Bayreuth professor receives the Laudise Medal

Christoph Helbig "has been an active member of ISIE since 2015 and has contributed significantly to the society's activities", writes the organization. The ISIE award committee is "deeply impressed" by Helbig's "outstanding scientific contributions", which includes works on the criticality of raw materials, geopolitical risks and dissipative losses in Life Cycle Impact Assessments. The jury is made up of the renowned scientists Stefanie Hellweg, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Ming Xu, Tsinghua University Beijing, Andrea Hicks, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Shinichiro Nakamura, Waseda University Tokyo and Yuan Yao, Yale University.

The award is named after Robert Laudise, a pioneer in the growth of quartz crystals who served as Director of Materials Research at Bell Labs, among other positions. It is awarded every two years to researchers under 36, Helbig is 34 years old. ISIE promotes industrial ecology as a way to tackle the challenges of sustainability and realize a circular economy. It connects scientists, engineers, policy makers, managers and advocates who are interested in better integrating environmental concerns and economic activities.

Helbig says: "For me, receiving the Laudise Medal is an honor in recognition of ten years of research in the field of industrial ecology since I graduated from the University of Augsburg. The award is an incentive to continue working in the field of material flow analysis for metals, critical raw materials and life cycle assessment for material cycles. We continue to dedicate ourselves to these topics at the Chair of Ecological Resource Technology of the University of Bayreuth. I thank the ISIE and the committee for the award and I look forward to further actively contribute to the society."