Helmut Schwarz


Helmut Schwarz is a German organic chemist. He has been a professor of chemistry at the Technische Universität Berlin since 1978, and president of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation since January 2008. In 2018, he was elected a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Career

Helmut Schwarz first learned to be a chemical technician and then went on to study chemistry in Berlin Chemie. He completed his studies in 1971 and obtained his PhD in 1972 and his Habilitation in 1974 under :de:Ferdinand Bohlmann|Ferdinand Bohlmann. He pursued post-doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in the UK, after which he became a professor at the TU Berlin in 1978. Schwarz studies chemical reactions, specifically gas phase chemistry of ionic and radical organic species. He is furthermore working on advancing the analytical capabilities of mass spectrometry.
From 2010 to 2015 he was president of the German Academy of Researchers Leopoldina and he is a member of acatech.

Honors and memberships

Schwarz was an editor of the International Journal of Mass Spectrometry from 1983 to 2010 and between 1990 and 1994 he was editor of Chemischen Berichte. He was part of the editorial board of Mass Spectrometry Reviews from 1990 to 2003, of Helvetica Chimica Acta , and of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
He is a member of the following societies
He has received numerous awards and honors, among them