Prof. Dr Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus

“As the name suggests, key technologies open doors to the future. In this field, the Helmholtz Association provides the interdisciplinary know-how, instruments and methods required to successfully solve the grand challenges of our future. Important elements in this concept include collaborating with scientists in other research fields and training young people to work on transdisciplinary issues.”

Professor Dr Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus is senator of the Helmholtz Association for the Research Field "Key Technologies" and has been university professor for physical chemistry at Bielefeld University since 1994.

She studied chemistry at the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum where she attained her doctorate in 1978. After terms at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in the Helmholtz Association and at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, as well as with the Molecular Physics Laboratory at SRI International, USA, she obtained her habilitation in 1992. In the following year she was granted a Heisenberg Fellowship and the annual "Baetjer Lectures" of the School of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Science of Princeton University, also completing research stays at ONERA in Paris.

From 2001 to 2003 she was vice-rector for research and young scientists at Bielefeld University. In 2007 she received the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany from Federal President Horst Köhler honouring her commitment to the "teutolab" project and, in 2008 she was awarded an Honorary Guest Professorship of the University of Science and Technology of China.

Professor Kohse-Höinghaus holds positions in various science organisations – for example, she is President-Elect of the International Combustion Institute and a member of the senate and of the Joint Committee of the German Research Foundation (DFG). She is also a member of the University Council of Bielefeld University and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina – National Academy of Sciences (since May 2008).