Erna Scheffler Award for Young Female Researchers at KIT

Two young female scientists from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have been honored with the Erna Scheffler Award 2025 from Soroptimist International Club Karlsruhe for their outstanding theses. The prizes, worth a total of €7,000, were presented during a ceremony last Friday in the conference room of the Federal Constitutional Court.

The dissertation prize was awarded to Dr. Clara Rosa Adam from the Institute of Organic Chemistry at KIT for her work on luminiscent copper complexes. She developed new copper compounds that absorb and re-emit light particularly efficiently. This makes the materials promising candidates for use in organic light-emitting diodes and 3D laser printing. 

The prize for the best master's thesis was awarded to Sophia Beck from the Institute of Electrical Engineering at KIT. She investigated how hard magnets containing rare earths can be replaced in electrical machines. During the use of alternative magnet materials, the magnetic flux is deliberately altered during operation. In order to optimally control the machines’s efficiency, Beck simulated how specific electric currents affect the magnetic flux. 

The Erna Scheffler Award, presented every two years, goes back to Dr. Erna Scheffler, who in 1951 became the first woman to be appointed to a judgeship at the Federal Constitutional Court. Scheffler was also the first president of the Soroptimist International Club Karlsruhe, founded in 1963. 

jha, October 23, 2025