Free University of Berlin

Ian Johnson is a writer and journalist, working primarily in China and Germany. A reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Johnson won the 2001 Pulitzer... Prize for his coverage of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. His reporting from China was also honored in 2001 by the Overseas Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2004, Johnson published Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China , which was later released in paperback and has been translated into several languages. Born in Montreal, Canada, Johnson is a naturalized United States citizen who lives in Berlin, Germany. He recently wrote a Wall Street Journal review of "Advocate for the Doomed," about James G. McDonald's efforts to warn the world about the Nazis in the early 1930s. Johnson is currently working on a book about the Islamic Center of Munich. He conducted research on the book while on a Nieman fellowship at Harvard University. He attended the University of Florida. In Feb. 9, 2006, Johnson delivered congressional testimony on the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.
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Gerhard Ertl is a German physicist and a Professor emeritus at the Department of Physical Chemistry, Fritz-Haber-Institut der... Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Berlin, Germany. Ertl’s research laid the foundation of modern surface chemistry, which has helped explain how fuel cells produce energy without pollution, how catalytic converters clean up car exhausts and even why iron rusts, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. His work has paved the way for development of cleaner energy sources and will guide the development of fuel cells, said Astrid Graslund, secretary of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. He won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces. The Nobel academy said Ertl provided a detailed description of how chemical reactions take place on surfaces. His findings applied in both academic studies and industrial development, the academy said. “Surface chemistry can even explain the destruction of the ozone layer, as vital steps in the reaction actually take place on the surfaces of small crystals of ice in the stratosphere,” the award citation reads.
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