Michael studied chemistry at the RWTH Aachen University. After receiving his doctoral degree he moved to Vancouver and worked with Prof. MacLachlan at the University of British Columbia. Since 2014 he leads his independent research group on Supramolecular Functional Materials at the University Duisburg-Essen.
 

Darius studied industrial design at the KHK, the University of Art and Design in Kassel. For the past ten years, he has been intensively working on the design of products and has specialized in additive manufacturing processes and prototyping. In his career to date, he has worked for many renowned companies and designers. At his former employer, the company Kennwert KW GmbH, he worked as a senior design engineer for four years. He has received numerous awards and nominations for his work. One of his latest projects, a 3D-printed prototype, is now part of the collection of one of the world‘s most leading design museums, the Vitra Design Museum.

Back in his schooldays, Meik already had a growing interest in chemistry and he knew he would study the subject once. Therefore he began his studies in chemistry at the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2012. After finishing his bachelor thesis in inorganic chemistry, he also concluded his master thesis at the same department. On this occasion he deepened his knowledge in metal-organic chemistry by his works on heterobimetallic Indium-compounds. Although his previous works have taken place in inorganic chemistry, he joined Jun. Prof. Dr. Michael Giese´s Group for his PhD in organic chemistry in February 2018. Currently he is working on hydrogen-bond induced twist-bend nematogens.

Raised in Dinslaken, a town in the northwestern part of the Ruhr district, he decided to study at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf to obtain his Bachelor and Master's degree from 2011-2017. As a part of his studies, he worked on the synthesis and characterization of functionalized smart polymers for material and biomedical applications under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Laura Hartmann and Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stephan Schmidt. After graduating, he eventually joined the Giese Group in February 2018 as a PhD to broaden his horizon in materials science and supramolecular chemistry. He is currently researching hydrogen bond-induced chiral-nematic mesophases.

Alexander has always been curios about how mechanisms work, a trait he kept ever since. After the discovery of the manipulation of substances by mixing them, he found his love for chemistry to the discontent of his Mother. Many ruined shirts and other mishaps later he decided after school to first become a lab technician and then studied chemistry at the Westfälische Hochschule from 2007-2013. He finished his bachelor thesis at ACTEGA Terra on the topic “Dual-cure coatings for the paper industry”. Alexander achieved his Master degree at the department of organic chemistry at the University Duisburg-Essen under the supervision of Jun. Prof. Dr. Michael Giese. Following this, he stayed in the group of Michael as PhD student and continued his work on supramolecular orthogonal binding motifs for functional materials.

Felix, originally from a small town near Haßfurt in Franconia, set off to study chemistry in at the University of Würzburg. He prepared his Bachelor thesis on the synthesis and characterisation of dithienopyrroles as acceptor materials for organic electronics under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Frank Würthner. For his Master thesis he continued his work on dye chemistry concerning hydroxy substituted perylene bisimides in the same group. In October 2019 he joined the Giese group and is currently investigating the stabilisation of blue-phase liquid crystalls.

Thorben was interested in chemistry since he learned about the subject and was curious how materials of all kinds are made from a molecular point of view. Following that interest he started to study Chemistry at the University of Duisburg-Essen. In 2014 he started his Bachelor degree and completed it in 2018 with a Bachelor thesis on supramolecular materials based on dynamic covalent chemistry and zwitterionic interactions in the working group of Prof. Dr. Carsten Schmuck. To finish his Master`s degree he joined the Giese Group and is currently working on his Master`s thesis with the goal to develop new functional luminescent liquidcrystalline materials which can be manipulated by dynamic covalent chemistry for tailor-made properties.