Born and brought up in East Germany, Professor Franka Kalman is a much-respected figure in the field of separation sciences. Following undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the Technical University Budapest, Hungary, where she learned about the then emerging technique of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), she applied that knowledge to complete her PhD looking at the analysis of novel opioid peptides at Martin Luther University Halle, Germany.

Her postdoctoral studies in the lab of the late, great Professor Csaba Horvath at Yale University, a placement that by all accounts provided both a grounding and springboard for her future career, were to be transformative and the techniques she developed there have gone on to be game-changing in the world of pharmaceutical development, analysis and quality control. Work for which she was recognized in 2012, when she was presented with the prestigious CEPharm Award from the Californian Separation Science Society (CASSS) for significant contributions to the practical application of capillary electrophoresis (CE) in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

After her time as a postdoc, she spent 13 very successful years in the pharmaceutical industry, working at the interface between science and industrial applications.