They are active as volunteers and excel academically: on Tuesday, 10 December 2024, two international junior researchers were awarded the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) prize and the International Office (HI) university award. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Regina Nogueira, vice president for international affairs and sustainability at Leibniz University Hannover (LUH), and Susanne Otte from DAAD handed out the prizes in the Leibniz Hall of the Leibnizhaus Conference Centre and Guest Residence.
Jorge Badilla-Solórzano of Costa Rica received the DAAD prize, worth 1,000 euros. He completed the master's degree programme in Mechatronics with distinction and also holds two bachelor's degrees, one in Mechanical Engineering and one in Electrical Engineering.
According to the nomination letter for the prize, Jorge Badilla-Solórzano has brilliantly mastered the linguistic and cultural challenges of a completely German-language setting. He has also demonstrated outstanding achievement within an interdisciplinary and heterogeneous research project on robotic scrub nurses. He has engineering skills and is an innovative thinker. Additionally, he has made a fundamental contribution to the grasping of surgical instruments through the development of a new hybrid gripper. Jorge Badilla-Solórzano came to LUH as a student in 2017, with funding through the ALECOSTA Alemania – Costa Rica scholarship. He has since received numerous awards, including the Lindemann scholarship for his contributions in the technical and natural science disciplines. He continues to maintain close contact and active exchange with his home university, the University of Costa Rica, and still supervises course projects there from Hannover.
Jorge Badilla-Solórzano was nominated by Dr.-Ing. Thomas Seel of the Institute of Mechatronic Systems.
Anusha Kishore of India is a research staff member at the Centre of Biomolecular Drug Research and is completing her doctorate in the area of nanotechnology. She was awarded the International Office prize, worth 500 euros.
Anusha Kishore has a broad range of knowledge in the area of chemical functionalisation and its application. She received numerous awards during her master's studies in India. She ultimately received a DAAD-IIT exchange scholarship in recognition of her master's thesis, the funding from which has enabled her to pursue her doctorate at LUH. Prior to coming to LUH, she was part of a collaborative project at the University of Giessen from 2020 to 2022. To date, Anusha Kishore has published four academic articles where she was the lead author and one where she was the co-author. She also played a central role in acquiring start-up funding as part of the SMINT@Hannover Hightech Incubator funded by the NBank and the state of Lower Saxony, and she coordinated the work connected with this undertaking. Anusha Kishore volunteers with the Indian Association of Hannover. She is also the university representative for Indian students in Germany as well as an active member and the current president of the DAAD IndiAlumni association.
Anusha Kishore was nominated by PD Dr. Carsten Zeilinger from the Centre of Biomolecular Drug Research.
