RWTH: Honor for RWTH chemist Sonja Herres-Pawlis

Sonja Herres-Pawlis, Chair of Bioinorganic Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University, has been accepted into the Chemistry Europe Fellow class.


Chemistry Europe is an association of 16 chemical societies from 15 European countries. The Chemistry Europe Fellow program honors outstanding members who have made a significant contribution through their support, research, creativity and innovation.

Herres-Pawlis studied chemistry at the University of Paderborn and the Ecole de Chimie de Montpellier. She received her doctorate in bioinorganic chemistry from the University of Paderborn and habilitated in sustainable polymerization catalysis at the TU Dortmund. Several research stays at Stanford University in the USA and at the Ecole de Chimie de Montpellier in France shaped her career. Before taking over the RWTH chair in January 2015, she was a professor of coordination chemistry at the Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.

The 42-year-old has already received several prizes and awards, such as a DAAD research grant, the Liebig habilitation grant from the Chemical Industry Fund, the Innovation Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in the Young Talent category, and the Arnold Sommerfeld Prize from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. In 2010, the chemist was appointed to the Young College of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 2021, Professor Herres-Pawlis was able to obtain funding from the Volkswagen Foundation as part of the “Momentum – Funding for First-Timers” initiative. This wants to support the research and creativity of research personalities and open up opportunities for the further development of a professorship in terms of content and strategy.