Awards In recent months, SNI members have not only been allocated funding from various sources but have also won a series of awards. For example, Professor Sonja Schmid (Department of Chemistry, University of Basel) received the Young Fluorescence Investigator Award 2024 from the Biological Fluorescence Subgroup at the annual conference of the Biophysical Society in February 2024. This prize is awarded to outstanding young researchers at the start of their careers, in recognition of their work on 昀氀uorescence methods. Sonja Schmid received the Young Fluorescence Inves- tigator Award from the Biophysical Society. (Image: H. Sanabria) At the March Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS), it was announced that our former director and honorary member Profes- sor Christian Schönenberger (Department of Physics, University of Basel) is to be honored as one of the APS Outstanding Referees for 2024. The Outstanding Referee program was launched in 2008 and recognizes scientists who have been exceptionally helpful in assess- ing manuscripts for publication in the APS journals. Each year, this highly selective program recognizes some 150 of the around 91,600 active reviewers. Christian Schönenberger was honored as an APS Out- standing Referee for 2024. Thank you and farewell to Michèle, and welcome to Battist! At the end of June, our long-serving outreach manager Dr. Michèle Wegmann is leaving the SNI to focus more closely on children’s edu- cation as an elementary school teacher. Michèle has been a key contact for outreach activities with children and for parts of the Annual Report, the Nano-Argovia pro- gram and numerous SNI events such as the Annual Event and the NanoTec Apéro. We thank her for her dedication over the last eight years and all of her work to support and advance the interests of the SNI — and we wish her all the best as she takes on this new challenge. The nanoscientist Dr. Battist Utinger will join the SNI’s man- agement team on 1 July. His work will focus on getting pupils and high-school students interested in the nanosciences and informing them about the nanoscience degree with a view to boosting student numbers. Battist will also intensify contact with companies and raise awareness of the SNI’s Nano-Argovia program in Northwestern After eight ful昀椀lling years, Michèle Wegmann is leaving Switzerland, as well as taking over Michèle’s tasks in other areas. We the SNI. Battist Utinger will join the SNI management welcome him and look forward to working together! team in July. 24 SNI INSight June 2024