The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has announced the 2015 Award for International Scientific Cooperation of CAS. Three foreign experts have been named for this prestigious award, including Prof. Dr. Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus who was recommended by USTC. The award is presented annually to designate foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to the international scientific cooperation of CAS. Prof. Dr. Kohse-Höinghaus becomes the first female awardee since the award was established in 2007, and is also the first USTC nominee winner.
Prof. Dr. Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus
Prof. HOU Jianguo, former President of USTC, had a meeting with Prof. Dr. Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus in 2012
Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus is a professor at Bielefeld University, Germany, and a guest professor of USTC, a member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the National Academy of Science and Engineering Acatech, the president of the Combustion Institute, and a member of the German Council of Science and Humanities. She was awarded "Distinguished Woman in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering" by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by German President Horst K?hler. She is a renowned expert in combustion diagnostics, a pioneer of novel experimental techniques of low temperature combustion, and a leading scientist in biofuels combustion. She was one of the five plenary lecturers for the 30th International Symposium on Combustion & the 50th Anniversary of the Combustion Institute (2004).
Since 2003, Prof. Dr. Kohse-Höinghaus has collaborated with scientists from National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and State Key Laboratory of Fire Sciences at USTC. In particular, she collaborated with Prof. QI Fei to develop synchrotron-based diagnostic method of biomass pyrolysis, detect enol intermediates and measure chemical structures of bio-alcohols combustion using novel synchrotron-based combustion diagnostic techniques. She has played a key role in recommending outstanding scientists from CAS to hold important positions in international combustion organizations, which consequently has significantly improved the academic impact of CAS in international combustion research. She is also noted for the series of frontier lectures and courses that were provided to young researchers. Through her education and recommendation, three young scientists from China have been awarded the Bernard Lewis Fellowship, which is the highest young scientist award of the Combustion Institute. Remarkably all of the three winners are from USTC. She also energetically impelled the development of China’s fundamental combustion research. As a result, the number of China’s annual publications in the two top combustion journals, Combustion and Flame and Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, has notched the second highest among all countries, of which USTC alone contributes about 1/4. It therefore comes as no surprise that the Center for International Research on Large-scale Fires of USTC has been approved by the China Ministry of Science and Technology as one of the National Centers for International Research.
In 2012, she was invited to attend the roundtable discussion with General Secretary XI Jinping held at the Great Hall of the People, Beijing. During the discussions she offered suggestions on making China an innovation-oriented country, which were highly appreciated by the General Secretary. In 2014, at the invitation of the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, she again put forward many suggestions on China’s environmental protection and international development.
The collaboration between Prof. Dr. Kohse-Höinghaus and USTC was financially supported by Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Science and Technology, State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, Chinese Scholar Council, and Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Certificate of award for Prof. Dr. Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus, issued by Prof. BAI Chunli, President of CAS
(National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, State Key Laboratory of Fire Sciences, Office of International Cooperation)