Electric discharges such as sparks and lightning are fleeting and seem unpredictable. They unfold from microscopic mechanisms up to tens of kilometers, which makes them challenging to model mathematically. Ebert and her group have made pioneering contributions to the quantitative modelling of these discharges. Their work has helped to unravel how such discharges initiate, propagate, branch and interact, and how they may create electric short circuits, greenhouse gases like nitrogen oxides and high-energy radiation. Her group’s work connects fundamental plasma physics with atmospheric electricity and practical applications in high-voltage technology. Many of her former PhD students and postdocs have become successful members of the worldwide discharge community.
The ICPIG jury wrote that they awarded the 2025 Von Engel and Franklin Prize to Ute Ebert for her “seminal contributions to the state-of-the-art, high-fidelity theory and simulations of transient electric discharges, including sparks, streamers, and lightning.”
About Ute Ebert
Ebert leads the Multiscale Dynamics group at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam and is a part-time professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Her research combines theoretical physics, numerical simulation, and collaboration with lab experiments and lightning research. In particular, she is internationally recognized for her work on streamer discharges - fast-moving ionized filaments that are the precursors to sparks and lightning, and that sometimes are called the ‘elementary particles of discharge physics’. Her models have found resonance in both the plasma physics and atmospheric electricity communities.
Ebert’s work has long been recognized internationally. In 2004 she won the Dutch Minerva Prize, awarded every two years for the best physics publication by a woman in the Netherlands. She has been a member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities since 2006. In 2022, she was elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union “for crucial theoretical, numerical and experimental insights on lightning and related sciences”.
Von Engel and Franklin
The von Engel and Franklin Prize is awarded biennially for outstanding contributions to the physics and technology of plasmas and ionized gases, as covered by ICPIG. It was established in 1998 in honour of Hans von Engel and Gordon Francis, two pioneers in the field and early driving forces behind the ICPIG community. The prize is administered by the Board of Physical Sciences at the University of Oxford. The award is based either on long-standing and important contributions to the field, or on an outstanding achievement giving rise to a new field.
