Sigrid Peyerimhoff (born 1937): From physics to quantum chemistry

Sigrid Peyerimhoff studied physics, but was already working on quantum-chemical calculations in her doctoral thesis. In 1972, she became Professor of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Bonn. For a long time, she was the only woman to hold such a chair.

Sigrid Peyerimhoff was born on 12 January 1937 in Rottweil, the oldest town in Baden-Württemberg. She grew up in Heidenheim an der Brenz, where she completed her Abitur in 1956. She then decided to study physics at Justus Liebig University Gießen, graduating with a diploma in 1961. Among her academic teachers was the renowned physicist Wilhelm Hanle (1901–1993), a student of James Franck (1882–1964). The latter received the Nobel Prize in physics together with Gustav Hertz in 1925.

In her doctoral thesis at the University of Gießen, Peyerimhoff worked under the supervision of Bernhard Kockel (1909–1987), Professor of Theoretical Physics, on quantum-chemical calculations of the hydrogen fluoride molecule. She received her doctorate in 1963.

As a postdoctoral researcher, Peyerimhoff worked in the USA until 1967. Initially, as a Volkswagen Foundation fellow, she worked at the University of Chicago with Clemens Roothaan (1918–2019) and Robert Mulliken (1896–1986). Mulliken received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1966 for his fundamental contributions to the electronic structure of molecules and to chemical bonding. Further research stays took Peyerimhoff to Washington State University in Seattle and subsequently – on leave from her position in Gießen – to Princeton University in New Jersey and Michigan State University.

In 1967, she completed her habilitation in theoretical physics at the University of Gießen. She then taught in Gießen for another two years as a lecturer before moving to Mainz as a senior academic counsellor and professor. During this period, she spent several visiting periods in the USA at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in Lincoln. There, she and the US chemist Robert Buenker (born 1942) had access to a powerful computer for their complex calculations. Peyerimhoff and Buenker, who had previously been a visiting professor in Gießen and Mainz, maintained a long-standing collaboration. In her mid-thirties, in 1972, Peyerimhoff accepted an appointment to the Chair of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Bonn. For a long time, she remained the only woman in Germany to hold such a chair.

Peyerimhoff made fundamental contributions to ab initio calculations in quantum chemistry. These are methods for solving the Schrödinger equation using only natural constants. This work was also significant for environmentally relevant reactions in the atmosphere, such as those involving ozone. In total, Peyerimhoff published around 500 studies in scientific journals and edited volumes. In 1988, she received the Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation, one of Germany’s most important Young Scientist Awards. She was granted emeritus status at the University of Bonn in 2002.

Peyerimhoff also took on important responsibilities and held various positions in scientific societies and committees. In 1987, for example, she was a founding member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and from 1990 to 1996 she was Vice-President of the German Research Foundation. In 1999, she was appointed a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, which awarded her the Cothenius Medal for her life’s work in 2007. Peyerimhoff is also a member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering, the Academia Europaea and the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts. From 2006 to 2009, she was President of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, to which she had been elected in 1986.

In 2008, Peyerimhoff was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. The oldest German scientific society, the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, founded in 1822, awarded her the Alexander von Humboldt Medal in 2018.

Since 2020, the Bonn University Foundation has awarded the Sigrid Peyerimhoff Young Scientist Award and the Sigrid Peyerimhoff Research Award. The award not only recognises outstanding research, Peyerimhoff, the benefactor, explained when the endowment fund was established: “It is also a sign of encouragement and motivation to find and dare to take the path into science, and to follow it. A path that has given me so much.” Since 2021, the Working Group Theoretical Chemistry of the German Chemical Society has also awarded the Sigrid Peyerimhoff PhD Award for outstanding doctoral theses in the field of theoretical chemistry.

Current: In 2022, the GDCh awarded Sigrid Peyerimhoff the Erich Hückel Award. Read the interview with the award winner (published in "Nachrichten aus der Chemie", April 2022).

September 2022: Prof. Sigrid Peyerimhoff (centre) at the awards ceremony with GDCh Past President Prof. Peter R. Schreiner and laudator Prof. Dr. Christel Marian.