuses on novel imaging methods, currently in ultrahighfield magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the heart. Earlier research addressed MRI of cancer, quantification of brain perfusion, or MRI of the lung using hyperpolarized or inert gases. She and her team, together with colleagues from a variety of medical specialties, develop and test new MRI methods, build novel radiofrequency coils, and use advanced computational methods such as artificial intelligence or computational fluid dynamics to understand better (patho-) physiology of disease, and the measurement process itself. Moreover, she is interested in science management, particularly in an interdisciplinary context.

You can find videos about her current work here and here. 

Gudrun is a researcher and independent group leader working on the space-based gravitational wave detector LISA, an ESA mission planned for launch in 2034. Her research at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) and the Institute for Gravitational Physics at the Leibniz University Hannover focuses on optical simulations and interferometric noise sources. Her work is thereby deepening the understanding of the LISA instrument and an important element needed to achieve the picometre-level precision required for LISA. 

Beyond LISA, Gudrun is working on fundamental research aspects in optics and interferometry as part of the Clusters of Excellence QuantumFrontiers and PhoenixD and the Collaborative Research Centre TerraQ. 

Quantum computers have great potential to change our world in surprising ways. From expected breakthroughs in medical or material science to a possible revolution in cryptography. How can Germany catch up to leading industrial players? How can we impact the market and accelerate the success of start-ups? These are questions Karla Loida asks as project and team lead for the quantum computing hardware of the quantum computing initiative at the German Aerospace Center. Karla is in charge of commissioning industry to build quantum computers and establish a quantum computing industrial ecosystem in Germany. The procurement generates a market and has start-ups, SMEs, and established industries compete. The development contracts are financed 100% - an extraordinary chance for young start-ups to take part in the quantum race. She also leads a team of project managers to supervise and make a success of these high-tech projects.

An interview with Karla can be found here. 

Stefanie is an experimental physicist specializing in photonics and optical quantum metrology. She holds a full professorship at TU Braunschweig and leads a research group at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). Her research focuses on micro- and nanophotonic structures, enabling light control at scales down to a few nanometers. An emerging topic in quantum technology is using photonics for quantum computers with trapped ions to make them compact, robust, and scalable.    Besides addressing ions with photons, Stefanie does research on nanostructured mirrors for trapping neutral atoms through integrated chips or for ultra-low noise mirrors for the future of gravitational wave detectors. Since photonic platforms for quantum technologies often must be manufactured very precisely, Stefanie tackles these with research on nanometrological techniques beyond classical resolution limits. As principal investigator, Stefanie contributes with her research to the Cluster of Excellence "QuantumFrontiers.”

An interview with Stefanie can be found here. 

Mónica is a researcher at the Institute of Quantum Technologies of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Ulm. She will start her Emmy-Noether junior research group soon. Her main research topic focuses on the modeling of semiconductors and semiconductor-superconductor hybrid systems for scalable quantum computing and the design of device-optimized quantum operations. She has also studied more general aspects of driven and dissipative quantum systems and topological matter. Another research topic of interest is the quantum simulation of solid-state systems and their time evolution. 

Starting in 2009, Maria leads an independent research group at the Max-Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen. Since 2020 is also a professor at Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her research area is the generation and application of nonclassical light, from single photons and photon pairs to bright light with quantum behavior. To produce light with quantum properties, she uses nonlinear optical effects, in particular spontaneous parametric down-conversion and spontaneous four-wave mixing. She is also interested in nonlinear interferometry, where two such nonlinear processes occur in sequence, which leads to interesting applications in quantum sensing and metrology. In the last few years, research in Chekhova’s group has moved towards nanoscale quantum optics, where quantum states of light are generated from nearly two-dimensional structures: subwavelength layers and metasurfaces.

 

 

Hannah is a postdoctoral researcher in the Optical Cell Biology Lab at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) in Oeiras, Portugal. Coming from a biophotonics and high-end microscopy development background, Hannah is driven by an interest in biological phenomena that impact human health. At the IGC, she is part of an interdisciplinary team of Physicists, Mathematicians, and Biologists who strive to observe and decipher the mechanistic pathways of virus entry and their role in the infection outcome. To get new insights into these phenomena, she is developing and advancing super-resolution techniques toward live-cell microscopy to study host-pathogen interactions at a molecular level. What is especially important to her is to provide accessible, transferable, open-source technologies, for example, by open-hardware designs that can be 3D printed.

Stef is an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, and her research focuses on the intersection of artificial neural networks and quantum technologies, with a specific focus on neuromorphic implementations. Artificial neural networks have found various applications in the broad field of quantum physics over the last few years. Their power in enhancing quantum computation and quantum simulation experiments, as well as numerical simulation methods for quantum many-body systems, is frequently demonstrated. At the same time, neuromorphic hardware as a biologically-inspired computational architecture proposes efficient physical implementations of neural networks. Stef combines these two topics by exploring the power of small, energy-efficient neuromorphic devices in advancing experimental realizations and theoretical studies of quantum systems.

The photo was taken at the Applied Machine Learning Days (AMLD) 2022.

Diana is a Ph.D. student at the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie of Bonn University, and her research areas are Observational Cosmology and Galaxy Evolution.

She is currently working on the scientific preparation of the ESA’s space probe Euclid, in particular, on the development of techniques for weak lensing galaxy shape measurements to extract cosmological information.

In order to well control and correct the systematic errors due to instrumental distortions such as the image point-spread function (PSF), Diana is exploiting the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) archive as a training sample for weak lensing simulations. As an aside project, she is also carrying on a spectroscopic analysis of a rare class of galaxies - the ultra-compact massive galaxies (UCMG) - selected in the Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS).

Following her Master’s degree at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Carolina performs her Ph.D. studies on the low-temperature bulk and transport properties of correlated metals in the group Topology of Correlated Systems of Christian Pfleiderer at the TUM. Specifically, she is interested in the origin of high-mobility surface conduction channels in small-bandgap semiconductors and their possible topological character. Although such materials have a long history, the underlying mechanisms are not understood. When exploring temperature-driven metal-to-insulator transitions, the necessary measurements are extremely sensitive to tiny temperature drifts. For her studies, Carolina is therefore putting into operation a bespoke cryogen-free cooling system based on continuous adiabatic demagnetization refrigeration, providing the necessary temperature control as well as access to high magnetic fields and very low temperatures.

 

 

Sabine is a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Tübingen. The research activities of her group focus on quantum many-body effects such as superconductivity or quantum criticality. In particular, the development of new many-body techniques for their theoretical description represents a central aspect in the investigation of the fundamental mechanisms underlying the physical behavior of model systems for materials, cold atomic gases, and nanostructures.

 

Anne is a Ph.D. student in the Biophysical Chemistry Workgroup with Prof. Dr. Kubitscheck at the University of Bonn. The aim of her work is the large view of tiny structures at high resolution. She constructed an Airy beam Light-Sheet Fluorescence Microscope to investigate biological samples like mouse brains. There, she observes long neurons and resolves their small synaptical connections in one view. To further improve the resolution and contrast of the microscopy images, she designed a deep learning algorithm for image restoration. This combination of hardware and software allows them to better understand the structure of mouse brains through high-resolution images in a reasonable amount of time.

 

 

 

 

 

Anna is an experimental physicist working in condensed matter physics with a special interest in magnetism and magnetic materials. She studied physics in Kaiserslautern and is currently pursuing graduate studies in a bi-national Ph.D. program at the University of Lorraine and the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern.

Anna’s Ph.D. project focuses on exploiting half-metallic Heusler materials for spintronic and magnonic applications. She is interested in using them to design devices based on spin currents and spin waves instead of electrical charge currents. After growing epitaxial thin film samples, Anna uses techniques like vibrating sample magnetometry and ferromagnetic resonance spectroscopy for characterization. In the next step, she fabricates nanoscale magnonic devices and investigates them with Brillouin Light Scattering spectroscopy, a powerful optical technique for imaging spin waves. Her work is supervised by J-Prof. Philipp Pirro and Prof. Burkard Hillebrands in the magnetism group in Kaiserslautern, Germany, together with Assoc.-Prof. Sébastien Petit-Watelot and Prof. Stéphane Andrieu in the spintronics and nanomagnetism team in Nancy, France.

Anna received the Franco-German university award Grand Est in January 2022 for her master thesis work on “Thin-film materials with ultralow damping for novel magnonic phenomena.” The picture shows her in front of a vibrating sample magnetometer in one of the magnetism labs at Institut Jean Lamour.

Kathrin is a researcher at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt working in experimental nuclear physics. She studies exotic nuclei to help understand the interaction of protons and neutrons forming the matter in the Universe and does experiments at many laboratories around the world. Currently, she leads an ERC Consolidator grant project LISA "LIfetime measurements with Solid Active targets," which is a novel approach to studying the collective motion of atomic nuclei.

 

 

 

 

 

Viktorija is a postdoctoral researcher in the Chemistry Department and Center for NanoScience at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. In her research, she investigates processes and builds molecular devices on the nanoscale using two different yet very complementary techniques: DNA origami and single-molecule fluorescence imaging. DNA origami is similar to paper origami; however, it uses DNA as a building material that allows one to “fold” complex 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional structures on a scale several orders of magnitude smaller than paper origami. On the other hand, single-molecule fluorescence imaging allows the investigation of these structures and study of their dynamics and function with the ultimate sensitivity by observing each individual molecule. Combining these methods, she contributed to the development of light antennas on the nanoscale, which enabled the detection of single molecules on a smartphone camera [1,2] as well as self-healing strategies in DNA nanostructures [3,4]. Currently, she is working on combining these two methods to build modular and tunable nanosensors.

Caroline studied physics in Münster and specialized in photonics. Since last year she has been a research associate at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen. There, she is working on fiber optic sensing, mainly for structural health monitoring. By measuring the backscattered light inside the fiber, they can measure distributed strain and temperatures with a high resolution in large structures and single components. The advantage of using fiber sensors to be highlighted is the excellent miniaturization potential and resistance to external influences, making them installable in almost all environments. In the SmartVessel research project, for example, fiber optic sensors are integrated into hydrogen tanks made of fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) during the manufacturing process. The aim of this condition monitoring is to improve the predictive accuracy of the safety of pressurized hydrogen tanks during refueling and operation and to predict the remaining service life of the tanks. Based on intelligent monitoring of the tanks, maintenance can be planned condition-dependently instead of periodically, and the tanks' lifetime can be extended.

The photo shows Caroline during a laser fair in Munich early this year.

Martina received her Ph.D. and Habilitation for the University of Bonn in Experimental Physics and holds since 1998 a Chair of Physical Chemistry at the Ruhr University in Bochum.  She initiated 2012 the DFG funded Cluster of Excellence "Ruhr Explores Solvation" (RESOLV) and the Center of Molecular Spectroscopy and Simulation of Solvent Controlled Processes (ZEMOS) and is since then the director. She has developed new infrared (IR) and terahertz (THz) laser technologies to explore fundamental questions in chemistry. Her research area is solvation science which aims to provide a unifying framework for understanding and predicting solvent processes. She explores linear and nonlinear THz spectroscopic methods and THz calorimetry. Furthermore, she has a focus on microsolvation and ultracold chemistry.

Nina was a Ph.D. student at the University of Southern Denmark (she was enrolled as a student in Denmark until the end of February 2022), where she has worked for most of her Ph.D. in experimental quantum optics. In May last year, she moved with her project to the University of Bonn. Last week, she successfully defended her thesis and will receive her Ph.D. diploma soon.

The focus of her Ph.D. research has been the experimental manipulation of weak pulses of light on the quantum level. This is realized experimentally with ultracold atoms, which are excited to Rydberg states. Rydberg states are highly excited atomic states with very interesting properties. One of these properties is that these atomic states are very sensitive to other high excitations. This sensitivity gives rise to strong interactions between Rydberg excitations, and they can translate these excitations back to the single light quanta. 

In her project, she has mainly worked with single Rydberg excitations, but in a setting where the single Rydberg excitation is shared between many atoms. The shared excitation gives rise to an enhancement of atom-light coupling, and she uses this to create what they call Rydberg superatoms, which are many atoms acting together as single two-level systems.

You can read more about her research here.

Annika is a postdoctoral researcher at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena in the field of X-ray optics. She and her colleagues are developing highly sensitive polarimeters for X-ray radiation. Their goal is to experimentally demonstrate the scattering of light by light via a change in polarization at the European XFEL. This phenomenon was already predicted in the early days of quantum electrodynamics. In her doctoral thesis, she used the high sensitivity of our X-ray polarimeters to spectroscopically investigate materials for polarization changes that allow conclusions to be drawn about their electronic and magnetic structure. For their research, they regularly perform experiments at synchrotron radiation sources such as PETRA III in Hamburg, the ESRF in Grenoble, and the European XFEL.

Lena is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Future Fuels at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). She studied Physics at the University of Cologne and specialized in experimental solid-state physics. During her Ph.D., she focuses on investigating the correlation between structure and redox performance of perovskites. These perovskites are applied in thermochemical cycles whose energy demand can be covered entirely by solar radiation. Thus, thermochemical cycles enable more sustainable production of important gases such as hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. The redox behavior, namely the kinetic and thermodynamic material properties, determines the required conditions, such as the temperature, and thus the applicability of such cycles. She is inspired by the combination of a fundamental understanding of a material's properties and the sustainable applicability of that material.

 

 

Cecilia is a Master’s student in Physics, enrolled in a Double Degree Program between the Universities of Trento (Italy), and Tübingen. She has a strong interest in the theoretical and computational physics of soft and biological matter. 

She is currently working on her Master’s thesis project as a Guest Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen, Department of Protein Evolution, under joint supervision of Professors A. N. Lupas, M. Oettel, R. Potestio and their research groups. There, she is investigating through computational simulations the role of a protein in the export of capsular polysaccharides, which are molecules forming the bacterial capsule, a polysaccharide protective layer located outside the cell envelope. 

The relevance of this research area stems from the fact that the elucidation of the capsular polysaccharides export mechanism might lead to a better understanding of the process of building bacterial capsules, which are the chief causative agents of the virulence of bacteria.

Lisa is a Ph.D. student at the Max-Planck Institute for Physics and the Technical University of Munich in the field of experimental Astroparticle Physics. Her research project focuses on neutrinos. Even though neutrinos are the most abundant matter particles in our universe, their mass is still unknown. The KArlsruhe TRitium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment is designed to tackle this challenge by observing the radioactive beta decay of Tritium. The tiny mass of the neutrino leaves a minuscule imprint in the energy spectrum of the electron that is emitted alongside the neutrino. In her Ph.D. project, Lisa contributes to the statistical analysis of KATRIN data. For instance, she estimates the influence of systematic effects on the experimental spectrum through extensive Monte Carlo simulations. Exploring KATRINs full physics potential, Lisa is also involved in the search for sterile neutrinos, a hypothetical new kind of neutrino that does not participate in the weak interaction.

Hendrike is a postdoctoral researcher in the experimental physics group Femtosecond spectroscopy and Ultrafast Laser Control at the University of Kassel. She studies electronic coherences and their control in atoms and molecules using shaped femtosecond laser pulses. She leads the project "Coherent control of circular dichroism in ion yield after excitation of chiral molecules with tailored femtosecond laser pulses" within the CRC 1319 ELCH (Sonderforschungsbereich), in which the possibility to enhance chiral signatures by interaction with bespoke laser pulses is explored. 

Joanna works in the area of theoretical astrophysics, and her projects are focused on unveiling the origins of Earth and other planets. She uses numerical models to understand processes taking place in disks surrounding young stars, where tiny dust grains stick together and form the building blocks of planets. She is currently a postdoc at LMU Munich, but she will start her own research group this year thanks to the recently won ERC Starting Grant.

 The photo shows her in the University Observatory of the LMU Munich.

Astrid is a quantum physicist with special interest in quantum optics, quantum fluctuations, and fluctuation-induced forces. Her research focuses on the Casimir-Effect, which manifests itself as an attractive force between two parallel and uncharged plates in vacuum, and which may have applications in micro-electro-mechanic systems used in smart devices, airbags, or printers. Understanding the role of the Casimir-Effect in physics-inspired questions in other fields, such as biology and chemistry, is her special interest.

Astrid joined the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich in 2021 [Pressreport] and currently holds a professorship at RWTH Aachen University. At Forschungszentrum Jülich, she oversees the Scientific Division I, which focuses on physics and information technology-related research.

Laila is a postdoctoral researcher at the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie of Bonn University. Her research focuses on gravitational lensing. This effect describes how matter distorts light rays and, thereby, the images of distant galaxies. By measuring this distortion, we can map the distribution of dark matter in the Universe. Laila studies how we can use the observed statistical properties of the matter distribution to infer how the Universe expands and how matter clumps together. These insights can shed light on the nature of the mysterious dark matter and dark energy in the upcoming surveys by the Euclid Space Telescope and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Aside from her research, Laila shares her love of science with the public. She co-founded the event series Astronomy On Tap Bonn, bringing astronomical research to the pub(lic). She is also an author for astrobites.org, where she summarizes recent research papers for undergraduate students.

Michaela is an accelerator scientist at TU Darmstadt, working as head of the superconducting, 130-MeV electron accelerator S-DALINAC at the institute for nuclear physics. Her research focuses on the technology for energy recovery for particle accelerators which is essential for future large-scale particle colliders. An energy-recovery linear accelerator (ERL) can decelerate a previously accelerated beam downstream of the interaction point and recover nearly all of the energy needed for previous acceleration. This technique can increase the intensities significantly while maintaining feasible power costs and ecologically responsible energy consumption. Michaela and her team managed to operate the S-DALINAC as the first ERL in Germany in 2017. Recently, they achieved the first successful twice-recirculating ERL operation with measured energy recovery of 80%. It is the first time that such an energy-recovery effect could be demonstrated at beam currents exceeding the microampere level in superconducting multi-turn accelerators.
Michaela was awarded the DPG Young Scientist Award for Accelerator Physics in 2021 for her work in the field of ERLs. She is the principal investigator of various research projects on ERLs, e.g., funded by the DFG (Research Training Group GRK 2128) or by the State of Hesse (Research Cluster ELEMENTS). The photo shows her in the accelerator hall of S-DALINAC, checking the resistance of magnet coils.

Vanessa is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Physics of Molecular Imaging Systems (PMI), led by Prof. Dr. Volkmar Schulz, which is part of the Institute of Experimental Molecular Imaging at RWTH Aachen University and University Hospital Aachen. She studies novel solid-state photon-detector concepts for positron emission tomography (PET). PET is a nuclear imaging method that plays a key role in diagnosing and treating cancer and emerging methods for the early detection of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's. It is based on detecting two collinear 511 keV gamma photons with heavy inorganic scintillators coupled to photo-sensors, which are read out by dedicated microelectronics. Vanessa works on all three components along the detection chain to substantially improve PET systems' timing resolution. This is essential for a high signal-to-noise ratio in the recorded data and thus can considerably improve PET images and reduce scan time for patients. Vanessa's primary focus is to develop system-applicable detector blocks with sub-100 ps resolution, working closely with Dr. Stefan Gundacker and having shown that such precision is physically possible on dedicated benchtop systems. At the same time, Vanessa investigates methods to gather information about the exact location of gamma conversion in the commonly large scintillators, which can be used for boosting the time resolution even further. She is currently developing novel concepts combining timing and spatial information to integrate these solutions in large-scale, clinical positron emission tomographs.

After studying Physics at the Technical University in Berlin, Antonia moved to Freiburg, where she is working as a Ph.D. student at the Medical Physics department of the Universitätsklinikum Freiburg. Her research focus is pulse sequence development for ultra-fast functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, which investigates the activity of the human brain during various tasks or in rest. Functional MRI is based on the changes in oxygen consumption and regional cerebral blood flow after activation-this results in local changes in deoxyhemoglobin concentration and is detectable with MRI. In particular, Antonia is helping with the development of MR-Encephalography, which allows 3D whole-brain imaging at a temporal resolution of 100 ms. Compared with conventional fMRI pulse sequences, the increased sampling rate has recently led to the distinct identification of cardiovascular, respiratory, and vasomotor pulsation mechanisms of the human glymphatic system, showing potential for neurodegenerative disease research. Further benefits include the direct filtering of high-frequency physiological noise and a more precise analysis of the onset and shape of the hemodynamic response function.

Dana is a materials scientist at the Otto-von-Guericke-University in Magdeburg who uses numerical and analytical methods to study microstructure-property relationships in various materials from nanocrystalline gold to molluscan shells based on experimental measurements. Her research focuses mainly on changes of microstructural defects such as crystalline interfaces, i.e., grain boundaries due to deformation and thermal annealing processes, improving our understanding of materials, and laying a foundation for the development of new materials.
As of September 2020, Dana is a coordinator of the Graduate Academy of the Otto-von-Guericke-University, where she focuses on promoting young postdoctoral fellows on their career paths.

Dana Zöllner is also an Otto Mønsted guest professor at the Danish Technical University in Lyngby.

Antje is a theoretical physicist working in neuroscience at the Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience at the University of Münster. She studies the phenomenon of consciousness using EEG and fMRI experiments. Therefore, she looks for brain signals that differ in conscious awareness or nonawareness of a stimulus (e.g., a sound, somatosensory stimulation, or a visual trigger). She uses multivariate methods from the field of artificial intelligence to analyze her data and find spatiotemporal patterns of consciousness processes in the brain.

 

Helena is a Ph.D. student in the group Bio-physical interaction at the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research, Warnemünde. She studied Marine Sciences during her master’s degree at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, focusing on physical oceanography and data science. Her thesis focuses on the long-term variability of water mass properties and currents in the Northeast Subtropical Atlantic, focusing on the Azores region. Recently, she had the opportunity to participate in three research expeditions, two of them in the Northeast Atlantic on the former German RV Poseidon and one with the RV SONNE in the South China Sea, within the framework of the Sino-German MEGAPOL (Megacity’s fingerprint in Chinese marginal seas: Investigation of pollutant fingerprints and dispersal) project. Due to her multidisciplinary background, she is interested in linking the observed changes in physical ocean properties with changes in marine biogeochemical cycles.

Pushparani is a Microfluidic Scientist who works at the Center for Molecular Fingerprinting at the Ludwig Maximillian Universität and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching/Munich. There, she develops devices to diagnose disease conditions for various types of cancer using Ultra-fast Infra-Red spectroscopy studies in the range of attosecond. Microfluidics is a versatile and robust tool that requires only a few microliters of patients’ biosamples without compromising data accuracy and precision. Pushparani is interested in developing point-of-care diagnostic tools for personalized medicine and preventive medicine, drug discovery, and drug delivery. She aims to contribute to powerful yet affordable tools against lethal diseases like cancer.

Susanne is a Max Planck Research Group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich and Assistant Professor at the Technical University Munich. Susanne's field of research is Astroparticle Physics. The neutrino is the most abundant known matter particle in the universe. Yet, some of its fundamental properties are still unknown. What is the mass of the neutrino? Is it its own antiparticle? Are there more neutrino types? The answer to these questions will help to understand our universe and its smallest constituents better. Therefore, Susanne and her team are working on laboratory-based experiments to discover these neutrino properties. In the photograph, you can see her on the large air coil system of the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment.