chemistry

Martina Hirayama

Martina Hirayama is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Martina Hirayama rather than just read about it. In short: Martina Hirayama (born 1970) is a German-Swiss chemist, university lecturer and, since 2019, State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation (SBFI) in Switzerland. Life and work Martina Hirayama grew up and went to school in Germany.

Key takeaways

Martina Hirayama belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Martina Hirayama to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Martina Hirayama from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Martina Hirayama (born 1970) is a German-Swiss chemist, university lecturer and, since 2019, State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation (SBFI) in Switzerland.

Life and work Martina Hirayama grew up and went to school in Germany. She studied chemistry at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) from 1990 to 1991 and at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Zurich from 1991 to 1994. She completed her diploma thesis on polymers at Imperial College London in 1994. She then returned to ETH Zurich, where she completed her doctorate in 1997 at the Institute for Polymers on the "Production and characterization of thin and ultra-thin layers on inorganic surfaces by oxidative addition and activation of chemically reactive bonds" and worked as a research assistant. From 2001, she was head of the "Polymers on Surfaces" group at the Institute of Polymers. Hirayama also completed a postgraduate degree in business administration – now called MAS in Management, Technology and Economics – at D-MTEC at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Hirayama focused on application-oriented research and is involved in several patents. She founded a start-up for coating technologies and moved to Zurich University of Applied Sciences Winterthur (ZHAW) as a lecturer, where she became director of the School of Engineering in 2011 and also took over the International Affairs department in 2014. Martina Hirayama was president of the Institute Council of the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology; Vice President of the board of directors of the Innosuisse funding agency and sat on the board of trustees of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Martina Hirayama has been state secretary for education, research and innovation (SBFI) since 1 January 2019. In this role, she is the head of 280 employees and is responsible for an annual budget of CHF 4.5 billion. Martina Hirayama has held dual German-Swiss citizenship since 2009. In 2019, Martina Hirayama took part in the Bilderberg Conference. Hirayama is a member of the Executive Advisory Board of the World.Minds Foundation, where she engages with global leaders on innovation, research, and education policy.

References

External links Martina Hirayama on the website of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Martina Hirayama

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Martina Hirayama claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Martina Hirayama before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Martina Hirayama ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Martina Hirayama

In research: Martina Hirayama appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Martina Hirayama in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Martina Hirayama is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1970 births, 21st-century German chemists, 21st-century German women chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Martina Hirayama outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Martina Hirayama in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Martina Hirayama means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Martina Hirayama out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Martina Hirayama in simple terms?

Martina Hirayama (born 1970) is a German-Swiss chemist, university lecturer and, since 2019, State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation (SBFI) in Switzerland. Life and work Martina Hirayama grew up and went to school in Germany.

Why does Martina Hirayama matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Martina Hirayama?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Martina Hirayama.