Prizes and Distinctions

Peter Gumbsch has been honored with the highest award given to members of the American association TMS – The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society.

The director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg and professor of materials mechanics at KIT was named a TMS Fellow on March 18, 2026, at the annual conference of the American TMS – The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society in San Diego. The appointment as a TMS Fellow is the highest award for TMS members and honors the life's work of leading figures in materials science. The honor recognizes Prof. Peter Gumbsch's outstanding scientific achievements and technical contributions to multiscale materials modeling and the understanding of fracture and deformation processes.

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The Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE is one of the ten nationwide winners of the university competition in the Science Year 2026 – Medicine of the Future with its project "My Twin, My Rules – A Data Café on the Future of Health Data." From a total of 220 submissions, the best communication ideas from young researchers were honored, including the project by Jean Stadlbauer, data scientist in the Digital Health Engineering department at Fraunhofer IESE. The winning teams will each receive 10,000 euros to implement their projects by the end of 2026.

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Dr. Andreas Erdmann, head of the Computational Lithography and Optics group at Fraunhofer IISB and SPIE (International Society for Optics and Photonics) Fellow since 2016, has been honored with the 2026 SPIE Frits Zernike Award for Microlithography. The award is considered the highest honor in microlithography.

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The project “KI4PED – AI-based optimization of pedestrian crossing times through smart traffic light systems” by Fraunhofer IOSB-INA in Lemgo has made it onto the international list of the International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) under the auspices of UNESCO. KI4PED was rated “Excellent” by the reviewers in the “IRCAI Top 100: Global AI for SDGs Index 2025” and is thus one of the 100 AI innovations worldwide that make a special contribution to sustainability and the 17 goals of the United Nations.

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