The Waltraut-Seitter-Publication award 2025 is presented to

Thomas Salomon
for the publication entitled
High-resolution leak-out spectroscopy of HHe2+


published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, in 2025. In that work, he investigates the high-resolution IR fingerprints of a proton shuttling between two He atoms in the linear molecule He–H+–He. Such investigations are exotic and rare – actually they can only be conducted in the Cologne laboratories – as they need specialized lasers and a cryogenic ion trap machine, as well as advanced technical skills.

The award ceremony took place during the 4th members assembly of the CRC 1601 at the Physikzentrum in Bad Honnef on March 12, 2026.
Thomas Salomon: “I am grateful to the SFB Executive Board for recognizing this work. I would like to express my gratitude to all co-authors, with special appreciation for Professors Oskar Asvany and Stephan Schlemmer, whose support was instrumental in making this project successful.  Finally, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the German Research Foundation and CRC 1601 for providing me the opportunity to build an individual scientific profile as a young researcher within a highly supportive and motivating environment.“

The Publication will be presented on April 21, 2026 at 2 pm in HSIII of the Physics Institutes of the University of Cologne.

Salomon, Thomas; Baddeliyanage, Carlo; Schladt, Carla; Simkó, Irén; Császár, Attila G.; Silva, Weslley G. D. P.; Schlemmer, Stephan; Asvany, Oskar

High-resolution leak-out spectroscopy of HHe2+ 

In: Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (Incorporating Faraday Transactions), vol. 27, no. 9, pp. 4826-4828, 2025.

Waltraut Seitter was a German astronomer and became the first woman in Germany to hold an astronomy chair.

Waltraut Carola Seitter was born in Zwickau in 1930, where her father worked as an engineer with the Horch automobile company. She went to school in Cologne, where she finished high school in 1949 (after jobs as tramway ticket collector, refugee aide and draftswoman), and entered the university to study physics, mathematics, chemistry and astronomy. She continued her studies at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts with a grant from the Fulbright Program, obtained her Master of Arts in physics in 1955, and became an astronomy instructor. From 1958 to 1962 she worked at Hoher List Observatory of Bonn University, obtained her Ph.D., and held the positions of assistant, observer and adjunct professor at Bonn University. In 1967, she was a guest professor of the American Astronomical Society at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, afterward professor at Smith College (since 1973, Eliza Appleton Haven Professor for Astronomy). In 1975, she was called to the chair of astronomy at Muenster University in Germany (the first woman in Germany to hold an astronomy chair), and became director of the astronomical institute up to her retirement in 1995.

When in Bonn, she worked on problems of stellar statistics and on spectral classification of stars, publishing the Bonn Spectral Atlas (in two volumes). In Muenster, with a dedicated team of young researchers, she organized the Muenster Redshift Project (MRSP), a method to derive redshifts from UK Schmidt telescope objective prism plates, and the Muenster Red Sky Survey, a galaxy catalog of the southern hemisphere, based on ESO Schmidt direct red plates. With the MRSP data, the first indications of the action of the cosmological constant were found, shortly before major supernova searches established its existence with certainty.

During most of her career, she also did research on novae and related eruptive stars. Exhibits arranged by her include Women in Astronomy, and Science in Exile (Smith College), as well as Kepler and his times (Muenster 1980). She also organized several international astronomical meetings. Since 1975, Waltraut Seitter was married to Hilmar Duerbeck, a fellow astronomer.

The asteroid (4893) Seitter, discovered in 1986, is named after her.
(From Wikipedia)

The Waltraut-Seitter-Publication award 2024 is presented to

Prachi Khatri
for the publication entitled
“HYACINTH: HYdrogen And Carbon chemistry in the INTerstellar medium in Hydro simulations”
published in Astronomy & Astrophysics in 2024. The publication describes a new sub-grid model called HYACINTH – HYdrogen And Carbon chemistry in the INTerstellar medium in Hydro simulations – for computing the non-equilibrium abundances of H2 and its carbon-based tracers, namely CO, C, and C+, in cosmological simulations of galaxy formation.

The ceremony took place during the 3rd members assembly of the CRC 1601 in Vallendar on March 27, 2025.
Prachi Khatri: “I am grateful to the SFB Executive Board for recognising this work and my contribution. I thank my supervisors and collaborators for their guidance throughout the project. This research was supported by SFB956 and SFB1601, which enabled a productive collaboration between Cologne and Bonn. Finally, I sincerely thank abj-sensorik for creating this wonderful opportunity, it’s deeply encouraging as a young scientist.“

The award winner will present her work in the SFB colloquium on April 15, 2025.