Michael Saliba wins Young Scientist of the Year 2016 (DHV)
Michael Saliba ©EPFL
Michael Saliba, a scientist at the Grätzel lab, has won the Young Scientist Award of the Year 2016 award from the German University Association.
Academics is a major online career portal for science and research in Germany. Each year since 2007, it runs a Young Scientist of the Year competition to honor a researcher “who has influenced science and research in a lasting way through outstanding commitment, forward-looking ideas or exemplary action.” The award is given by the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (Deutscher Hochschulverband).
This year, the award has been given to Michael Saliba, a Marie Curie Fellow at Michael Grätzel’s lab at EPFL. Saliba works on the development of perovskites for solar cells, and its combination with the silicon used mainly in solar cell manufacturing as part of his Marie Curie Fellowship. His research, published in numerous prestigious journals, among them Science and the Nature family, has helped improve the production and cost-effciency of solar energy. He received his graduate degree in physics from the University of Stuttgart and his doctorate from the University of Oxford.
The competition, which ran for the tenth consecutive year, was open to researchers under the age of 35 from all fields and nationalities. Saliba is the first scientist from a Swiss institution to win the award.
The academics award includes 5,000 euros, and will be given at a ceremony on 4 April 2017 within the framework of the “Gala der Wissenschaft” of the German Universities’ Association in Munich.