IBM Fellow Heike Riel Awarded Prestigious Prize for Women

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Jul 02, 2017, 17:52 ET

ARMONK, N.Y., July 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Dr. Heike Riel, an IBM Fellow and executive director of the IBM Research Frontiers Institute and IoT Technology, was named to the EDITION F "25 Women Award" in Germany. The award focuses on 25 women whose inventions have helped change the world.

Heike Riel and her colleague Dario Gil at the IBM Research Frontiers Institute event in Switzerland.

Riel was nominated for her role in the development of the active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) display. AMOLED displays are used in mobile devices, including laptops and smartwatches, and consist of an organic compound that forms an electro-luminescent material. This material reduces the response time to less than a millisecond, and consumes significantly less energy compared to, for example, LCD screens.

Riel studied physics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany) and received a PhD from the University of Bayreuth (Germany). She joined IBM Research – Zurich in 1998 where she developed the technology.

The award winners were chosen by EDITION F, a German news and lifestyle website for women, with cooperation by some of Germany's leading news outlets including Zeit Online, Gründerszene the Handelsblatt, who asked for nominations of women whose inventions have made our life easier, better and more enjoyable.

Other winners include: Prof. Dr. Melanie Blokesch, microbiology; Johanna Ludwig, Co-Founder of Akvola; Prof. Dr. Konstanze Marx, professor for German linguistics; and Marion Merklein, professor of manufacturing technology.

A little known fact about Riel is that she originally apprenticed as a woodmaker creating furniture, which she does today as a hobby.

About IBM Research

For more than seven decades, IBM Research has defined the future of information technology with more than 3,000 researchers in 12 labs located across six continents. Scientists from IBM Research have produced six Nobel Laureates, 10 U.S. National Medals of Technology, five U.S. National Medals of Science, six Turing Awards, 19 inductees in the National Academy of Sciences and 20 inductees into the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame. For more information about IBM Research, visit www.ibm.com/research.

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IBM

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SOURCE IBM