The award winners receive 200,000 euro of prize money each to fund up to three years of further research work. A flat 22% program allowance is additionally granted for indirect project expenditure. One hundred eighty researchers from all disciplines were nominated for the award.
Particle physics holds several unsolved mysteries: Why do neutrinos have such extremely tiny mass? Why is there so much more matter in the universe than antimatter? Assistant Professor Dr. Lena Funcke of the University of Bonn conducts broad research into these and other questions that involve theoretical physics, computer science and mathematics, developing computing methods for exploring quantum field theories. The physicist’s work includes using machine learning to develop algorithms for quantum and “classical” computing and new models that go beyond the Standard Models of particle physics. The aim behind these efforts is to enable predictions regarding future experiments that will afford key insights into elementary processes of nature. Professor Funcke’s pioneering work has already opened doors for further research, such as by developing a model to explain the tiny mass of neutrinos.
University of Bonn Rector Michael Hoch commented: “I would like to express our warmest congratulations to Lena Funcke for earning this prestigious award. Her groundbreaking research at the nexus of theoretical physics, mathematics and computer science is of major importance in efforts to development models going beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, and represents a contribution toward the scientific community gaining a new understanding of fundamental processes of the universe. I am extremely pleased that the research work of this outstanding scientist is now being honored through awarding of the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize.”
Professor Funcke’s career before and at the University of Bonn
After studying physics at the University of Münster and the University of Cambridge (UK), Lena Funcke completed her doctorate at age 23 at the Max Planck Institute for Physics and LMU Munich. She spent the next four years as a postdoc at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, USA, publishing numerous papers in scientific journals. In the fall of 2022 Funcke was appointed Clausius Assistant Professor at the University of Bonn Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) “Matter”. The TRAs are where researchers work together across faculty boundaries on key academic, scientific, technological and societal issues relevant to our future. Funcke is also a member of the “Matter and Light for Quantum Computing” (ML4Q) Cluster of Excellence. Additionally, she is involved in the “Color Meets Flavor” Cluster of Excellence—a joint initiative of the universities of Bonn and Siegen and Technical University Dortmund to investigate new phenomena in strong and weak interactions, and has an outstanding Excellence Strategy funding application.
For further info about Lena Funcke please read the announcement of her appointment as Clausius Assistant Professor at the University of Bonn: https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/042-2023