Earth researcher wins German science award

Zhu Xiaoxiang, a Chinese researcher, was among the 10 winners of the 2015 Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, the most important award for early-career scientific researchers in Germany, at a ceremony in Berlin on Tuesday.

The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize has been awarded annually since 1977 by the German Research Foundation to outstanding researchers as both recognition and an incentive to continue pursuing a path of academic and scientific excellence.

The prize, named after the atomic physicist and former foundation president, is regarded as the third-most important science prize in Germany, after the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, also awarded by the foundation, and the German Future Prize, awarded by Germany's president.