Debye Annual Lecture
The Debye Annual Lecture is a special annual event at which an internationally renowned scientist delivers a keynote lecture on one of the institute’s fields of interest.
Prof. Dr. Stefano Sacanna
Debye Annual Lecture speaker of 2026
Stefano Sacanna is a full Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the New York University (Molecular Design Institute). He graduated in Chemistry from the University of Bologna and obtained his Ph.D. (cum Laude) in Physical and Colloid Chemistry from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
His research interests include synthesis and design of colloidal model systems, self-assembly, nanostructured and active materials. He has received numerous awards and prizes including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Human Frontiers Science Program Young Investigator Award, and the American Physics Society Early Career Award for Soft Matter Research.
Lecture title:
Abstract:
Program
| 16:00 - 17:00 | LECTURE: Location: |
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| 17:00 - 18:30 | Drinks - |
Previous Annual Lecture speakers:
2025: Prof. Dr. J. Schuck (Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University): Harnessing the power of (photon) avalanches
2024: Prof. Dr. M. Bonn (director department of Molecular Spectroscopy, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz): Water and Graphene: a Quaint Quantum Couple.
2023: Prof. Dr. Philipp Adelhelm Na-Ion Batteries: Energy Storage Based on Abundant Elements
2022: Prof. Hans-Jurgen Butt (Experimental Physics of Interfaces group at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research): Electrostatic charging: the source of the missing force on moving drops
2021: No Debye Annual Lecture due to the Covid-19 pandemic
- 2020: No Debye Annual Lecture due to the Covid-19 pandemic
- 2019: The Debye Institute celebrated its 30th anniversary with a scientific symposium.
- 2018: Prof. Monika Ritsch-Marte (Department for Physiology and Medical Physics, Innsbruck Medical University): Synthetic Holography Trapping and Imaging: The Importance of Shaping Your Wavefront
- 2017: Prof. Ben L. Feringa (Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, Center for Systems Chemistry & Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, the Netherlands, Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2016): The art of building small
- 2016: Prof. Luis M. Liz-Marzán (Center for Cooperative Research in Biomaterials, CIC biomaGUNE, Spain): Composite plasmonic nanomaterials for biosensing and catalysis
- 2015: Prof. Ulrike Diebold (Institute of Applied Physics, Vienna University of Technology, Austria): Surface science studies of an iron oxide model catalyst
- 2014 Jubilee Lecture: Prof. Hans-Joachim Freund (Department of Chemical Physics, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Germany): Models for heterogeneous catalysts: complex materials at the atomic level
- 2014 Jubilee Lecture: Prof. Jan Vermant (Department of Materials, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich, Switzerland / KU Leuven): Colloids at interfaces: how the rules of the game change…
- 2014 Jubilee Lecture: Prof. Romain Quidant (Institute of Photonic Sciences, Spain): Shining a (bright) light on the very small
- 2013: Prof. Martien A. Cohen Stuart (Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter Chair Group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands): Biomimetic materials: from modelatine to viromimic
- 2012: Prof. Ib Chorkendorff (Danish National Research Foundation Center for Individual Nanoparticle Functionality, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark): Heterogeneous catalysis: a part of the solution for future energy conversion