University of Georgia alumnus Peter Schreiner has received one of Germany’s most prestigious research awards.
The Joint Committee of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) announced the recipients of the 2024 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, which was awarded to 10 researchers – three women and seven men. The winners will each receive €2.5 million in prize money.
Schreiner earned his master’s degree in chemistry at UGA in 1991 and his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1995. Currently he is a University Professor and Liebig Chair in the Institute of Organic Chemistry at Justus Liebig University Giessen in Giessen, Germany.
Schreiner receives the Leibniz Prize 2024 for his outstanding work in physical organic chemistry, through which he has made pioneering contributions to reaction control. Schreiner’s research has had a lasting impact on the overlapping fields of organic, physical and theoretical chemistry.
The award portraits of the winners cited Schreiner’s extraordinary accomplishments in establishing the mechanism of “tunnel control” of chemical reactions, a previously undiscovered driving force that can be used to steer chemical reactions in a way that would not have been predicted either by the established principle of kinetic control or by that of thermodynamic control.