IAER-Awards 2026

Award handed to Franziska Fuchs and Stefan Grosenick

At the 16th Water Research Horizon Conference, two master’s theses in aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem research were honored. Florian Leese personally presented the award to M.Sc. Franziska Fuchs (University of Duisburg-Essen), who was in attendance at the conference in Berlin. Franziska Fuchs was honored for her research on “Amphibians as indicators of floodplain condition: A methodological comparison of the BioAu method and eDNA metabarcoding, using the River Oder as an example.”

The second IAER Award went to M.Sc. Stefan Grosenick of the Linksniederrheinische Entwässerungs-Genossenschaft (LINEG) for his work on “Evaluation of environmental DNA-based monitoring of fish communities in the area of the Linksniederrheinische Entwässerungs-Genossenschaft (LINEG).” An interesting side note: Stefan Grosenick was previously the very first recipient of the WSA Career Navigator Scholarship – a program designed to specifically support young talents on their career paths.

The winners were selected by a jury consisting of Dr. Ingrid Chorus, Prof. Dr. Mark Gessner, and Dr. Marie Brasseur, to whom we extend our heartfelt thanks for their expert evaluation.

The IAER Award is made possible by the Center for Water and Environmental Research (ZWU) at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) – under the direction of Prof. Dr. Florian Leese—in cooperation with the Stifterverband. We warmly congratulate both award recipients on their forward-looking contributions to sustainable water and environmental research!