Irina Smirnova

Since 2008 Irina Smirnova is a Professor at the Hamburg University of Technology, Hamburg, Germany. She serves as the Head of the Institute of Thermal Separation Processes and vice-president of research of the TUHH. Her research interests include nanocellulose; flame retardants; aerogels; trimethoxymethylsilane; and thermal insulation. Before that, the engineer was a visiting scientist at Sogang University in South Korea and worked until 2008 as a group leader and postdoctoral candidate at the Institute for Thermodynamics and Thermal Process Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin and at the Institute for Thermal Process Engineering at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Smirnova studied physical chemistry at the State University of St. Petersburg and received her doctorate in 2002 from the Technical University of Berlin on the synthesis and application of aerogels in process engineering. She completed her postdoctoral qualification in 2008 at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. In her scientific career, she has also been awarded the DECHEMA Young Academic Award, the Hamburg Teaching Award and the Ralf Dahrendorf Prize opens in new tab/window .