KlarText Prize for Hanna Trzesniowski
Dr Hanna Trzesniowski was honoured with the KlarText Prize for Science Communication © Annette Mueck/Klaus Tschira Stiftung
The chemist has been awarded the prestigious KlarText Prize for Science Communication by the Klaus Tschira Foundation.
Hanna is an alumna of Technische Universität Berlin and the Helmholtz-Zentrum-Berlin. She impressed the jury with her article ‘Small windows, big insights’ and made her research into sustainable hydrogen production understandable to a wide audience.
Every year, the KlarText Prize honours young researchers who present their excellent doctoral thesis to a non-scientific audience in the form of a generally understandable article or a vivid infographic. In 2025, around 200 doctoral candidates from the fields of biology, chemistry, geosciences, computer science, mathematics, neuroscience and physics applied for the award. A total of eight scientists were honoured. The award is endowed with 7,500 euros each.
The award ceremony will take place on 13 November 2025 in Heidelberg. From this date, the award-winning articles will be available in the knowledge magazine ‘KlarText’.
Development of new catalysts
Scientists use so-called operando spectroscopy methods to observe materials directly during their work - as if they were curiously looking through a small window. In her dissertation entitled ‘Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy studies of Ni-based oxygen evolution catalysts in alkaline media’, Dr Hanna Trzesniowski investigated nickel-iron catalysts for water splitting, a key process for sustainable hydrogen production. Using X-rays at the synchrotron source BESSY II, she was able to show that sodium ions penetrate the catalyst layers and stabilise their structure. As a result, the catalysts work more efficiently. Her findings will help to develop new catalysts that can produce hydrogen even more efficiently and cost-effectively.
Hanna Trzesniowski, born in Graz in 1994, studied chemistry at the University of Vienna and moved to TU Berlin for her doctorate in 2020. She was supervised by Prof. Dr Peter Strasser at the Department of Electrocatalysis / Materials at TU Berlin and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB). Hanna Trzesniowski completed her dissertation in 2024. She currently lives and works in the USA.
- What Zinc concentration in teeth revealsTeeth are composites of mineral and protein, with a bulk of bony dentin that is highly porous. This structure is allows teeth to be both strong and sensitive. Besides calcium and phosphate, teeth contain trace elements such as zinc. Using complementary microscopy imaging techniques, a team from Charité Berlin, TU Berlin and HZB has quantified the distribution of natural zinc along and across teeth in 3 dimensions. The team found that, as porosity in dentine increases towards the pulp, zinc concentration increases 5~10 fold. These results help to understand the influence of widely-used zinc-containing biomaterials (e.g. filling) and could inspire improvements in dental medicine.
- Element cobalt exhibits surprising propertiesThe element cobalt is considered a typical ferromagnet with no further secrets. However, an international team led by HZB researcher Dr. Jaime Sánchez-Barriga has now uncovered complex topological features in its electronic structure. Spin-resolved measurements of the band structure (spin-ARPES) at BESSY II revealed entangled energy bands that cross each other along extended paths in specific crystallographic directions, even at room temperature. As a result, cobalt can be considered as a highly tunable and unexpectedly rich topological platform, opening new perspectives for exploiting magnetic topological states in future information technologies.
- Bernd Rech elected to the BR50 Board of DirectorsThe Scientific Director at Helmholt-Zentrum Berlin is the new face behind the "Natural Sciences" unit at Berlin Research 50 (BR50). Following the election in December 2025, the constituent meeting of the new BR50 Board of Directors took place on 22 January 2026.
Its members are Michael Hintermüller (Weierstrass Institute, WIAS), Noa K. Ha (German Centre for Integration and Migration Research, DeZIM), Volker Haucke (Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology, FMP), Uta Bielfeldt (German Rheumatism Research Centre Berlin, DRFZ) and Bernd Rech (HZB).