John Sipe wins Humboldt Research Award

Will work with researchers in Germany

John Sipe

Germany beckons Professors Mark Lautens of chemistry and John Sipe of physics.

Both men are winners of 2009 Humboldt Research Awards, bestowed by Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, an organization that promotes academic co-operation between excellent scientists and scholars from abroad and from Germany. Awardees, who must each be nominated by a German academic, receive 60,000 euros (about $93,000 Cdn) and an opportunity to spend up to a year co-operating on a long-term research project with colleagues at a research institution in Germany.

The research awards are earmarked for eminent researchers at the peak of their academic careers whose fundamental discoveries, new theories or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in future.

"I'm very, very pleased," said Lautens, "and I'm very much looking forward to going to Germany. This is a great way to get our work known to German scientists all over the country, to make linkages and share results."

Sipe is equally enthusiastic.

"It will be a great chance to do work with a couple of groups in Germany who are doing exciting research," he said. "I'm keen to make my own contributions to these efforts."

Sipe's research centres on quantum aspects of the interaction of light with matter. His nomination came from colleagues at the University of Marburg and he will be working with them and with colleagues in Karlsruhe during the next few summers. His Marburg project will centre around the optical properties of semi-conductors, while in Karlsruhe, he will be seeking to better understand bioplasmonics, the metallic structures used for optics, sensing and biosensing.

Another bonus of being Humboldt awardees, said Lautens, is that he and Sipe are now part of a large network of fellows and will be eligible to accept post-doctoral fellows sponsored by the foundation.

"The University of Toronto is delighted to see our superb researchers receive recognition of this nature from their peers," said Professor Paul Young, vice-president (research). "Opportunities to work abroad help spread the university's reputation for scholarship far and wide."

Lautens and Sipe are among 14 U of T faculty who have received the Humboldt Research Award since 1990.

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