Alfried Krupp Sponsorship Award for Prof. Benedikt Wirth
Great success for Prof. Benedikt Wirth: the Münster University mathematician is the recipient of the 2014 Alfried Krupp Sponsorship Award for young university teachers. Of the 55 candidates nominated for the award by universities and research institutions from all over Germany, Benedikt Wirth was the youngest. The Board of Trustees of the "Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation" decided unanimously to award the prize, worth one million euros, to the junior academic Wirth, the Foundation announced.
"I'm absolutely delighted at the award – and I'm quite proud, too," says Wirth. "It gives me the opportunity to set up a research group of my own and devote myself to new research questions. But what is also important is the responsibility that goes with it, which means, for my part, providing support for junior academics."
Benedikt Wirth has been teaching and carrying out research at Münster University's Institute of Numerical and Applied Mathematics since October 2013. He is concerned with the mathematical analysis of forms in the life sciences and engineering – a field in which scientific interest is constantly growing. For example, the form of an organ or a plant can reveal something about abnormalities or its state of health. The form of a mechanical component determines its stability, and robots can recognize objects on the basis of the form. Mathematical models and methods have to be developed as the basis for such applications. One typical question, for example, is whether and how an average can be produced from several forms, e.g. an average form of human anatomy. Other tasks exist in quantifying changes to forms or in determining the optimum form of an engineering structure.
In his work, Benedikt Wirth uses tools from a variety of mathematical fields – from the theory of mathematical structures to the practical implementation and calculation of solutions at the computer. One important instrument is so-called variational calculus, which deals with the theory of optimization problems.
The practical relevance of the analysis of forms is beyond dispute, says the Foundation. However, before any of the methods developed in this field can be routinely applied, a lot of research will have to be done, and Wirth and his working group can make important contributions to this.
Information on Benedikt Wirth:
Benedikt Wirth was born in 1982 in Kiel and grew up both there and in the Lower Rhine region. He began studying Mathematics and Computer Science in 2001 at Hagen Open University, during his military service. At the same time he enrolled at Aachen Technical University in 2002 to study Mechanical Engineering, taking his degree in 2007. During his studies Wirth spent time in England, where he studied Applied Mathematics at Oxford University in 2004/2005, receiving his MSc there. The last stage of his academic studies took him to Bonn University where, after a three-year doctoral degree course, he received his PhD in Natural Sciences at the Institute of Numerical Simulation. After undertaking research and teaching in Bonn, Graz and at the prestigious Courant Institute at New York University, Wirth was made a professor at the University of Münster in 2013.
During his studies Benedikt Wirth also received various prizes and awards, including from the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes), as well as scholarships at the Universities of Oxford and Bonn. For his doctoral thesis he received the Bonn University Society's Doctoral Award as well as the Hausdorff Memorial Prize from Bonn's Department of Mathematics.
Alfried Krupp Sponsorship Award for young university teachers
The Alfried Krupp Sponsorship Award has been advertised every year since 1986 for junior academics who hold a first professorship at a German university in the fields of Natural Sciences and Engineering. The award is one of the most valuable for junior academics and has so far been presented to 33 outstanding junior academics, including Prof. Frank Glorius and Prof. Gerhard Erker at Münster University (both in the field of Chemistry). The award, worth one million euros, is designed – for a period of five years – to give recipients independence from public funding and enable them to create a better working environment for themselves and advance their work in research and teaching.