Humboldt Professorship Awarded to KIT Researcher
At a ceremonial event in Berlin on May 12, 2026, the 2025 Humboldt Professorships were awarded. Among the seven distinguished scientists honored was Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik. The chemist and materials scientist moved in early 2026 from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia to Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). There, he heads the Institute for Functional Interfaces (IFG).
“The Humboldt Professorship opens up exceptional opportunities for my team and me to connect fundamental insights in photochemistry with a broad range of applications in macromolecular chemistry,” says Barner-Kowollik. “I am particularly looking forward to supporting early-career researchers at the IFG as part of our work.” As a Humboldt Professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Barner-Kowollik is restructuring the Institute of Functional Interfaces (IFG) into a multi-team platform institute with a focus on precision materials.
Light as a Tool
Barner-Kowollik investigates how light can precisely control chemical reactions – for example in 3D printing processes, surface engineering, and applications in medicine and materials development. His work is based to a significant extent on the 2017 discovery by him and his research group that molecules do not necessarily react most efficiently at the wavelength at which they absorb the most light.
After his studies at the Universities of Konstanz and Göttingen, Barner-Kowollik earned his doctorate in physical chemistry in Göttingen. Following a professorship at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, he served as Professor of Molecular Chemistry at KIT from 2008 to 2017. He then moved to QUT, where he founded the “Soft Matter Materials Laboratory”.
Alexander von Humboldt Professorship
With the Alexander von Humboldt Professorships, the Humboldt Foundation honors world-leading researchers of all disciplines who have previously been based abroad. The aim is to enable them to conduct cutting-edge research at German universities on a long-term basis. Each professorship is endowed with up to five million euros.
jha, May 13, 2026