Congratulations to the Women in Chemistry and Women in the Chemical Industry Award Winners 2025
Franziska Schoenebeck and Dani Schultz are the Women in Chemistry Award winners 2025.
Thieme and the Editors of Science of Synthesis are delighted to announce the Dr. Margaret Faul Women in Chemistry Award Winners 2025. This year, for the first time, the award selection committee selected one candidate from academia and one candidate from industry to receive the Women in Chemistry Award.
Prof. Franziska Schoenebeck (RWTH Aachen University, Germany) and Dr. Dani Schultz (Merck & Co., NJ, USA) were elected to be the 2025 recipients of the awards in recognition of the outstanding creativity and ingenuity of their research in addition to their broader contributions to synthetic organic chemistry.
Both awards will be presented to the winners at the European Symposium on Organic Chemistry (ESOC) in Copenhagen, Denmark, taking place from June 29 to July 3, 2025.
Learn more about ESOC
About Franziska Schoenebeck
Franziska Schoenebeck obtained her PhD from the University of Strathclyde (UK) and then spent time as a Research Fellow at UCLA (USA) before joining the faculty of the ETH Zurich (Switzerland) as Assistant Professor in 2010. In 2013 she moved to her current institution, RWTH Aachen University (Germany), achieving promotion to full Professor in 2016.
Franziska Schoenebeck has made leading contributions to the fields of organic synthesis and computational mechanistic chemistry, covering a diverse range of subjects such as the use of organogermanes in synthesis and catalysis, the development of efficient methods for the trifluoromethylation of nitrogen groups, and the application of machine learning in the study and development of dinuclear metal complex catalysts.
Learn more about her research
Selection committee co-chairs Dr. Margaret Faul and Prof. Alois Fürstner comment
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Dr. Margaret Faul (AMGEN Inc., USA) says:
Congratulations to Prof. Franziska Schoenebeck on receiving the prestigious Women in Chemistry Award in recognition of her groundbreaking contributions to synthetic organic chemistry and catalysis. Her pioneering research in organogermane cross-coupling, N-trifluoromethyl compound synthesis, and multinuclear metal catalysis have advanced our modern synthetic methodologies and paves the way for transformative applications in pharmaceuticals, materials science, and beyond.
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Prof. Alois Fürstner (MPI Mülheim, Germany) says:
It is truly wonderful to see how the tradition and prestige of the WiC award is continued and reinforced with every round. With Prof. Franziska Schoenebeck, an internationally leading figure is honored who pursues a highly innovative program at the prosperous intersection of synthetic method development, organometallic catalysis, physical-organic chemistry and theory. Among many other things, she succeeded in turning reagents and catalysts into real champions that were previously considered exotic at best.
About Dani Schultz
Dani Schultz obtained her PhD from the University of Michigan (USA), and then was awarded an NIH postdoctoral fellowship to work in the laboratories of Prof. Tehshik Yoon at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA). Dani joined the Process Chemistry group at Merck in Rahway, NJ (USA) in 2014, and she currently holds the position of Director of the Discovery Process Chemistry team.
Dani Schultz is a highly accomplished scientist who has demonstrated leadership, creativity, and ingenuity in her academic and professional career, driving science and culture at Merck and in the broader chemical community. She has influenced the field through the development of new modalities and their rapid translation into the clinic as well as the development of new synthetic methods through leadership in numerous academic collaborations.
Learn more about her research
Selection committee co-chairs Dr. Margaret Faul and Prof. Alois Fürstner comment
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Dr. Margaret Faul (AMGEN Inc., USA) says:
Congratulations to Dr. Dani Schultz as the first industrial recipient of the prestigious Women in Chemistry Award! Her groundbreaking work in synthetic process chemistry, catalysis, and high throughput experimentation has advanced the field, driving innovation and expanding possibilities for advancement of novel therapeutics in the future.
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Prof. Alois Fürstner (MPI Mülheim, Germany) says:
Dr. Dani Schultz is a most deserving recipient of the first Dr. Margaret Faul Women in the Chemical Industry Award. Very much in the best tradition of the namesake of this prize, she excels in her job by combining intriguing real-world-problem solving abilities with true excellence in science.
Members of the 2025 Selection Committee
The selection committee, co-chaired by Margaret Faul and Alois Fürstner, comprised
| Erick M. Carreira | ETH Zurich, Switzerland |
| Pauline Chiu | Hong Kong University, P. R. of China |
| Janine Cossy | ESPCI Paris, France |
| Veronique Gouverneur | University of Oxford, UK |
| Eric N. Jacobsen | Harvard University, MA, USA |
| Cristina Nevado | University of Zurich, Switzerland |
| Michael Pittelkow | University of Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Rebecca T. Ruck | Merck, NJ, USA |
| Wendy Young | Scientific Advisor & Independent Board Member, CA, USA |
About the Dr. Margaret Faul Women in Chemistry and Women in the Chemical Industry Awards
The prizes are awarded to young women of any nationality within the first 15 years of her independent career in chemical research in recognition of the candidate’s outstanding achievements in organic chemistry, broadly defined to include medicinal, biological, organometallic, or materials chemistry, and related areas. The awards are presented every two years and come with a total prize money of 5,000€.
