Katharina
Al-Shamery

Biography

Professor Dr. Katharina Al-Shamery is one of a kind — an academician who is intellectually savvy and witty. She held the Chair for Physical Chemistry at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany, where her distinctive scholarship in the field of Nano Science and (Photo)Catalysis for Chemical Energy Storage since 1999 has been extraordinary. She studied chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, and Paris, France, earned her PhD at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Oxford, Great Britain; the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany; and the Fritz-Haber Institute of the Max-Planck Society in Berlin, Germany, as well as an assistant professorship at the University of Ulm, Germany. Al-Shamery is an Honorary Professor on Functionalized Interfaces and Nano Structure Materials at the Faculty of Engineering of the Syddansk University Odense, Denmark. She was a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies of Harvard University, USA, in 2008 and 2016. Her outstanding research has been honoured with the Nernst-Haber-Bodenstein Prize of the German Bunsen Society of Physical Chemistry (1997), the Order of Merit of the State of Germany (2011), and the Medal of Honor of the President of Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg (2015). In 2013 she was elected a Member of the National Academy of Science Leopoldina. She is an active member of many boards of universities and non-university science institutions, as well as international grant selection and advisory boards. At her university she served as Vice President of Research and Technology Transfer (2010–2014) and as Acting President of the University (2014–2015). She is also Vice President of the German Chemical Society. Her special interest in fostering careers of women in chemistry is actively pursued across numerous panels and initiatives.