2024 Winners: Dr. Fritz and Gerda Ruf Awards
We are happy to announce the 2024 winners of the Dr. Fritz and Gerda Ruf awards, donated to the University of Freiburg by the benefactors Dr. Fritz and Gerda Ruf. The two prizes are awarded regularly for special achievements in the field of sustainability engineering at the technical faculty.
The 2024 prizes are awarded to:
Dr.-Ing. Alexander Schiffmacher for his dissertation entitled:
New methods to accelerate the validation of the lifetime of highly reliable power semiconductor modules
at the technical faculty of Freiburg.
Winner of the Dr. Fritz Ruf award: Dr.-Ing. Alexander Schiffmacher (center) with Markus Wener (left, Fritz-Hüttinger Stiftung) and the head of the university of Freiburg, Prof. Krieglstein.
Dr. Schiffmacher received the award for the development of in-situ degradation monitoring methods of electronic power modules which are critical for modern efficient power systems. The methods are suitable for the detection of degradations in power electronic modules during active power cycling tests and help to reduce the significant material consumption of modern power systems, such as in chargers in electric cars.
The Gerda Ruf prize for the best master thesis in the field of sustainability engineering is awarded to:
Sebastián Rivero Equiza
for his thesis:
Quantitative resilience assessment of the European power system against compound dry/hot events
at the Department for Sustainable Systems Engineering (INATECH).
Winner of the Gerda Ruf award: Sebastián Rivero Equiza (center) with Markus Wener (left, Fritz-Hüttinger Stiftung) and the head of the university of Freiburg, Prof. Krieglstein.
The thesis by Sebastián Rivero Equiza investigates the impact of compound dry/hot events, specifically heatwaves, on the resilience of the European power system. The study integrates the dependency of thermoelectric power plants and electricity demand on temperature into the open-source power system model PyPSA-EUR. Employing a disturbance theoretical approach, the 2003 heatwave is integrated into a reference system spanning 2020 to 2050.
We congratulate the winners and thank the Fritz-Hüttinger Stiftung for their long term support!