Academy member Peter R. Schreiner to be awarded the Schrödinger Medal in 2025

Academy member Peter R. Schreiner is receiving this year's Schrödinger Medal for his outstanding contributions to research in chemistry.

The nomination letter justified Schreiner's nomination by stating that his work had led to significant advances in several areas of chemistry. Particular emphasis was placed on his contributions to quantum tunnelling effects and London dispersion interactions. Ultimately, »he has consistently bridged the gap between theory and experiment by combining sophisticated computational methods with innovative experimental design to improve our fundamental understanding of chemical reactivity«, according to the nomination.

The Schrödinger Medal has been awarded annually since 1987 by the World Association of Theoretically Oriented Chemists (WATOC) and honours researchers in theoretical chemistry and computational chemistry. The medal is named after the quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger.

Peter R. Schreiner studied chemistry at the Universities of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Georgia (Athens, GA, USA). He obtained his doctorate in organic chemistry (Dr. rer. nat.) in 1994 under P. v. R. Schleyer and again in 1995 (PhD) in computational chemistry under H. F. Schaefer in the USA. He habilitated in organic chemistry at the University of Göttingen in 1999. A professorship in the USA (1999–2002) was followed by an appointment to the Liebig Chair of Organic Chemistry at Justus Liebig University Giessen. Schreiner has received numerous awards for his research, including the Dirac Medal in 2003, the Adolf von Baeyer Medal of the GDCh (2017) and the Leibniz Prize in 2024.