Kekulé scholarship for Tim Seifert

PhD student Tim Seifert from the Institute of Applied Physics has been awarded the Kekulé Scholarship from the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie (FCI). The doctoral scholarship supports highly talented young scientists in chemistry and chemistry-related subjects for two years. In addition to outstanding academic achievements within the standard period of study, the FCI requires the recipient to be working on a doctorate in a scientifically renowned research group.

Kekulé scholar Tim Seifert from the Institute of Applied Physics. Picture credits: Benjamin Ritter

As part of Professor Uta Schlickum’s working group, Tim Seifert uses the pattern recognition of artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse images from nanoscale microscopy. However, while microscopes take a long time to produce their images and therefore often only have a few hundred available, an AI needs thousands of training images before it can be analysing them with minimal errors. Tim Seifert therefore generates synthetic training images until the AI can automatically find and measure molecules on real data. The interdisciplinary work with project partners such as the TU Institute for Communications Technology and the Institute of Analysis and Algebra opens up scope for numerous collaborations: In addition to research in the QuantumFrontiers Cluster of Excellence and a project with the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart utilised Seifert’s AI for research on sugar molecules.