15 November 2024

Silke Stähler-Schöpf awarded the Georg Kerschensteiner Prize

For more than ten years, Silke Stähler-Schöpf has successfully led the PhotonLab, a student laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics. Since 2019, MCQST has actively supported the lab and its efforts to inspire fascination for quantum physics among students and teachers alike.

This year alone, nearly 3,000 students visited PhotonLab to explore experiments on lasers, light, and quantum physics. When visits to the lab were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Stähler-Schöpf together with MCQST's support brought the experiments into students’ homes, creating digital learning formats that have since become a permanent part of the programme. Alongside these efforts, Silke Stähler-Schöp and her team offer teacher training, run student internships, support well-known physics competitions, and engage in additional outreach projects. For her extensive contributions to physics education, Silke Stähler-Schöpf receives the 2025 Georg-Kerschensteiner Prize, awarded annually by the German Physical Society.

“I’m absolutely delighted to receive this recognition for my work in the student lab. I especially want to thank my supervisor, Ferenc Krausz—without his brilliant idea, the lab wouldn’t exist today—as well as the other directors and, of course, my team,” said Silke Stähler-Schöpf, head of PhotonLab.

The Georg-Kerschensteiner Prize is one of several awards that PhotonLab and its head have earned in recent years. The Munich student lab network LernortLabor has honoured PhotonLab in the categories “Digital Student Lab,” twice for “Experiment of the Year,” and “Student Project of the Year.”

The PhotonLab began its activity in 2011. Previously a museum educator, Silke Stähler-Schöpf built the lab from scratch, fuelled by a desire to inspire young people about the world of physics. “The experiments speak for themselves; they can engage even those who might not naturally take to physics, while deepening the passion of those already interested. I love developing new materials that make complex topics simple and surprising,” she explains.

Silke Stähler-Schöpf has always approached her work broadly, as demonstrated by her various activities and projects beyond the lab. These include the children’s audio play "Alice in Quantumland" (produced by Veit Ziegelmaier), the outreach project “Quanten(t)räume”, and several teacher training programmes that bring her innovative approaches directly into classrooms. PhotonLab also takes part in exhibitions and events at the Deutsches Museum: “We need to step outside our ivory tower and show as many people as possible what science is all about.”

About the Georg Kerschensteiner Prize

The Georg Kerschensteiner Prize is awarded by the German Physical Society (DPG) for outstanding achievements in the dissemination of physics with broad public impact (outreach), in physics education at the university and continuing education level, in the research of teaching and learning processes in the field of physics education, or in the development and research of new concepts and media for teaching.

Article adapted from the original posted by MPQ.