Every year, around 200 doctoral students are awarded doctorates at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. On average, around 10% receive the top grade ‘summa cum laude’ (with honours)! From these dissertations, a jury consisting of representatives from all subjects selects a thesis that is honoured with the ‘Best Dissertation of the Year’ award.

Dr Anna Maria Kerkmann from the Department of Computer Science on the topic:

An Axiomatic and Computational Analysis of Altruism, Fairness, and Stability in Coalition Formation Games

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Jörg Rothe

Dr Emil Dandanell Agerschou from the Department of Biology on the topic:

Hell is other polypeptides - Studying the role of β-hairpins in amyloid formation

Supervisor: Jun.-Prof. Dr Wolfgang Hoyer

Dr Tobie Matemb Ma Ntep from the Department of Chemistry on the topic:

Modifications of Fumarate-Based Aluminum and Zirconium Metal-Organic Frameworks for Enhanced Gas Adsorption and Adsorption-Driven Heat Transformation Applications

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Christoph Janiak

Dr Stefanie Hagenow from the Department of Pharmacy on the topic:

Histamine H3 receptor antagonists with multitargeting properties at GPCRs and enzymes

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Dr h.c. Holger Stark

Dr Stephan Plugge from the Department of Physics on the topic:

Majorana Fermions in Mesoscopic Topological Superconductors: From Quantum Transport to Topological Quantum Computation 

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Reinhold Egger

Dr Ruben Garrido Oter from the Department of Computer Science on the topic:

Computational Methods for the Analysis of Plant-associated Microbial Communities

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Paul Schulze-Lefert

Dr Chuan Ku from the Department of Biology on the topic:

On the Prokaryotic Origins of Eukaryotic Genes

Supervisor: Prof. Dr William F. Martin

Dr Agnieszka Adamska-Venkatesh from the Department of Chemistry on the topic:

Spectroscopic investigations of [FeFe] hydrogenases and related model systems

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Wolfgang Lubitz

Dr David Heckmann from the Department of Computer Science on the topic:

Mathematical modelling of metabolism applied to the evolution of photosynthesis

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Martin Lercher

Dr Alexander Streltsov from the Department of Physics on the topic:

The role of quantum correlations beyond entanglement in quantum information theory

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Dagmar Bruß

Dr Raphael Wittkowski from the Department of Physics on the topic:

Brownian dynamics of active and passive anisotropic colloidal particles

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Hartmut Löwen

Dr Dr Katharina Wörtzfrom the Department of Pharmacy on the topic:

Electronic tongues

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Jörg Breitkreutz

Dr Vanessa Krause from the Department of Psychology on the topic:

Perception and action: The timely control of movements and their neuronal basis

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Alfons Schnitzler

Dr Nana Ueffing from the Department of Biology on the topic:

c-FLIP proteins - from structure to function in immune response and tumourigenesis

Supervisor: Dr Ingo Schmitz

Jun.-Prof. Dr Björn Scheuermann from the Department of Computer Science on the topic:

Reading Between the Packets - Implicit Feedback in Wireless Multihop Networks

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Martin Mauve

Dr Martin Konieczny from the Department of Physics on the topic:

Polyelectrolyte stars meet hard planar and curved walls: confinement, demixing, collapse

Supervisor: Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr Christos N. Likos

Dr Niklas Feldhahn from the Department of Biology on the topic:

Mimicry of a constitutively active pre-B cell receptor in BCR-ABL1-transformed pre-B leukaemia cells

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Markus Müschen

Dr Susanne Mayr from the Department of Psychology on the topic:

Episodic Retrieval Process in Auditory Negative Priming: Evidence from Event-Related Brain Potentials and Multinominal Modelling

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Axel Buchner

Dr Johannes Hermann from the Department of Pharmacy on the topic:

Combined quantum and molecular mechanical analysis of acylation of class A ß-lactamases

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Hans-Dieter Höltje

Dr Andreas Jansen from the Department of Chemistry on the topic:

Multidimensional, anharmonic vibration analysis of hydrogen-bonded clusters

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Karl Kleinermanns

Dr Hannes Dahnke from the Department of Physics on the topic:

Highly sensitive trace detection in the atmosphere and in human breath using cavity ring-down spectroscopy

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Peter Hering

Dr Thomas Balzer from the Department of Mathematics:

Time-oriented portfolio optimisation

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Klaus Janßen

Dr Olaf Stenull from the Department of Physics on the topic:

Percolation - a simple model for disorder

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. H.-K. Janssen

Dr Jochen Rethmann from the Department of Mathematics:

Algorithms for controlling industrial stacking systems

Supervisor: Herr Prof. Dr. Egon Wanke

Dr Dirk Reiser from the Department of Physics on the topic:

On the application of drift kinetic theory in Monte Carlo studies on impurity transport in tokamak plasmas

Supervisor: Prof. Dr G.H. Wolf

Dr Matthias Schmidt from the Department of Physics on the topic:

Freezing in confined geometry

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Hartmut Löwen

Dr Matthias Braun from the Department of Chemistry.

Overproduction and crystallisation of the NADH dehydrogenase fragment of NADH: ubiquinone oxidoreductase from Escherichia coli

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Hannes Weiss

Dr Kerstin Steinert from the Department of Biology on the topic:

Molecular characterisation of the ATPase from the archaeon Haloferax volcanii

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Bickel-Sandkötter

Dr Alexander Michaelis from the Department of Biology on the topic:

Optical and photoelectrochemical micro-methods for the characterisation of ultra-thin surface layers using the example of the Ti/TiO2 system

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Joachim Walter Schultze