Berzelius Prize for Professor Riikka Puurunen

Photo: Mika Huuhtanen

The Berzelius Medal is given in the honour of the famous Swedish researcher Berzelius. The prize winner has to be aged under 45 years, female every second time and working in a Nordic country. Each country can come up with one proposal. Professor Puurunen was proposed by the Finnish Catalysis Society.

The candidate should have performed research in the field of catalysis and her/his work should have generate a new concept, idea or explanation; a new way to tackle a scientific problem; or an introduction of a new word or phrase that is significant. Candidates are evaluated by 4 international experts (2 female, 2 male) who will make an evaluation report on them.

"I feel extremely grateful and honoured to receive the Berzelius Prize. The prize is a great recognition for my persistent and on-going work to understand the details of atomic layer deposition (ALD). ALD is a technology which was awarded Millennium Technology Prize 2018 and whose importance is growing in the field of catalysis, too," says Professor Puurunen.

Professor Puurunen received the prize at the 18th Nordic Symposium on Catalysis. The event is organized every other year and its aim is to create a breeding ground for ideas by ensuring meetings between researchers and catalyst developers, from academy as well as industry, within all aspects of catalysis.