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11 November 2020 Brigitte Kohlberg, Pressestelle, University of Bayreuth

Dr.-Ing. Thomas Ritter

Dr.-Ing. Thomas Ritter receives Bayernwerk AG’s Kulturpreis Bayern for his dissertation at Functional Materials engineering research group at the University of Bayreuth. He was nominated for the prize by his doctoral supervisor, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Moos, who describes the prizewinner not only as a “highly skilled and very interdisciplinary thinking engineer”, but also as an outstanding team player. Consequently, according to Chair Prof. Moos, the prize is just as much an award for the entire team of the sensor technology working group.

This year, the Kulturpreis Bayern will be awarded in digital form as a result of the pandemic, and will thus be accessible to the general public for the first time. Interested parties please join the event

on Thursday, 12 November 2020, at 19.00, at www.bayernwerk-live.de/kulturpreis-bayern

live. The regional TV stations Mainfranken, Oberfranken, Oberpfalz, Regensburg, and Niederbayern will also broadcast the award ceremony live. The Kulturpreis Bayern is awarded by Bayernwerk together with the Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Art. In addition to Bayreuth engineer Dr.-Ing. Thomas Ritter, 32 other graduates of Bavarian colleges and universities will receive the Kulturpreis Bayern in the science category.

Dr.-Ing. Thomas Ritter develops novel sensor principle

Cleaning exhaust gases from combustion engines calls for highly accurate and reliable gas sensors. During his doctorate, the Bayreuth engineer Dr.-Ing. Thomas Ritter worked on the development of a novel sensor principle for this purpose. “The work goes far beyond the scope and quality of usual engineering work. The fact that the dissertation is of such exceptional quality is due to the fact that Dr.-Ing. Thomas Ritter did not just borrow simplifying formulas, as many other researchers might have done, but investigated electrochemical processes and simulation in great detail, resulting in a far-reaching understanding of both”, says Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Moos, Chair of Funktional Materials and Ritter’s doctoral supervisor. It is typical for his doctoral students that a dissertation is never really “finished” at any stage. Instead, Dr.-Ing. Thomas Ritter always scrutinised the results of his work most critically. It is also remarkable how much respect he has already gained in the professional world, even as a young doctoral student, according to Moos. The research work on Ritter’s dissertation was carried out at the Functional Materials research group at the University of Bayreuth, from 2015 to 2019, as part of a DFG (German Research Foundation) project.

“The fact that my dissertation has been awarded such a prestigious prize is a great acknowledgement of the research achievements. Apart from the fact that the work at Bayreuth’s Functional Materials research group was fun and very exciting anyway, I think that the prize also honours the work of those who contributed, the researchers from the University of Bayreuth and other institutes”, explains Dr.-Ing. Born in Dessau and aged 30, Ritter now works as a development and project engineer at H+H Engineering und Service GmbH in Sonnefeld, which plans, commissions, and maintains exhaust after-treatment systems for stationary and marine applications. “It turns out, my time at the University of Bayreuth has already prepared me very specifically for my job. In addition, I can contribute to my new team in a disciplined and focused manner, with skills that I acquired during my dissertation, among other things.”

Award with a history of its own

For more than 60 years, Bayernwerk has been committed to cultural and scientific commitment and honours it with its Kulturpreis Bayern. The prize was awarded for the first time in 1959. Since 2005, Bayernwerk has been awarding the prize throughout Bavaria together with the State Ministry of Science and Art. All prize winners receive the ‘Gedankenblitz’ bronze statue plus prize money. While an expert jury selects the five art prize winners, the Bavarian state colleges and universities nominate their best graduates and doctoral candidates for the award. Further information is available here: www.bayernwerk.de

Contact:

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Moos
Chair Functional Materials
Faculty of Engineering Science
University of Bayreuth
Phone: 0921 / 55-7400
E-mail: ralf.moos@uni-bayreuth.de
www.funktionsmaterialien.de

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