Gabriele Sadowski, Professor for Thermodynamics at TU Dortmund’s Faculty Biochemical and Chemical Engineering, obtains the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, probably the most respected German research prize. For the scientist this award does not only mean the highest international kudos, it also comes with prize money in the amount of 2.5 million EUR. The chemical engineer can use this money over a period of up to seven years according to her own concept of scientific work and projects. TU-Rector Prof. Ursula Gather congratulated the new Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Laureate: “This award honors the extraordinary scientific performance of Gabriele Sardowski in the field of thermodynamics, as evidenced by the high-flying third-party fund raising in the last years”.
After the present DFG President and Professor for Metal Forming and Lightweight Construction, Matthias Kleiner (1997), and Prof. Ilme Schlichting, who was doing research at the Max Planck Institute at the time of the prize award, Prof. Sadowski is the third Dortmund scientist to get this award.
The main field of research of Prof. Gabriele Sadowski is measuring and calculating physical properties of complex mixtures of substances. Such mixtures play an important part in, for example, the production of plastics, drugs, cosmetics or in biotechnology. After production the desired substances usually have to be separated from in parts even poisonous ingredients and manufactured into end products. This costs a lot of additional energy, often more than the production itself. Therefore, Gabriele Sadowski and her work group have been developing scientific methods to measure and calculate the properties of such substances and their separation behavior over the last years. Her research results are an essential contribution to making industrial manufacturing processes more effective, more economic and energy-saving while still obtaining better purities and product properties.
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Sadowski was born in Kleinmachnow near Berlin in 1964. After studying chemistry at TH Leuna-Merseburg, where she got her PhD in 1991, she temporarily worked as a research associate at the Institute for Water, Soil and Air Hygiene (Institut für Wasser-, Boden- und Lufthygiene / BGA). In 1992 she went back to science when she became an assistant at TU Berlin, special subject thermodynamics and thermic engineering. In 2000 she completed her habilitation in Thermodynamics of Polymer Solutions. In 2001 she was offered a position as professor for thermodynamics at Technische Universität Dortmund. She is a member of numerous organizations as well as one of the two presidents of the Technical Committee of ProcessNet. In 2009 she was appointed member of the NRW Academy of Science and Art. Gabriele Sadowski is married and has two adult children.