CIC-Young Scientist Award
The “CIC Award for Computational Chemistry” is awarded for outstanding Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations that address the scientific fields represented in the Division of Computers in Chemistry (CIC) and make a particular contribution to the further development of the CIC field. Nominees must have completed their work at a higher education institution in a German-speaking country or region. The assessment criteria include thematic relevance as well as scientific quality and presentation.
The awards are generally presented annually and comprise prize money of €350 (Master’s thesis) or €750 (doctoral dissertation), a free one-year GDCh and CIC membership upon request, and a certificate detailing the achievements of the awardees. From 2025 onwards, a maximum of two awardees will be honoured per call for proposals.
Next call for proposals: Autumn/Winter 2026
Dr. Jan Gerald Rittig, RWTH Aachen University (RWTH), for his dissertation "Graph Machine Learning for Molecular Property Prediction and Design"
Dr. Louis Bellmann, University of Hamburg, for his dissertation “Algorithmic methods for combinatorial chemical libraries”
Dr. Dennis F. Dinu, University of Innsbruck, for his dissertation “Rationalizing molecular vibration through matrix isolation infrared spectroscopy and vibrational configuration interaction computations”
Anne Germann, University of Düsseldorf, for her master’s thesis "Computational investigation of the mechanochemistry of 2-ladderene derivates“
Dr. Janosch Menke, University of Münster, for his dissertation "Improving Ligand-based Virtual Screening by Utilizing Neural Networks to Generate Domain-specific Molecular Representations“
Dr. Marwin Segler, University of Münster, for his dissertation "Computational Hypothesis Generation for Synthesis Planning, Molecular Design and Reaction Discovery"
Janine Isabel Hellmers, University of Kiel, for her master's thesis "Fragmentation Methods for Electronic Interaction Energies"
Sophia M. N. Hönig, University of Hamburg, for her master's thesis "Convex Optimization of Matched Molecular Series Networks and its Application to Machine Learning"
Due to the pandemic, no award ceremony took place in 2021.
Jan Blasius, University of Bonn, for his Master's thesis "Theoretical Modeling of Chiral Systems"
Dr. Christoph Bannwarth, Stanford University, for his dissertation "„Development and Application of Efficient Methods for the Computation of Electronic Spectra of Large Systems“
Dr. Jan Meisner, Stuttgart, for his dissertation “Theoretical Investigations of Atom Tunneling in the Interstellar Medium”
Jochen Sieg, Hamburg, for his master’s thesis “Evaluation of Benchmark Datasets for Virtual Screening with Machine Learning”
Lisa Warczinski, Bochum, for her master’s thesis “Heuristic estimation of the dynamic correlation energy: Research for the validation of a novel approach”