25 Juni 2026
The renowned scientist Prof. Iryna Zenyuk from the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Prize by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. As part of this award, she will spend several months conducting research at the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI ERN), a branch office of Forschungszentrum Jülich. There, she will work alongside researchers on electrochemical processes in Sustainable Energy Systems. The collaboration with HI ERN is intended to advance our understanding of transport processes in hydrogen technologies and the development of new measurement methods.
With this prize, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation honours internationally outstanding scientists for their overall scientific achievements and scientific excellence. The prize includes an invitation to undertake a research stay of several months in Germany, with the aim of expanding existing collaborations and developing new research approaches.
"Professor Iryna Zenyuk is a leading international figure in the field of electrochemical energy systems and is carrying out pioneering work in the development of advanced imaging and modelling techniques for investigating fuel cells, electrolysers and batteries across various scales. Her research has identified crucial transport and degradation processes that are key to hydrogen and clean energy technologies. In Germany, she is further advancing research into sustainable energy technologies using unique electrochemical in-situ/operando methods. "We are very much looking forward to intensifying our collaboration during her sabbatical at HI ERN, which is funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award," says Prof. Karl Mayrhofer, director of the Institute of Energy Technologies at Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI ERN). He had nominated Prof. Zenyuk.
Der Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel-Forschungspreis der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung zählt zu den bedeutenden internationalen Wissenschaftsauszeichnungen Deutschlands. Er wird an Forschende aus dem Ausland vergeben, die sich durch herausragende wissenschaftliche Leistungen auszeichnen. Die Preisträgerinnen und Preisträger werden von Forschenden in Deutschland nominiert. Ziel des Programms ist es, den internationalen wissenschaftlichen Austausch zu fördern und langfristige Kooperationen mit deutschen Forschungseinrichtungen aufzubauen.
Iryna V. Zenyuk completed her Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. She subsequently completed her Master's and PhD studies at Carnegie Mellon University, where she conducted her doctoral research in Shawn Litster's research group on mesoscale interfacial transport phenomena and electric double layers in fuel cells. This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2014-2015) in Adam Weber's group, where she focused in particular on investigating water management in PEM fuel cells using X-ray CT and modelling. She took up her first academic post at Tufts University (2015-2018) before moving to the University of California, Irvine in 2018. There, she is now a professor, heads the National Fuel Cell Research Centre and also serves as the founding director of an institute for sustainability.
