Dr. Nicole Megow, head of the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group at the TU Berlin and member of the BMS postdoctoral faculty, has been awarded the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize.

Specializing in the field of combinatorial optimization and graph algorithms, Megow deals with optimization problems, which are motivated by issues of industrial practice. Since gaining her PhD at the TU, she has been working on optimization under uncertainty, thus at the interface between basic and applied research. The focus of her work is the development and analysis of efficient algorithms and methods that compute provably good or optimal solutions despite the uncertain data available.

As one of just nine Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize winners from various academic fields, Megow received 20,000 Euros in prize money. The chair of the selection committee, DFG Vice-President Professor Dorothea Wagner, emphasized the thematic breadth of the awards: "The prize shows a good balance and diversity of the German science system."

Established in honor of the German physicist, the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize was recently deemed one of the top three major scientific awards in Germany by the major research institutions. It is given not only in recognition of excellent research, but also as an incentive to continue in the pursuit of an academic career. The prize is funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung/BMBF) and is awarded by a selection committee appointed by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/DFG) and the BMBF.

Source: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German)