Mario Markus Prize for Ludic Science

Dr. Lauren Niu is awarded the Mario Markus Prize 2025 for her innovative insights into the geometry of knitted fabrics. She discovered that even simple stitches, such as knit and purl, lead to complex geometric patterns. Instead of modelling the material at the level of individual stitches, she created swatches, large-scale models and hand-knitted fabrics. She observed that the swatches tend to roll up, generating Gaussian curvature. She proposed that knitted fabrics could be modelled as thin elastic sheets that maintain their area while forming saddle points, with orientations varying between knit and purl.
Her playful approach to research reflects the criteria for which the Mario Markus Prize is awarded.

• Field: Ludic Natural Sciences
• Consists of: €10,000, travel expenses, certificate
• First awarded: 2022

Prof. Dr. Mario Markus is the donor of the award. He grew up as the child of German parents in Chile, where he studied mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago. In 1965, he continued his studies of mathematics and physics in Heidelberg, where he also received his doctorate in 1973. Prof. Markus conducted research at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt am Main in 1974 before moving to the Max Planck Institute for Nutritional Physiology (now MPI for Molecular Physiology) in Dortmund in 1975 as a research associate in the department of the biochemist and biophysicist Benno Hess. In 1988, he completed his habilitation at the University of Dortmund, where he initially worked as a Privatdozent and, from 1997, as an associate professor. Prof. Markus has led his own research group at the MPI of Molecular Physiology since 1993.