PLENARY SPEAKERS

CONFIRMED PLENARY SPEAKERS

Marina Bennati (Germany)
Dmitry Budker (Germany)
Luisa Ciobanu (France)
Christophe Copéret (Switzerland)
Jiangfeng Du (China)

Simon Duckett (UK)

Patrick Giraudeau (France)

Gunnar Jeschke (Switzerland)
Gareth Morris (UK)

Jeff Reimer (USA)

Paul Schanda (Austria)

Chantal Tax (The Netherlands)
Christina Thiele (Germany)

George Square

marina bennati

University of Göttingen

Prof. Marina Bennati is professor of physical chemistry at Göttingen University and research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences Göttingen. In her latest research she develops new methods at the interface between nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy to study biomolecular systems with improved sensitivity and resolution. Particularly, she develops electron-nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) spectroscopy and liquid-state dynamic nuclear polarization at high EPR frequencies and fields. In 2019 Marina Bennati was awarded the Bruker Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry, in 2022 the IES Silver Medal in Physics of the International EPR Society and fellow of International Society of Magnetic Resonance (ISMAR).

DMITRY BUDKER

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany

Dmitry Budker received his Ph.D. in physics from University of California, Berkeley, in 1993 and was a postdoctoral researcher at the university until his faculty appointment in 1995. Born in the former USSR, Budker was a student at the Novosibirsk State University from 1980 until 1985, when he received an equivalent to MS with honors from the Department of Physics. He then served as a junior researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, where he conducted research on laser spectroscopy of atoms. In 1994, Budker received the American Physical Society Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and served as the Chair of the APS Topical Group on Precision Measurements and Fundamental Constants 2014 – 2015. He was a Miller Professor 2003 – 2004 and 2012 – 2013. Since 2014, Dmitry Budker has led the Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry section of the Helmholtz Institute in Mainz, Germany.

luisa ciobanu

NeuroSpin, CEA-Saclay, Paris, France

Luisa Ciobanu is Research Director and leader of NeuroPhysics team at NeuroSpin, CEA-Saclay. She received her doctorate in Physics from The Ohio State University and has held research appointments at the Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Pfizer, Inc. before joining NeuroSpin in 2007. Her current research focuses on the development of advanced high-field magnetic resonance imaging techniques, including chemical exchange saturation transfer, diffusion and functional MRI, and their application to the understanding of fundamental physical principles underlying biological function.

christophe copéret

ETH, Zűrich

Prof. Christophe Copéret (CCH) was trained in chemistry and chemical engineering (CPE-Lyon, France, and carried out a PhD with Prof. E.i. Negishi (Purdue University,), where he investigated the synthesis of complex molecules via Pd-catalyzed carbonylation reactions. After a postdoctoral stay with Prof. K.B. Sharpless (Scripps), CCH entered CNRS in 1998 and was promoted CNRS Director in 2008. Since 2010, CCH is Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich, and has become an Associate Editor for JACS in 2022. The scientific interest of CCH lies at the frontiers of molecular, material and surface chemistry as well as NMR spectroscopy with the aims to understand the electronic structure and design molecularly-defined heterogenous catalysts.

Jiangfeng du

Hefei University of Science and Technology of China

Prof. Dr. Jiangfeng Du, professor of University of Science and Technology of China and Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a quantum physicist specializing in spin quantum control and its applications. He has developed a series of advanced spin quantum control methods to precisely manipulate spin quantum states and preserve its quantum coherence. Based on these, he achieved fruitful scientific achievements including the single-molecule magnetic resonance spectroscopy and imaging. So far he has published more than 300 scientific papers, including 69 papers published in Nature, Science, Nature Physics, Nature Methods, Nature Communications, Science Advances, and Physical Review Letters.

simon duckett

University of York

Simon Duckett is currently Director of the York Centre for Hyperpolarisation in Magnetic Resonance. He has worked to develop an array of methods that increase the sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance. These are based on the para-hydrogen approach, and unlock novel applications that span analysis, the probing of reactivity especially catalysis, its use in quantum computation, and contrast agent design. His SABRE method, which uses catalysis to change molecular magnetism rather than chemical form, is now being applied to many classes of organic molecule to improve their detectability. Recently he expanded this method to provide access to the ‘hyperpharmaceutical’ in reflection of radiopharmaceuticals use in positron emission spectroscopy

PATRICK GIRAUDEAU

University of Nantes

Prof. Patrick Giraudeau is a full Professor at the University of Nantes, where he leads the analytical chemistry research group and the NMR facility of the CEISAM research institute. In 2014, he became a fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France, and received a consolidator grant from the European Research Council in 2019. His research activities at the CEISAM research institute focus on the development of quantitative NMR methods for the analysis of complex mixtures, including applications to metabolomics. Prof. Patrick Giraudeau is the vice-president of the Ampere Society and of the French-speaking metabolomics society. He is an associate editor of Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry (Wiley) and of Magnetic Resonance (Copernicus).

Gunnar Jeschke

ETH, Zűrich, Switzerland

International EPR/ESR Society Citation – 2023 IES Gold Medal
The IES Gold Medal for 2023 is being awarded to Professor Gunnar Jeschke in recognition of his numerous and impactful contributions to pulse EPR spectroscopy. Throughout his career, Prof. Jeschke has made creative, original, and innovative advancements in the field, particularly in dipolar EPR spectroscopy. His research has helped the field achieve higher sensitivity and resolution through the development of novel pulse sequences in hyperfine spectroscopy and dipolar EPR spectroscopy. He has also pioneered methods and applications of shaped pulses that helped establish a new set of pulse EPR techniques. Furthermore, his novel analysis and modeling approaches in dipolar EPR spectroscopy have been transformative in leveraging EPR for answering important questions in biophysics and structural biology. Prof. Jeschke has been instrumental in educating the next generation of EPR spectroscopists through multiple EPR schools and other tutorial occasions, as well as through his significant monograph on pulse EPR spectroscopy. The International EPR (ESR) Society is proud to honor the influential and distinguished work of Professor Gunnar Jeschke by awarding him the Gold Medal for 2023.

Gunnar Jeschke studied chemistry at Technical University Dresden and holds a doctoral degree from ETH Zürich. Further stations of his scientific career were at Riken Wako-shi (spin chemistry), University Bonn (solid-state NMR on inorganic materials), Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research Mainz, Germany (EPR method development for polymer materials and membrane proteins), University of Konstanz, and since 2008 again at ETH Zürich. His research portfolio encompasses studies on spin dynamics, EPR instrumentation, design of new EPR experiments, data analysis, integrative ensemble modelling of biomolecular structure, and the application of EPR in molecular and structural biology as well as in catalysis.

gareth morris

University of Manchester

I was successively an undergraduate, postgraduate and research fellow at Magdalen College Oxford from 1972 to 1981. In 1978-9 I spent a year’s leave of absence with Laurie Hall at the University of British Columbia. In 1982 I moved to Manchester University, where I am now Professor of Physical Chemistry. Awards include the RSC Corday-Morgan prize and medal in 1988, a Leverhulme Fellowship in 1996, the RSC Industrially-Sponsored Award in Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in 2001, the Russell Varian Prize for NMR in 2011, Fellowship of the Royal Society in 2014, the James N. Shoolery Award in 2015, and the Günther Laukien Prize in 2021.

JEFF REIMER

Berkeley University of California

Jeffrey A. Reimer received his bachelor’s degree (with honors) from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology. After his postdoc at IBM Research in New York he joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley where his scholarship focuses on materials chemistry and physics. His NMR work is recognized by election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance, and a Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Paul Schanda

Institute of Science and Technology, Austria

Paul Schanda is full professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria. His research group develops biomolecular NMR methods, primarily MAS NMR methods, for studying protein dynamics and structure. For example, NERRD relaxation-dispersion methods developed in the group are used to probe slow protein motions. They combine NMR with various other structural and biophysical techniques and molecular dynamics simulations. Biological applications of their work include the study of the mechanisms of enzymes and chaperone proteins.

chantal tax

University Medical Centre, Utrecht

Chantal received her masters in Medical Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology and PhD in Medical Imaging (with a focus on diffusion MRI) at the UMC Utrecht. Since then, she has been working at CUBRIC, Cardiff University in the UK on extracting new information from multi-contrast MRI experiments with the ultra-strong gradient Connectom MRI scanner. She is interested in optimising different aspects of the preprocessing and analysis pipeline, as well as applying differential geometric methods to diffusion MRI data. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the UMC Utrecht and research Fellow at Cardiff University, and her recent efforts focus on optimising MRI experiment design and translating novel methodolgy in multi-contrast MRI to clinical applications.