Brigitte Voit (born 1963 in

Bayreuth Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...

) is a German chemist and professor of

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

. She holds the chair Organic Chemistry of Polymers at the Faculty of Chemistry of the

TU Dresden TU Dresden (for german: Technische Universität Dresden, abbreviated as TUD and often wrongly translated as "Dresden University of Technology") is a public research university, the largest institute of higher education in the city of Dresden, th ...

and is head of the Institute of

Macromolecular Chemistry A macromolecule is a very large molecule important to biophysical processes, such as a protein or nucleic acid. It is composed of thousands of covalently bonded atoms. Many macromolecules are polymers of smaller molecules called monomers. The ...

at the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research ( IPF Dresden) in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

. From September 1, 2002 to July 31, 2022 she was also member of the Board of Management/CSO of the IPF Dresden.

Academic career

Voit studied chemistry at the

University of Bayreuth A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

(1982–1987) and was awarded her PhD with distinctions in 1990. During her PhD, she was a visiting researcher at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

. After a postdoctoral stay at the

Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

(now

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

) research laboratories in

Rochester, NY Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in Wes ...

, USA, she received her habilitation from the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Establis ...

in 1996. In 1997 she accepted a full professorship at the TU Dresden, and simultaneously the position as head of the Institute Macromolecular Chemistry at the Leibniz-Institute of Polymer Research Dresden (IPF Dresden). She is a principal investigator in two so-called Clusters of Excellence, the "Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden" (CRTD) and the "Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden" (CfAED), which were distinguished by the

German Universities Excellence Initiative The Excellence Initiative of the German Council of Science and Humanities and the German Research Foundation (DFG) aims to promote cutting-edge research and to create outstanding conditions for young scholars at universities, to deepen cooperatio ...

. From 2011 to 2017 she acted as a speaker of Section D (Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Engineering) of the

Leibniz Association The Leibniz Association (German: ''Leibniz-Gemeinschaft'' or ''Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz'') is a union of German non-university research institutes from various disciplines. As of 2020, 96 non-university research insti ...

and was a member of the Leibniz board. Since 2015 she chairs the Board of Management of the Materialforschungsverbund Dresden (MFD - Materials Research Network Dresden). Voit is a member of the chemistry review board of the

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germ ...

(DFG) and of the

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

(ERC) Evaluation Panel for Starting Grants. She is a board member of several chemistry related scientific journals, for example

Angewandte Chemie ''Angewandte Chemie'' (, meaning "Applied Chemistry") is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that is published by Wiley-VCH on behalf of the German Chemical Society (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker). Publishing formats include feature-length ...

, and part of the executive advisory board of all macromolecular journals of

Wiley Wiley may refer to: Locations * Wiley, Colorado, a U.S. town *Wiley, Pleasants County, West Virginia, U.S. * Wiley-Kaserne, a district of the city of Neu-Ulm, Germany People * Wiley (musician), British grime MC, rapper, and producer * Wiley Mill ...

. Also, Brigitte Voit is a board member of a number of foundations, such as the Georg-Manecke foundation of the

Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker The German Chemical Society (German: ', GDCh) is a learned society and professional association founded in 1949 to represent the interests of German chemists in local, national and international contexts. GDCh "brings together people working in che ...

(GDCh) and the

Karl Heinz Beckurts Karl Heinz Beckurts (born 16 May 1930 in Rheydt; murdered 9 July 1986 in Straßlach near Munich) was a German physicist and research manager. With Karl Wirtz, he wrote a textbook on neutron physics. He was co-editor of the journal '' Nukleonik''. ...

foundation, and belongs to the board of trustees of the

Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (german: , or BAM) is a German material research institute. History Its historical origins start in 1871, a year in which Germany was unified, as the ''Mechanisch-Technische Versuchsansta ...

and the

DECHEMA DECHEMA is an abbreviation for "Deutsche Gesellschaft für chemisches Apparatewesen" (German Society for Chemical Apparatus), though it has since been expanded to "''Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chemische Technik und Biotechnologie''" (German Society ...

, the German Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology. In 2017 she was honored by the "Sächsicher Verdienstorden" (Order of Merit of the Free State of Saxony), and in 2018 she received the Hermann Staudinger Award of the GDCh.

Research

Brigitte Voit research field comprises different areas of polymer related science. She works on

dendrimers Dendrimers are highly ordered, branched polymeric molecules. Synonymous terms for dendrimer include arborols and cascade molecules. Typically, dendrimers are symmetric about the core, and often adopt a spherical three-dimensional morphology. The ...

and hyperbranched polymers, optical and thermo-sensitive polymer materials, graft and

block copolymers In polymer chemistry, a copolymer is a polymer derived from more than one species of monomer. The polymerization of monomers into copolymers is called copolymerization. Copolymers obtained from the copolymerization of two monomer species are some ...

, nanostructure formation via controlled polymer synthesis and efficient polymer analogous reactions. She is also interested in responsive and bioactive polymers and

hydrogels A gel is a semi-solid that can have properties ranging from soft and weak to hard and tough. Gels are defined as a substantially dilute cross-linked system, which exhibits no flow when in the steady-state, although the liquid phase may still di ...

, and worked on polymers for

microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre-sc ...

and

organic electronics Organic electronics is a field of materials science concerning the design, synthesis, characterization, and application of organic molecules or polymers that show desirable electronic properties such as conductivity. Unlike conventional inorga ...

Publications

Voit has published more than 600 articles in peer-reviewed international scientific journals which were cited more than 16000 times, and holds over 35 patents and patent applications.

References

External links

Prof. Dr. Brigitte Voit Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Voit, Brigitte Academic staff of TU Dresden Living people 1963 births 21st-century German chemists 21st-century German inventors University of Bayreuth alumni German women chemists Women inventors Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Free State of Saxony Technical University of Munich alumni People from Bayreuth