Anna Köhler

Anna Köhler is a German physicist who is a Professor of Physics at the University of Bayreuth. Her research considers electronic processes in organic and organometallic molecules. She makes use of optical and electrical spectroscopy to better understand photo-physical processes. In 2020, she became the first woman to win the Max Born Medal and Prize.

Early life and education

Köhler is from Germany.

Köhler enrolled at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1989, receiving a diploma in physics in 1998 (based on the date of her last exam) and an intermediate diploma in mathematics in 1992. In the meantime, Köhler also attended the University of Cambridge, UK from 1992 to 1997, achieving a Masters in mathematics (1993) and a PhD through a fellowship at Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, UK (1997). In particular, Köhler has studied the spin states of organic semiconductors. Köhler was made executive director of the University of Bayreuth Centre of International Excellence in 2019.. In 2022, Köhler was elected as a full member of the section III of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the fourth scientist and the first woman ever to do so.

She is the lead of a Horizon 2020 international training network on thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) OLEDs. She is interested in the photophysical processes leading to bright OLEDs, as well as in those making organic solar cells more efficient.

Köhler is also an Associate Investigator for the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science.

Awards and honours

1989 Fulbright Program Scholarship 1999 Royal Society University Research Fellowship 2020 Max Born Medal and Prize

Selected publications

Books