The ICASEC congratulates Claus Ropers on the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2018 from the DFG. Prof. Ropers receives the prize for his outstanding accomplishments in the field of ultrafast transmission electron microscopy. Among his most recent achievements, he demonstrated that it is possible to manipulate the quantum state of a free electron beam in a transmission electron microscope. Prior to this, his work on the control of photoemission from extremely thin metal tips using terahertz and optical fields made a fundamental contribution to the future development of ultrafast scanning probe microscopes. More on Claus Ropers research activities can be found on his website.