Podcast "Awarded"

The winners have been announced: FABU is awarding a total of three young talent prizes and three doctoral prizes, as well as a special prize this year.

In cooperation with the Westdeutsche Zeitung, we present the award winners and their research here.

A sat nav calculates the fastest route from A to B. But what if I not only want the fastest route, but also the cheapest route - without tolls, for example? Mathematician Julia Sudhoff Santos addressed this and other similar questions in her doctoral thesis at the University of Wuppertal. She has been awarded the doctoral prize for her work.

When a product is manufactured in industry, it must be of high quality and meet various quality standards. If it only becomes apparent after production that the product is defective, this costs time and money and is not very sustainable. In his doctoral thesis, computer scientist Hasan Tercan developed a model of how artificial intelligence (AI) can predict defects during production - in other words, during the ongoing manufacturing process. We are awarding him the doctoral prize for his work.

Girls are good at languages, but boys are better at math: at least that's the preconception. Theresa Brühl, Pauline Killmer and Verena Piepenstock have investigated how teachers and the type of teaching can influence the performance of boys and girls. We are now awarding them the special prize for their work.

Everyone is talking about bicycles when it comes to sustainability - they are environmentally friendly and usually also keep you fit. But how sustainable is the production of a bicycle? And how could a bicycle become even more sustainable than it already is? Mechanical engineering student Jessica Liesen addressed these questions in her bachelor's thesis. She developed a so-called sustainability index for bicycles and has now been awarded the Young Talent Award for her work.

Renewable energies are currently very popular. However, in order to be able to use them, systems are needed that store the energy until it is needed again. In his master's thesis, mechanical engineer Felix Schönig developed a digital copy of a storage system - and can use it to predict how a machine will react when he turns various adjusting screws.

Migration and integration are an ongoing issue in our fast-paced world. Migrants often have to contend with discrimination and racism - including the French-speaking author Fatou Diome. In her works, she tells how she migrated from Senegal to France and what her experiences were there. In her bachelor's thesis, student teacher Michelle Miedtank investigated how dreams and realities can diverge and analyzed the short story collection "La préférence Nationale" (Native First) and the novel "Le ventre d'Atlantique" (The Belly of the Atlantic).