The GDCh emphasized that Hans-Ulrich Reissig, with more than 400 scientific publications, was very influential in method development. In addition to his great knowledge and understanding of chemistry, he is very involved in the scientific community. He has received numerous academic awards in the past and is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, one of the oldest and largest scientific academies in Germany.

Reissig was born in 1949 in the Bavarian town of Helmbrechts. He majored in chemistry at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and earned his doctorate there in 1978 with a thesis on the cycloaddition of diazoalkanes. His doctoral advisor was Rolf Huisgen. Following a period as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Reissig completed the habilitation process in organic chemistry in 1984 at Julius-Maximilians-Universität in Wurzburg. He held professorships at TU Darmstadt and TU Dresden before being appointed a professor of chemistry at Freie Universität Berlin in 2009. At Freie Universität he was the dean of the Department of Biology, Chemistry, and Pharmacy from 2011 to 2014. In addition, he was in the past and continues to be active in committees of the German Research Foundation and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Since 2012 Reissig has also been a member of the Board of the Liebig Association of the GDCh. As the chair of the selection committee for the Klung Wilhelmy Science Award in the category of chemistry, Reissig has been involved in choosing young scientists for special recognition since 2004.

With approximately 31,000 members, the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker is one of the largest scientific societies worldwide.