Miriam M. Unterlass

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Miriam Unterlass
Foto-Prof-Unterlass-ISC-Karoline-Wolf-B0104350ret.jpg
Born
Miriam Margarethe Unterlass
Alma mater Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces (PhD)
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Website UnterlassLAB

Miriam Margarethe Unterlass (born 1986 in Erlangen, West Germany) is a German chemist. She is full professor of solid state chemistry at the University of Konstanz, as well as adjunct principal investigator at CeMM - Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. On 1 October 2024, Prof. Miriam Unterlass took over the management of the renowned Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC in Würzburg.

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Education and career

Miriam M. Unterlass was born in 1986 in Erlangen, Germany. She studied chemistry, process engineering and materials science in the framework of a double diploma degree in Würzburg, Germany, in Lyon, France, and in Southampton, United Kingdom. She completed her PhD under the supervision of Professor Markus Antonietti at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam-Golm, Germany. In 2011 she obtained her doctoral degree (magna cum laude) at the University of Potsdam, Germany, with her doctoral work entitled "From Monomer Salts and Their Tectonic Crystals to Aromatic Polyimides: Development of Neoteric Synthesis Routes".

In 2011 she continued her career with a postdoc in the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) Laboratory Soft Matter and Chemistry under supervision of Professor Ludwik Leibler at the École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris (ESPCI). In 2012 she was a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) hosted by Professor Gregory C. Rutledge. Later that year, she started as an independent group leader of the research group "Advanced Organic Materials" at the Institute of Materials Chemistry of the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien). She habilitated (venia docendi) in materials chemistry at TU Wien in 2018 and became assistant professor with tenure in 2019.

In 2018 she joined CeMM - Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and to date works as adjunct principal investigator. In 2021 she became an associate professor at TU Wien and since May 2021 she is full professor of solid state chemistry at the University of Konstanz, Germany. In 2022 she was guest professor at the Department of Chemical Science and Engineering of Institute of Science Tokyo (formerly known as Tokyo Institute of Technology), Japan, hosted by Professor Shinji Ando.

Research

Miriam Unterlass is a prominent researcher in the field of chemistry, known for her innovative work at the intersection of materials science and synthetic chemistry. Her research primarily focuses on the development of sustainable routes towards advanced materials and small molecules. The latter is based on the central hypothesis that water is able to be a near-universal solvent for chemical synthesis and processing. She has made significant contributions to the understanding of the use of water as a core technology. Her group has demonstrated that water is an ideal medium to produce advanced materials, profiting from the properties of water under hydrothermal conditions. This approach utilizes hot liquid water as a reaction medium, producing a variety of materials, i.e. high-performance polymers suitable for aeronautics and microelectronics, small molecules relevant to biology and medicine or optoelectronics, and inorganic-organic hybrid materials. Moreover, her group employs modern computational and automation approaches to aim for maximal efficiency and discovery of new materials to address the various challenges of human life. She has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles, contributed with more than 80 scientific talks at different conferences. Thus, she has submitted over 7 patents and patent applications, and actively works alongside industry partners to translate her findings into practical applications.

Selected publications

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Awards and honors

References

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