Hans-Joachim Freund as laudator for the FCI Literature Prize at the Bunsen Meeting, June 2023 · photo courtesy Eva E. Wille
🎁HBT to Hans-Joachim Freund, who turns 75 today.
Hajo Freund is not only an exceptional scientist; he also served the community in many ways—for example, as a textbook author and journal editor. He has been a great mentor whose “academic footprint” is enormous.
Directory of Names
4,000+ Directory of Key Modern Chemists
🕮The complete directory of names for the first 15 autobiographies in the series “Lives in Chemistry” is now available for free use. This provides immediate and convenient access to 4,234 pages and 3,095 illustrations.
l-i-c.org/licdir.html
Carsten Reinhardt at the Freiburg LiC meeting, Oct. 2023 · photo by Mark Kantor, rca-separations.com
🎁HBT Carsten Reinhardt, who turns 60 today.
His oeuvre in the history of science is vast and wide-ranging, with a focus on the history of chemistry. He has served several times as chair of the GDCh’s History of Chemistry Division, and he has been chair of the LiC Advisory Board from the beginning.
D. H. R. Barton (left) and Ryoji Noyori in Seoul in 1984 · photo courtesy R. Noyori
W. Oppolzer and K. B. Sharpless at the Hoechst Conference at the Reisensburg Castle in 1983.
Throughout his live in chemistry, Ryoji Noyori met many illustrious #chemists from all over the world. Have a look at the richly illustrated—136 photos on 159 pages—“Long, Memorable #Journey with the #International Community” that supplements his autobiography.
Download: doi.org/10.47261/156...
Wolfgang Beck · courtesy of GNT/W. Beck
🌻Sad news: Wolfgang M. Beck, Professor Emeritus at LMU Munich, passed away on January 19. He was born on May 5, 1932, in Munich and stayed there almost all his long life.
A towering figure in the inorganic chemistry community and a most friendly “Mensch” is dearly missed.
www.gnt-verlag.de/1141
Ralf Ludwig at a lecture in November 2019 · photo by Peter Goelitz
🎁HBT Ralf Ludwig, who turns 65 today. He holds the Chair of General Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Rostock and heads the #VibrationalSpectroscopy in #Catalysis group at the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis (LIKAT), also in Rostock.
www.linkedin.com/posts/livesi...
Mike Mąkosza at the Freiburg LiC meeting, Oct. 2023 · photo by Mark Kantor, rca-separations.com
🌻Rest in peace, Mieczysław (Mike) Mąkosza. This hero of organic chemistry passed away at the age of 91 on January 14.
www.linkedin.com/posts/livesi...
“Treppauf, Treppab” (“Upstairs, Downstairs”): the picture shows the stairways of the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, decorated with the LiC books shining light while we all walk up and down, and up and down and up again during our lives … · photo by Eva E. Wille
Season’s Greetings! Wishing you good health and fresh energy for 2026—for all the ups and downs on your stairs.
Upstairs, downstairs—guided by LiC #autobiographies—may you create your own personal chemical path.
More to come before the end of 2026.
#AcademicPublishing #ScienceCommunication
Armin de Meijere portrait drawing 2018, by Jesús Alcarazo Velasco
Here is another portrait drawing of Armin de Meijere, created in 2018 by the Andalusian artist Jesús Alcarazo Velasco www.pintorjesusalcarazo.com
Armin de Meijere
🌻A great loss: Armin de Meijere passed away at age 86 on December 17 in Göttingen. His distinguished career spanned both the golden age of physical organic chemistry & the rise of transition-metal catalysis. 250 PhD students & postdocs have lost an exceptional mentor—and chemistry has lost a giant.
Henning Hopf at the presentation of the Primo Levi Award by GDCh President Stefanie Dehnen at the Chemiedozententagung in March 2024 in Aachen · photo by Eva E. Wille
🎁HBT Henning Hopf, who turns 85 today. He is an eminent hydrocarbon chemist who made major contributions to alkenes and alkines, allenes and cumulenes, as well as cyclophanes and dendralenes, and he wrote “Classics in Hydrocarbon Synthesis”, published 25 years ago by Wiley-VCH.
#OrganicChemistry
Fig. 0.2 from Stephen Kent’s autobiography, taken in July 2019 · courtesy of himself
Stephen Kent during his talk at the “25 Years of ChemBioChem and ChemPhysChem” symposium, Berlin, October 2025 · photo by Eva E. Wille
Stephen Kent presenting his autobiography at the end of his talk at the “25 Years of ChemBioChem and ChemPhysChem” symposium, Berlin, October 2025 · photo by Peter Goelitz
Stephen Kent (right), signing his autobiography for Mario Müller (Wiley) at the “25 Years of ChemBioChem and ChemPhysChem” symposium, Berlin, October 2025 · photo by Peter Goelitz
🎁HBT Stephen B. H. Kent, who turns 80 today. Distance running was his passion and he also went for long distances, or rather long sequences, when it came to the synthesis of peptides and proteins, a field that his group has revolutionized through the development of “chemical ligation” methods.
A puzzle advent calendar curated by the publisher together with an art gallery starting today, all about science and art—with a big dose of chemistry hidden inside!
Peter Schreiner, Nov. 1021 · photo by Ralf Hahn
🎁Happy 60th birthday, Peter Schreiner! With the spectacular synthesis of “impossible” #hexanitrogen (doi.org/10.1038/s415...) he basically gave himself the perfect present. #OrganicChemistry #MatrixIsolation #Organocatalysis #ComputationalChemistry
Paul Knochel · ©Société Chimique de France
🎁HBT Paul Knochel (LMU Munich), who turns 70 today—unbelievable knowing his charming boyish appeal. Developing new synthetic methods, in particular based on organometallic compounds, and applying them in the #TotalSynthesis of natural products has become a hallmark of the Knochel group.
Poster: Women in Chemistry—Empowering Passionate Scientists Colloquium, October 30, 2025 at Bielefeld University. Speakers: Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus, Carsten Reinhardt, Georgina Herrera, Eva E. Wille.
📅🧪Today on 30 October 2025, 4 p.m. @unibielefeld:
#WomenInChemistry—Empowering Passionate Scientists Colloquium
An event dedicated to honoring the achievements, challenges, and aspirations of women in chemistry, with l-i-c.org/1137 K. Kohse-Hoeinghaus
Event info: www.uni-bielefeld.de/fakultaeten/...
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025
Susumu Kitagawa (Japan), Richard Robson (Australia) and Omar M. Yaghi (USA) have been awarded for the development of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)
Congratulations!!
www.chemistryviews.org/nobel-prize-...
🕮At the OMCOS XXII Conference in Kyoto #OMCOSXXII #OMCOS22, on Monday just two days before his 87th birthday today, #NobelLaureate Ryoji Noyori received a Certificate to honor him for writing his scientific autobiography l-i-c.org/1135 “Research Should be Fresh, Simple, and Clear”.
🎁Albert Eschenmoser would have turned 100 today. He passed away on July 14, 2023, after a long and successful journey through the wonderlands of organic chemistry—that he described in his characteristic style in the recently published autobiography l-i-c.org/1136
Jean-Marie Lehn at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 2025 · photo by Peter Gölitz
Jean-Marie Lehn on a poster for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 2025 · photo by Eva E. Wille
🏆On July 31, the birthday of Primo Levi, it was announced that Jean-Marie Lehn will receive the Primo Levi Award. Presented by the German Chemical Society GDCh, the Italian SCI, and the International Center for Primo Levi Studies in Torino, this award will be conferred to Lehn on December 3 in Rome.
Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus speaking at a DFG networking event for Heisenberg Fellows, 2013 · courtesy of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
🏆🧪📅With a ceremonial farewell on July 11th, 2025, Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus is being honored at Bielefeld University—where she has been a full professor of Physical Chemistry since 1994.
blogs.uni-bielefeld.de/blog/chemie/...
#womeninchemistry #womeninscience #WomenInSTEM
Ferdi Schüth, elected as second vice president of the GDNÄ 2024 · photo by Robert Eickelpoth/MPI für Kohlenforschung
Ferdi Schüth turned 65 yesterday—congratulations. He is famous for his work on #heterogeneous #catalysis. He was a pioneer in the high-throughput design and synthesis of catalysts and porous materials, not the least those useful for energy conversion.
Harald Günther · ©2023 Universität Siegen
🎁Harald Günther turns 90 today—happy birthday! Generations of students used his textbook “NMR Spectroscopy—Basic Principles, Concepts and Applications in Chemistry”. An early PhD student of Günther was Klaus Müllen whose autobiography l-i-c.org/1139 will appear in August in the LiC series.
From left: Luis Oro (EuChemS president 2007–2011), Pilar Goya (2018–2022), and David Cole-Hamilton (2015–2019) at the Chemistry Europe Fellows Reception 2018 during the 7th EuChemS Chemical Congress in Liverpool.
🎁Luis Oro turns 80 today. He is a hero in coordination and organometallic chemistry as well as in homogeneous catalysis research. He dealt with mechanistic foundations of the fields as well as with applications in organic synthesis, green chemistry, and CO₂ fixation.
The “Lives in Chemistry” book series
🕮The joy of reading is at the heart of the #WorldBookDay celebrated today. The Lives in Chemistry l-i-c.org autobiographies make excellent reading not the least because the series has been awarded a Gold Medal for outstanding book design l-i-c.org/awards.
Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus 2023 · photo by Eva E. Wille
The Chinese Chemical Society has elected eleven new Honorary Fellows www.chinesechemsoc.org/do/10.5555/0... among them Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus whose autobiography “Burning for Science—A Woman in a Technical Field” l-i-c.org/1137 was recently published in the series “Lives in Chemistry” l-i-c.org.
Commemorative symposium for Franz Effenberger, April 4, 2025, in Stuttgart. From top left: Dieter Jahn, Peter Menzel, Wolfgang A. Herrmann, and the LiC book table.
🌻In memory of Franz Effenberger l-i-c.org/1130 who would have turned 95 today a symposium was held at the University of Stuttgart uni-stuttgart.de/en/ that he was affiliated with in manifold for more than 70 years.
www.f03.uni-stuttgart.de/fakultaet/ge...
The LiC girls, top row from left: little Sigrid Peyerimhoff (The University of Bonn, Mulliken Center, l-i-c.org/1138) with her brother; next to Ahmed Zewail and John A. Pople at the XI. International Congress on Quantum Chemistry. Bottom row from left: little Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus (Bielefeld University, l-i-c.org/1137) on the far right with school friends, 1961; many years later with Gisela Lück.
👩🔬📚 Today is #GirlsDay 2025! We were all little girls—and a lot of boys—before diving into the world of molecules. Find out how it all began for Katharina and Sigrid l-i-c.org
#GirlsDay2025 #womeninchemistry #womeninscience #womeninstem #histsci
Bunsen-Tagung 2025 winners of the Poster Prizes · photo by Eva E. Wille
Bunsen-Tagung 2025: the Agnes Pockels PhD Award went to Marius Gerlach · photo by Eva E. Wille
Bunsen-Tagung 2025: THANK YOU! · photo by Eva E. Wille
Burny the yPC (young physical chemists) mascot at the Bunsen-Tagung 2025 · photo by Eva E. Wille
👋Farewell news from the Bunsen-Tagung 2025 “Physical Chemistry of the Climate and the Atmosphere” in Leipzig.
The sun was shining—“the atmosphere was with us”! The conference was booming with nearly 400 attendees—huge thanks to all organizers!
Stefanie Dehnen, President of the German Chemical Society, presents the Carl Duisberg Badge to Karl Reuter (rca-separations.com) at the Chemiedozententagung in Braunschweig, March 2025 · photo bei Peter Goelitz
Stefanie Dehnen, President of the German Chemical Society, and Karl Reuter (rca-separations.com) at the presentation of the Carl Duisberg Badge at the Chemiedozententagung in Braunschweig, March 2025 · photo bei Peter Goelitz
The Carl Duisberg Badge was awarded today at the Chemiedozententagung in Braunschweig to Karl Reuter. Stefanie Dehnen, President of the German Chemical Society (GDCh), highlighted that this award honors individuals who have rendered outstanding service to chemistry and the GDCh.
