Bjarne Kreitz, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received the prestigious Hanns-Hofmann Award from the DECHEMA/VDI subject division Reaction Engineering.

DECHEMA is the German equivalent of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. The prize is awarded every year to an outstanding early-career chemical reaction engineer whose innovative research demonstrates a distinctive scientific profile. 

Kreitz won the award for his pioneering work on the automated construction of reaction mechanisms for heterogeneously catalyzed reactions and multiscale modeling with uncertainty quantification.

Kretiz said this work has laid the foundation for a universally applicable framework that enables atomistic insights into complex catalytic processes, which the chemical reaction engineering community can leverage to address key challenges.

He received the honor during the recent Annual Meeting on Reaction Engineering 2025 in Würzburg, Germany. In addition to the 1000 Euro prize, Kreitz delivered a plenary lecture at the conference titled “Progress towards predictive multiscale modeling in heterogeneous catalysis.”

The award is named after Professor Hanns Hofmann, who has significantly shaped chemical reaction engineering in Germany and established it as a distinct academic field of study.