Our Speakers

Please find below a brief introduction of the speakers who are going to talk at DelocChem 2020.

Click their profile pictures to visit their web presence.

PD Dr. Joachim Ballmann

University of Heidelberg

Joachim Ballmann is leading an independent research group at Heidelberg University. After his chemistry studies at the University of Erlangen, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Göttingen under the supervision of Franc Meyer. In 2009, he moved to the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada), where he worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Michael Fryzuk. Thereafter he returned to Germany and completed his habilitation in 2018 at Heidelberg University. His research is focused on the reactivities of novel phosphine ligands, in particular in conjunction with early transition metals.


Prof. Dr. Mu-Hyun Baik

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Mu-Hyun "Mookie" Baik was born in Seoul but grew up in Germany, where his family had moved when he was ten years old. After completing his Vordiplom at the Univ. of Düsseldorf, he moved to the US, obtaining his Ph.D. at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2000. In 2003, he began his independent career at Indiana University Bloomington. After 12 years, Mookie returned to his home country Korea and became a professor of chemistry at KAIST & an associate director of the Institute for Basic Science, the Korean version of the MPI. Mookie is a computational molecular modeler but also carries out experiments in his laboratory, and is interested in organic reaction mechanisms and the electronic structure of catalysts.


Dr. Jan Wenz

ITM AG, Munich

From the beginning, synthetic molecular chemistry was a real passion for Jan Wenz. Starting with preparative organic chemistry, he decided to focus during his PhD on organometallic catalytic application. After a short postdoc with the focus on the main group catalysis, he started his career in the department of molecular imaging at the University Hospital of Ulm, Germany. This opportunity helped him to combine the pleasant and the useful and therefore develop his synthetic and analytic skills and know-how. Today, he is working with a thriving multi-background team as an Expert Sales Manager in a German Pharmaceutical company specialized in the commercialization of Radionuclides to provide cancer patients with a high quality of life. This talk could be seen as kind of a summary of his experiences why it is useful to have a synthetic background.