The 2022 Anselme Payen Award goes to Professor Christoph Weder from the Adolphe Merkle Institute (AMI) at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He is the Chair of Polymer Chemistry and Materials and also serves as the Director of the institute. Professor Weder received his first degrees from ETH Zürich, where he studied chemistry and in 1994 earned a doctorate degree in polymer science under the guidance of Professor Ueli Suter. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Professor Mark Wrighton and another five-year appointment at ETH, where he completed his habilitation, Professor Weder joined the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, where he eventually became the F. Alex Nason Professorship of Engineering. In 2009, Professor Weder joined the University of Fribourg to assume his current position.
Professor Weder is known as an imaginative scientist whose research is situated at the interface of chemistry and materials science and engineering. His main research interests are the design, synthesis and investigation of novel functional poly¬mers, in particular stimuli-responsive polymers, bio-inspired materials, supramolecular systems, and polymer nano¬¬composites. Cellulose nanocrystals constitute one of the most important building blocks that his group uses to create such materials. Professor Weder is the co-author of more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles and 18 book chapters. He has mentored over hundred graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. More than 20 patents, several commercialized technologies, and continuous collaborations with industry document his interest to translate research findings into new technologies.
Professor Weder serves as an associate editor of ACS Macro Letters and is an advisory board member of numerous journals and scientific centers. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including an ERC Advanced Grant, a National Science Foundation Special Creativity Award, the DuPont Young Professor and DuPont Aid to Education Awards, and the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. He held numerous named lectureships in academia and industry, is a member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Chemical Society’s Division of Polymer Chemistry.
Congratulations to Professor Weder!
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