Outstanding Achievement Award 2022

During the EXRS2022 conference dinner on June 30^th, 2022, the outgoing EXSA President Michael Kolbe presented the Outstanding Achievement Award to Professor Birgit Kanngießer from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. 
In the established two-stage selection process, Professor Birgit Kanngießer prevailed over her competitors for the award. The nomination committee consisting of five scientists from the X-ray spectrometry community nominated her, among other things, for her pioneering works in the field of quantitative confocal µ-XRF analysis and for transferring synchrotron radiation-based instrumentation into the laboratory, employed in both high spatial resolution and high energy resolution X-ray spectroscopy, i.e., X-ray microscopy, XAFS and XES based upon crystal spectrometers.

The decision committee consisting of five other scientists active in adjacent fields from industry and academia, who had to choose between three top-class finalists, pronounced themselves in favour of Professor Birgit Kanngießer by a large consensus. In their statement the jury wrote: "Prof. Birgit Kanngießer has devoted a great deal of her career to methods and instrumentation which bring the sophisticated techniques of synchrotron radiation to measurements that can be carried out by conventional x-ray sources in the laboratory. Her expertise has extended to every area of x-ray applications: x-ray focusing, x-ray imaging, spatial XRF with confocal sources and detection, specialized spectrometers, and optimal use of CCD x-ray detectors. In all cases, her purpose is to obtain signals that are adequate for applications where the use of a synchrotron light source was not an option. Prof. Kanngießer has succeeded in demonstrating these techniques in the lab. While some have not yet become widely employed, her group continues to publish results on the instrumentation that should attract both imitation and commercial interest."

In his laudation, the EXSA President highlighted the fact that the prize was awarded to a female winner for the first time. Moreover, he also pointed out that this outcome is only a first step to reflecting better the diversity and richness of our XRS community, in which there are a number of scientifically influential and outstanding women.

Photos © Ermanno Avranovich Clerici - PhD student at University of Antwerp

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 3^rd, 2022 a 11:00 am.