Yolanda Salinas and Richard Küng were presented with the 2022 Natural Sciences Awards.

As part of a ceremony at the Archbishop's Palace in Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn presented Assoz. Univ. Prof. Dr Richard Küng (Institute for Integrated Circuits) and Priv.-Doz. Dr. Yolanda Salinas (Institute of Polymer Chemistry) with the distinguished award.

The award, endowed with €2,000 in prize money, is presented annually to outstanding young Austrian scholars under the age of 40 in support of advancing science.

The "Austrian Chemical Society" (GÖCH) and the "Austrian Academy of Sciences" (ÖAW) annually honour a habilitation in the field of chemistry that is distinguished by special, interdisciplinary work. This year, Priv.-Doz. Dr. Yolanda Salinas Soler was presented with the 2022 Habilitation Award for Chemistry for her work on "Hybrid functional organic-inorganic materials for nanomedicine and optoelectronics".

Yolanda Salinas earned her post-doc in October 2021 at the Institute of Polymer Chemistry (ICP) as part of Prof. Oliver Brüggemann's group in the subject of Polymer Chemistry and Materials Chemistry.

The award is endowed with €2,000. The awards ceremony took place at the GÖCH General Assembly during the "Austrian Chemistry Days 2022" in Vienna. The meeting was held under the motto "Green Chemistry for Sustainable Europe" and was chaired by GÖCH President Prof. Peter Gärtner.