Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize for Tim Dietrich

The junior professor at the University of Potsdam and adjunct researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics will receive the 20,000-euro prize from the German Research Foundation in recognition of his exceptional scientific achievements. The award ceremony will take place in a virtual format on May 4, 2021.

“I am very happy about this recognition of my research,” says Prof. Dietrich. “Gravitational-wave astronomy is a young and extremely exciting field of research. Our numerical-relativistic simulations teach us a lot about neutron stars and help expanding our understanding of the universe.”

Tim Dietrich studied physics at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, where he also earned his doctorate. From 2015 - 2018, he held a postdoctoral position in Prof. Alessandra Buonanno’s department at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam. After a two-year stay at the National Institute for Subatomic Physics (NIKHEF) in Amsterdam, funded by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship, he has joined the faculty at the University of Potsdam. There he has held a W1 professorship in Theoretical Astrophysics since February 2020, while also being an Adjunct Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics. Dietrich has already won several prizes, including awards for his dissertation from the German Physical Society and from the University of Jena. In 2019, he received the Heinz Billing Prize for the Advancement of Scientific Computing.

The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize
The German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) awards the prize, named after the physicist and former president of the DFG, annually to 10 young scientists in recognition of their outstanding achievements. The award is endowed with 20,000 euros each.