
Awards, prizes, contests
Best degree, outstanding research work, innovation competition - at the TUM School of Life Sciences we live the proud tradition of promoting young talent.
This includes honoring our young talents - the pioneers for a sustainable and liveable future, the TUM junior scientists and researchers. A heartfelt thank you to our sponsors and partners, to the participating foundations and associations for their commitment and cooperation in the field of promoting young talent!
Looking back to the year 2021, Freising's Lord Mayor Tobias Eschenbacher honored the winners of the best master's theses in the academic year 2020/2021 in a video message.
The best theses from each of the six fields of study were honored, all of which received a grade of 1.0. The winners each received €250 in prize money from the city of Freising.
The winners in the 2020/21 academic year are Carolin Betz (Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences), Clara Igisch (Biosciences), Lukas Viebahn (Brewing and Food Technology), Ana Ivić (Nutritional Science and Food Chemistry) Leonie Wagner (Forestry Science and Resource Management) and Tiia Haberstok (Landscape Architecture and Landscape Planning).
They were awarded for the following work:
- Carolin Betz: Climate Emergency: Nothing but a Symbol or Driver of More Ambitious Local
Climate Policies in Germany?
Tiia Haberstok: Soil structural development in a rehabilitated open-cast mine site in south-east Australia - Clara Igisch: Functional and molecular characterization of the CRIB domain-containing barley proteins HvRIC163 and HvRIC194.
- Ana Ivić: Characterization of natural compounds from Xeroderris stuhlmannii
- Lukas Viebahn: Comprehensive study of the supercritical CO2 extraction of volatiles from hop pellets: experiments and modelling
- Leonie Wagner:Tree species identification with high-resolution, multi-temporal multispectral data.
A knowledge-based and object-oriented approach

At the 2021 digital New Year's reception, Freising's mayor Tobias Eschenbacher honored the winners of the best master's theses in the 2019/2020 academic year in a video message.
The best theses from each of the six fields of study were honored, all of which received a grade of 1.0. The winners each receive €250 in prize money from the city of Freising.
The winners in the 2019/20 academic year are Clara Wagner (Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences), Marie-Louise Kowollik (Biosciences), Deborah Kracheletz (Brewing and Food Technology), Franziska Baumann (Nutritional Sciences), Benjamin Franklin Meyer (Forest Sciences and Resource Management) and Fabian Sauter (Landscape Architecture and Landscape Planning).
They were awarded for the following work:
- Clara Wagner: The Role of Mindsets in Succession Processes in Agri- and Horticultural Family Businesses
- Deborah Kracheletz: Simulation of molecular diffusion in a single particle and a packed bed on the example of espresso extraction and chocolate conching – A comparison of different approaches
- Marie-Luise Kowollik: Characterization of a new species of the genus Ruminiclostridium isolated from a biogas digester.
- Franziska Baumann: Purification of human TIMP-4 protein and initial investigation of its non-canonical functions.
- Benjamin Franklin Meyer: Higher vulnerability of beech to drought: a multimethod dendroecological analysis.
- Fabian Sauter: Competition along productivity gradients – A case study with the rare arable plant Arnoseris minima (L.) Schweigg. & Körte

At the New Year's Reception 2020, Freisings Lord Mayor Tobias Eschenbacher once again awarded prizes for the best final theses of the students. Six master's theses, all of which received the dream grade of 1.0, were awarded prize money of 250 €. The winners in the academic year 2018/2019 are Samira Dietze (Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences), Kim Wagner (Biosciences), Lena Dworschak (Brewing and Food Technology), Josef Ranner (Nutritional Sciences), Kristina Witzgall (Forestry and Resource Management) and Markus Bauer (Landscape Architecture and Landscape Planning).

The iGEM Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of synthetic biology, education and competition, and the development of open community and collaboration.
The main program of iGEM is the iGEM Competition, an annual worldwide event in the field of synthetic biology, which is aimed at undergraduate students as well as high school and university graduates. The iGEM competition gives students the opportunity to push the boundaries of synthetic biology by addressing everyday problems facing the world. Multidisciplinary teams work together to design, build, test and measure a self-designed system using interchangeable biological parts and standard molecular biology techniques.
In 2016, a joint team from LMU Munich and TU Munich, supported by Prof. Dr. Arne Skerra from the Chair of Biological Chemistry, won the gold medal in several categories. Read more

Award 2022
Every year, the best graduates in the field of Brewing, Food Technology and Pharmaceutical Bioprocess Engineering are awarded.
"You can be very proud of yourself", says Heiko Briesen, head of the Chair of Process Systems Engineering at the TUM School of Life Sciences and organizer of the awards ceremony.
The best graduates are in the year 2022:
- Florian Burgert: Brewing with degree Master brewer (Diplom-Braumeister)
- Michael Haas: Brewing and beverage technology B.Sc.
- Lukas Viebahn: Brewing and beverage technology M.Sc.
- Ioan-Lucian Mitrofan: Food Technology and Biotechnology B.Sc.
- Lukas Hans: Food Technology and Biotechnology M.Sc
- Thomas Westenrieder: Pharmaceutical Bioprocess Engineering, B.Sc.
- Rebecca Lüttich: Pharmaceutical Bioprocess Engineering M.Sc
The Hans-Joachim Boekstegers Prize for the best Master's Thesis in the field of food and packaging technology went to Luisa Kristina Murer for her work entitled: „Inluence factors for the occurrence of microplastics during the manufacture of food packs made from plastic films".
The prize money of €500 to €1.000 was donated by the industrial companies Krones AG, Multivac Sepp Haggenmüller SE & Co. KG, GEA Brewery Systems GmbH, Sartorius AG, Rentschler Biopharma SE as well as by the Association of Former Weihenstephaners and the Association of Dairy Farmers.
Award 2021
Since 2012, the Innovation Competition for Beverages & Food (IGL) has been a project carried out at TUM in Weihenstephan in which students can carry out product development independently.
Innovation competition 2021
Innovation competition 2019
The sixth round of the innovation competition ended with the award ceremony at BrauBeviale 2019. After an exciting preliminary round in June, the finals of both categories of the IGL took place at the end of October.
In the Food category, which was only held for the second time, the Team Mir Schmeckt das won second place with their Bratling made from spent grains, the Treberling. The winner was Team Bürze (Ulrike Schweiger, Theresa Jesch, Kristina Oltrogge and Johanna Fellermeier) with a gluten-free, low-salt buckwheat-based seasoning sauce.
Three teams competed against each other in the Beverages category: Team Braubagasch took third place with a "Radler" beer with black tea bergamot flavor. Second place went to Team Neomyces and their non-alcoholic beer. The Team Keferment of Sebastian Sirbu and Sabine Winkler was the winner of the IGL Beverage with their non-alcoholic drink based on water kefir.

The Audi Foundation for Environment has created the SRM Award to promote outstanding achievements in the field of sustainable resource management. The prize is awarded to graduates of the Master's program in Sustainable Resource Management who, with their final thesis, contribute to a sustainable interaction between mankind, nature and technology. The SRM Award is endowed with EUR 1,500 and was presented for the first time in 2011.
In 2021, the two researchers, Astrid Manciu and Tiffany Yu, received the award for their master's theses in the Sustainable Research Management (SRM) program at the TUM School of Life Sciences Freising-Weihenstephan. In her work, Astrid Manciu focused on the role of vegetation in the climate system and Tiffany Yu investigated the effects of proximity to nature on human health. Learn more
In 2020, the "Sustainable Resource Management Award" (SRM) went to Dayana Ramirez Gutierrez, a young researcher at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). In her master's thesis, the researcher deepened her knowledge of "Stakeholder Knowledge Mapping" (SKM) and developed a concept for initial operationalization.