"Meet Your Future You" - Women in Science 2026

For Women in Science is a global programme promoting and celebrating women who dare to push the boundaries of knowledge and shape the future with bold, original research. It empowers female scientists at all stages – for their life-time achievements and early‑career scientists. Additionally, For Women in Science has national chapters in some 60 countries, focusing on early-career scientists. For Women in Science Germany is among them.

Founded globally by UNESCO and the Fondation L’Oréal in 1998, and brought to life in Germany in 2007 by L’Oréal Germany and the German Commission for UNESCO, For Women in Science Germany stands as a powerful commitment to equality, scientific excellence, and the advancement of women in research.

With an award of 25,000 EUR each, the program honours four outstanding female researchers across the natural sciences, medicine, technology, and interdisciplinary fields— for their work that challenges conventions and seeks answers to the defining questions of our time. While the researchers need to be working at a German university or research institution, the nationalities of the applicants are not relevant. The prize money can be used quite freely for measures that support their research – research equipment or services such as childcare to allow for more research time.

Through its national and international reach, the programme contributes to a broader effort to increase the representation of women in scientific leadership and to ensure that diverse perspectives shape the future of research.

As the German Commission for UNESCO, we are more than proud to recognize, support, and celebrate excellent female researchers doing research that demonstrates both scientific rigor and societal relevance. Because we are convinced that the world needs science – and science needs women.

Line Næsborg received her doctoral degree at Aarhus University from the group of Prof. Karl Anker Jørgensen in the field of organic chemistry. During the PhD she focused on inducing chirality through catalysis as such strategies are important for the pharmaceutical industry in the synthesis of drugs and bioactive molecules. She then came to Germany in 2019 to carry out a postdoctoral stay in the laboratory of Prof. Thorsten Bach on photochemistry. During this stay, she was trained in photochemistry and total synthesis. Currently, she is a group leader at University of Münster where she focuses on using the reaction medium – in particular water-based systems - in photochemical synthesis. The motivation to use water-based systems is twofold: First, photochemical reactions can display different and improved reactivity compared to typically used organic solvent and secondly, we must move towards more sustainable methods for a better future.

Dr. Rana Hussein Ali is an Egyptian–German structural biologist and junior group leader at Goethe University Frankfurt. She leads an independent research group focused on the structural dynamics of photosynthetic membrane proteins.

Her scientific trajectory spans international excellence. After completing her undergraduate studies in Egypt, she received a KAUST scholarship to pursue her Master’s degree in Bioscience at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. She later earned an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to undertake her doctoral training in structural biology in Berlin. Her research has contributed to pioneering work using synchrotron radiation, X-ray free-electron lasers (XFEL), and cryo-EM, and has been published in leading journals including Science and Nature.

At Goethe University, her group investigates photosynthetic supercomplexes as dynamic membrane assemblies, with the aim of uncovering the molecular principles underlying protein–lipid interactions and redox regulation. In 2025, she was named a L’Oréal–UNESCO “For Women in Science” Germany laureate. She is committed to mentoring young researchers and advancing sustainable approaches inspired by natural photosynthesis.