Martina Havenith
ETH-FAST Fellow from April 16 - 25, 2014

Martina Havenith
C4-Professor (chair) Department of Physical Chemistry,
Laserspectroscopy and Biophotonics
Institute for Physical Chemistry II, Building NC 7/72
Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Prof. Martina Havenith pioneered THz absorption spectroscopy as a new tool to study hydration dynamics in 2006.
A hot topic and covered during her lectures this week.
Key references:
1) "Solute-induced retardation of water dynamics probed directly by terahertz spectroscopy"
PNAS 103, 12301, 2006

2) "An extended dynamical hydration shell around proteins"
PNAS 104, 20749, 2007

3) "Correlated structural kinetics and retarded solvent dynamics at the metalloprotease active site"
Nat. Struc. & Mol. Bio 18, 1102, 2011

Tutorial topics:
- THz sources and THz applications – an overview (
THz Overview)
- Some like it cool – THz absorption studies of as a tool to study biomolecular hydration (
Some Like it Cool)
- Watching the dance of water in the hydration shell of ions and biomolecules in the THz frequency range (
THz Dance)
- Observing the rattling modes of ions in the THz Range (
Ion Rattling)
Date and Time: Tuesday, 22. April, 13:15 - 16:00 and Friday, 25. April 9:15 - 12:00
Location: ETH Hönggerberg HCI D8
Certificate: If you need a certificate for credit points, please contact Jan van Beilen ( ja n. va nb ei le n@ ph ys .e th z. ch )
Martina Havenith studied physics and received her Ph.D. and Habilitation at the University of Bonn, Germany. She was a research associate and associate professor, also at the University of Bonn, before she took the C4-professor (chair) position at the Ruhr-University Bochum. She founded and currently serves as the director of the RESOLV excellence cluster (evaluated by DFG), and received a range of honors, awards and fellowships.
- 4/1984-7/1987 Grant of the “Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”, (German National Academic Foundation)
- 8/1987-7/1988 Oversea Grant of the German National Academic Foundation
- 10/1988-7/1990 PhD Grant of the German National Academic Foundation
- 3/1995 Bennigsen-Foerder-Award of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
- 2/1995-1/1998 Habilitation grant of the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft”, (German Science Foundation)
- 7-8/1998 Heisenberg grant of the German Science Foundation
- since 2002 Full Member of the Academy of Science of North Rhine-Westphalia
- 2003 Visiting Fellow, Exeter College, University of Oxford
- 3/2004 Human Frontier Science Programme (HFSP) Award
- 8/2006 Offer: Chair of Physical Chemistry, University of Würzburg, declined
- since 2007 Member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina
- 5/2008 Rubitec Innovation Prize 2007 (Organization for Innovation and Technology at Ruhr University Bochum)