At an international conference entitled EU-ASIA Workshop on Sustainable Technologies, he was awarded an honorary professorship by Emeritus Rector Vaclav Snasel yesterday and gave an introductory lecture entitled Carbon Nanostructures by Design.
Professor Müllen served for more than 20 years as director of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, was president of the German Chemical Society, and is a member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
"It is a great honor to be here and to work with you," said Müllen after receiving his honorary professorship.
CEET Director Stanislav Misak described Professor Müllen's arrival at VSB-TUO as the "transfer of the year." "I have two reasons to be happy. First, I sense a very creative atmosphere at the conference, and second, I can welcome Klaus Müllen as a new member of our academic family. It is a great honor to have him at our center," said Misak at the opening of the conference, thanking MEL director Radek Zboril for bringing the top researcher to Ostrava. The MEL director emphasized that the collaboration with the chemist has already resulted in the first joint publications.
"Several researchers working at MEL, as well as participants in the workshop, have previously worked with Prof. Müllen in Mainz, Germany. Like them, I am looking forward to new joint projects with one of the world's best chemists," added Zboril.
The conference, which runs until September 12, will feature a number of leading researchers from Japan, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, China, Poland, and the Czech Republic. On the first day, participants listened to a lecture by Prof. Müllen, learned about the MERGE and SAN4Fuel projects, and toured the MEL facilities.
Text: Martina Šaradínová
Photo: Petr Havlíček