Winners of the 2026 Elisabeth Bauser Fellowship 

On January 14th, 2026, the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart awarded the Dr. Elisabeth Bauser Fellowship for early-career female researchers to two outstanding scientists.

The fellowship aims to promote women in science from an early stage of their careers, with the ultimate goal of achieving a gender-equal academic environment.

We therefore congratulate the 2026 recipients of the fellowship, Dr. Denise S. Christovam and Dr. Jiyeon Kim.

Denise Christovam obtained her doctoral degree at TU Dresden with a thesis entitled “Unveiling Local Correlations in f Systems on the Verge of Delocalization with X-ray Spectroscopies.” Her research has primarily focused on X-ray spectroscopy experiments, particularly resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS), a technique used to investigate the spectral properties of strongly correlated electron systems, including cerium- and uranium-based materials. Denise Christovam will continue this line of research as a postdoctoral researcher in the Solid State Spectroscopy Department led by Prof. Bernard Keimer at the Max Planck Institute.
Denise Christovam commented: “I hope to learn a great deal and to deepen my knowledge of the techniques I have been working with. I cannot think of a better place to gain a deeper understanding of how RIXS and optical Raman spectroscopy work, and to study cuprates and high-temperature superconductivity, than Professor Keimer’s department.”

Jiyeon Kim obtained her doctoral degree from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology with a thesis entitled “Discovery of Zr Metal-Organic Materials Based on Architectural Motifs of Polygon, Polyhedra, and Frameworks”, and she has already been recognized with several awards, including the Rising Star Award from the Asian Crystallographic Association (AsCA) and the YEBONG Best Research Award, given to the most outstanding doctoral graduate for excellence in research, in 2024.
Jiyeon Kim research has primarily focused on the discovery of novel metal-organic materials. In the coming years, she will work in the Nanochemistry Department led by Prof. Bettina Lotsch at the Max Planck Institute.
Jiyeon Kim stated: “I look forward to growing as an independent researcher. My past research focused on materials design and synthesis, and during my postdoctoral work I would like to connect this background to applied chemistry.”

We wish Denise Christovam and Jiyeon Kim the very best in their research and future careers, and we hope that their achievements will inspire future generations of women in science.

Previous Winners

Previous recipients of the Bauser Fellowship include Dr. Jiaoji Yan (awarded in 2022), who is now a member of the research group of Pablo Jarillo-Herrero at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart; Dr. Maria-Andreea Filip (awarded in 2022), who is currently a Research Fellow in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, UK; and Dr. Shengnan Gao (awarded in 2023), who is now an Associate Professor at Peking University in China.