Focus on female scientists

Dr. Annette Andrieu-Brunsen has been Professor of Macromolecular Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry since June 2018. She has been awarded the Zsigmondy Fellowship of the German Colloid Society, , on whose Board of Directors she is also active, and is the recipient of the ADUC Award for Junior Group Leaders of the German Chemical Society and of the Dr. Hans Messer Foundation Prize. Her project “3D-FNP Writing” was funded with a Starting Grant of around 1.5 million euros from the European Research Council. The chemist is working on the transportation of substances through nanopores – a key step in many technologies. One unsolved challenge is the design of nanoporous membranes that allow, for instance, the recycling of metallic nanoparticles and their salts. Andrieu-Brunsen contributes her expertise in this field to the Collaborative research Centre 1194, among others. In 2021 she was named “Outstanding Reviewer” by the Royal Society of Chemistry for the journal Nanoscale Horizons.

Professor Almudena Arcones has been working at the TU’s Department of Physics since 2012, and came to the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research at Darmstadt as head of a junior research group. Combining expertise in nuclear physics and astrophysics, she collaborates with observers and experimenters to solve the mystery of the formation of heavy elements such as gold or uranium in the universe. In 2015, she received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) of 1.5 million euros to find out which elements are produced in supernova explosions and neutron star mergers. Her research requires and supports the experiments at the FAIR accelerator centre at the GSI Helmholtz Centre. The Max Planck Society appointed Arcones a Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg in 2024, where she will lead the group “Theoretical Nuclear Astrophysics and the Origin of Heavy Elements in the Universe”.

Professor Carolin Bock's research work focuses on the specifics of business start-ups. The scientist analyses the topics of Business start-ups and Start-up financing using a range of empirical methods. Since 2015 she has been head of the Institute of Entrepreneurship at the Department of Law and Economics, and accompanies the teaching of young people who are interested in founding a company. Professor Bock is a member of the Advisory Board of HIGHEST, the TU Start-up and Innovation Centre. As part of this, she advises founding management boards on questions of research transfer, start-up, IP and innovation management.

Professor Cristina Cardoso investigates the interplay between the nucleus landscape of mammalian cells and (epi-)genome metabolism. Since 2008 she has been the head of the Cardoso Lab at the TU’s Department of Biology. The group is interested in the question of how the (epi-)genome of mammals is preserved during cell division and how the epigenetic information is translated. Cardoso and her team use a variety of biochemical, molecular, and cell biology methods, with a particular focus on advanced live-cell and super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. One focus is on the development of new approaches and the establishment of tools such as nanobodies to visualise subcellular structures and the course of the cell cycle in real time. Cardoso is part of the external Collaborative Research Centre 1360 “Regulation of DA Repair and Genome Stability”. The aim of the network is to find out which mechanisms cells use to protect themselves against DNA damage.

Georgia Chalvatzaki, Ph.D. is Professor of Interactive Robot Perception and Learning (PEARL) and DFG Emmy Noether Research Leader of the iROSA Group at TU Darmstadt. In 2021 she was accepted into the prestigious Emmy Noether Programme (ENP) of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Her research in the field of autonomous robots focuses on grasping, manipulation, mobile manipulation, motion and task planning, as well as human-robot interaction. Machine learning methods such as deep learning, imitation learning and multi-task learning are being explored to develop advanced robotic systems. This multidisciplinary research is helping to advance the integration of robots into society. In 2021, the scientist was voted “AI Newcomer of the Year” and “RSS Pioneer of the Year” by the German Informatics Society. Chalvatzaki is a member of hessian.AI, the Hessian Centre for Artificial Intelligence.

The research group led by Professor Tetyana Galatyuk at the Institute of Nuclear Physics (Department of Physics) investigates the microscopic properties and thermodynamics of strongly interacting matter and the phase structure of quantum chromodynamics with a special focus on electromagnetic probes. In addition, Galatyuk and her Helmholtz Young Investigators Group are dedicated to the further development of the current HADES experiment at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research and to the construction and implementation of the future CBM experiment at the FAIR accelerator. Galatyuk’s goal is to use these experiments to measure signals from the fireball of a heavy-ion collision in order to draw conclusions regarding the properties of highly compressed nuclear matter such as is thought to be the case inside neutron stars.

Professor Iryna Gurevych (Department of Computer Science) is the first LOEWE top professor in the state of Hesse, founding member of the Hessian Centre for Artificial Intelligence (hessian.AI), and founder and director of the Ubiquitous Knowledge Processing (UKP) Lab. Her research focuses on large language models, semantic text comprehension and argumentation analysis, machine learning, and innovative applications of natural language processing in the social sciences and humanities. Gurevych is a principal investigator in several research networks. In 2022 she was appointed a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. She was awarded an Emmy Noether junior research group and a Lichtenberg professorship, and is the recipient of an ERC Advanced Grant for the project “InterText – Modeling Text as a Living Object in Cross-Document Context”. This year, Gurevych was also appointed a member of the Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Jutta Hanson heads the Institute of Electrical Power Systems with Integration of Renewable Energies at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. Her research focuses on the mathematical description of energy supply networks. Her focuses here are on the stability of electrical grids and the operation and control of hybrid AC/DC grids. She is also involved in distribution grid planning, taking into account energy-optimised districts. In 2021 Hanson was appointed Senator of the Helmholtz Association for the “Energy” research field. She has been a member of the National Hydrogen Council (NWR) since 2023. This independent body, which was appointed by the Federal Government, supports and advises on the implementation and further development of the National Hydrogen Strategy. In 2024 Hanson was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the “Energy System of the Future” initiative (ESYS) of the academies acatech, the Leopoldina and the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities.

As head of the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Aerodynamics (SLA) at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Professor Jeanette Hussong researches and teaches transient, multiphase or aerodynamic flows. Her aim is to use current experimental, numerical or analytical methods to gain a fundamentally better understanding of technically relevant flow processes and to derive predictive models from targeted generic investigations. Hussong is involved in a number of high-profile research projects including “TRACES”, which is part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). Its aim is to educate a new generation of highly qualified young researchers with highly qualified training in the field of aircraft icing. The project includes a combination of practical training, courses and workshops offered by both universities and major European aircraft manufacturers.

Dr. Nina Janich has been a professor at TU Darmstadt since 2004 and heads the Department of German Studies – Applied Linguistics at the Department of Social Sciences and History. Her research focuses on science and knowledge communication, advertising and business communication, language culture and criticism, and discourse and text linguistics. Her current research interests include the discursive handling of non-knowledge and uncertainty in science and the media as well as the positioning of scientists between the media and politics. Janich has been a member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) since 2016. She was a joint winner of the Athena Prize for Good Teaching in 2020. From 2011 to 2021, Janich was an honorary jury spokesperson for the language-critical campaign “Un-word of the Year”.

Professor Anett-Maud Joppien has been head of the Department of Design and Building Technology at the Department of Architecture since 2011. She conducts research into the development of analogue and digital prototypes on current scientific issues in sustainability, energy efficiency, space, sufficiency, sociology and building technology. Her work is aimed at a high application-related architectural quality, user satisfaction, cost-effectiveness, and constructive modularity of the prototypes. Together with her students, she has successfully implemented projects for the Solar Decathlon Europe and China competition. Her focus is on experimental and innovative forms of living and working, the design integration of preventive fire protection, lighting architecture, Building Information Modelling (BIM) and AI in architecture as well as integrated planning. Since 2013, she has been Vice President of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) and a member of the design advisory boards of Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Freiburg and Mainz.

Eva Kaßens-Noor, Ph.D. has been a professor at TU Darmstadt since 2022, and heads the Institute of Transport Planning and Traffic Engineering (IVV) at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Her research focuses on sustainable and emission-free transport systems, extreme weather events and artificial intelligence (AI). Since 2023, her research project “scAInce” has been supported by the European Research Council (ERC) with an ERC Consolidator Grant of around two million euros over five years. The project addresses the question of how cities that want to solve their economic, ecological and social problems with AI are changing. Kaßens-Noor has published three books and more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has received multiple awards, including as a Gilded Lilly Fellow for excellence in teaching.

Professor Regine von Klitzing has been head of the Soft Matter at Interfaces group at the Institute of Condensed Matter in the Department of Physics since 2017. The focus of her colloid scientific work is the investigation of the interactions between interfaces, such as in thin liquid films, as well as the self-assembly of polymers and particles at the water-air interface. She is also researching responsive polymer coatings such as polyelectrolyte multilayers, polymer brushes and hydrogels. In 2023, she was awarded the ECIS Solvay Award for her multiscale studies on polymer and particle-stabilised foams.

Professor Michèle Knodt has been head of the research group “Comparative Analysis of Political Systems and Integration Research” at the Institute of Political Science at the Department of Social Sciences and History since 2005, and has received the “Jean Monnet Chair (ad personam)” award from the EU Commission. She is also Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence “EU in Global Dialogue” (CEDI), Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence “EU@School”, head of the COST Action 17119 “EU Foreign Policy facing new Realities (ENTER)”, co-head of the DFG Research Training Group “Critical Infrastructures”, and co-director of the LOEWE Centre of Excellent “emergenCITY”, as well as Head of Research in the Cluster Project Clean Circles and the Copernicus Project Ariadne. She has published extensively on the subject of EU multilevel governance, and is particularly interested in energy and climate governance as well as resilience issues.

Since 2020, Dr. Dorothea Koert has been a research group leader of the interdisciplinary junior research group of the Federal Ministry of Education and research “Interactive AI for Domain Experts and Everyday Users” (IKIDA) at the Center for Cognitive Science and at the Department of Intelligent Autonomous Systems of the Department of Computer Science. She conducts research on new interactive AI methods that combine human prior knowledge and the strengths of AI. This means, for instance, that AI can learn directly from humans only by imitation. In 2019 Koert was awarded the AI Newcomer Award by the German Informatics Society (GI).

Dr. Ulrike Kramm is Professor of the Department of Chemistry and head of the Catalysts and Electrocatalysts research group. She works in three main areas: the production and stabilisation of precious metal-free catalysts; the elucidation of the structure and catalysis mechanisms; and the transfer of the concepts to other reactions. Kramm heads the CRC 1487 “Iron, upgraded!”, which investigates the extent to which iron can be influenced by precise manipulation of the chemical environment so it can replace rare or critical methods. She is also involved in the cluster project Clean Circles, which is an interdisciplinary investigation into how iron can be used as a carbon-free chemical energy carrier in a circular system. Kramm has received several awards for her research, including in 2020 the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize of the German Research Foundation, and in 2018 the Dr. Hans Messer Foundation Prize.

Dr. Mira Mezini is Professor of Computer Science, and heads the Software Technology Group at the Department of Computer Science. She is a co-director of hessian.AI, and since 2016 has been a member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech). She is active in a large number of collaborative projects, such as the German Research Foundation and the Hessian funding programme LOEWE, and holds a number of leading positions, for instance as a member of the board of ATHENE, the National Research Centre for Applied Cybersecurity. She conducts research into program languages and software engineering, and was one of the pioneers of machine learning techniques for the auto-completion of programs. Within the framework of the LOEWE Lead Professorship, Mezini focuses on researching programming fundamentals for the development of reliable and trustworthy decentralised, interactive-learning software systems.

Dr. Ulrike Nuber is Professor at the Department of Biology, and heads the Stem Cell and Developmental Biology research group. With her research into neurodevelopmental disorders and brain tumours in children, she aims to contribute to a better understanding of disease mechanisms and the translation of this knowledge into clinical applications. To this end, she conducts research on human stem cell-based disease models and on mouse models. She is also a member of the LOEWE research area FLOW FOR LIFE, which aims to develop an artificial network to supply human tissues grown in the laboratory with oxygen and nutrients. Many of her research projects require a multidisciplinary approach. Nuber understands research outcomes as the result of many interacting factors, including the current state of knowledge, which is thanks to countless people in the past and present, as well as experiences and interactions with many other people.

Dr. Anna Rohrbach is Professor of Multimodal Grounded Learning at the Department of Computer Science, and a member of hessian.AI, the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence. Rohrbach relocated from the University of California (UC) Berkeley to Darmstadt as part of a LOEWE Start Professorship. Her research focuses on the intersection of vision and language. Her contributions span various sub-areas, including unbiased visual subtitles, meaningful evaluation metrics, and the introduction of widely accepted standard datasets for movie descriptions. The researcher is an international leader in the critical areas of language reasoning and learning, which are attracting a lot of attention in current AI research. Rohrbach researches and develops AI models that have similar capabilities to humans: multimodal AI should be able to communicate with humans, be anchored in reality, and learn from language. In 2023 she was awarded the prestigious German Pattern Recognition Award.

Dr. Simone Schaub-Meyer is an independent research group leader at TU Darmstadt and a member of hessian.AI, the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence. There, she also heads a DEPTH research group funded by the Hessian Ministry of Science as part of the cluster project The Third Wave of Artificial Intelligence (3AI). The German Research Foundation recently accepted Schaub-Meyer into its Emmy Noether Programme. The funding for her junior research group amounts to around 1.1 million euros for the first three years, and includes funds for two doctoral positions as well as eight high-quality graphics processors. The focus of her research is on the development of efficient, robust and comprehensible methods and algorithms for image and video analysis.

Professor Beatrix Süß has been head of the Department of Synthetic RNA Biology at the Department of Biology since 2012, and is a founding member of the Centre for Synthetic Biology. Her research focuses on investigating how RNA regulates in order to use this information for the development of complex genetic circuits. The aim is to fully understand these regulatory elements in terms of their structure, function and areas of application.

Dr. Christina Thiele is Professor of Organic Structural Analysis at the Department of Chemistry. Her research focuses on the nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic elucidation of molecular structures and reaction mechanisms. Thiele received an Emmy Noether Fellowship in 2008, and in 2010 a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) worth 1.5 million euros and the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize of the German Research Council (DFG).

Dr. Anke Weidenkaff is Professor of Materials Engineering and Resource Management at the Department of Materials and Geosciences at TU Darmstadt. Her research focuses on the development, synthesis and characterisation of substitution materials for energy conversion and storage and on the development of sustainable materials and next-generation process technologies for fast and efficient closed material cycles. She has also been Managing Director of the Fraunhofer Research Institute for Materials recycling and Resource Strategy IWKS since 2018. In 2023 she was elected to acatech, the German Academy of Science and Engineering, and made a member of the Leopoldina, the National Academy of Sciences. Since 2020, Weidenkaff has been a member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU).

Since late 2022, the US cognitive scientist Dr. Angela Yu has reinforced the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science at TU Darmstadt as Humboldt Professor. With her expertise in computational neuroscience and cognitive science, and her previous research on the topics of decision-making and social cognition, Yu complements the research at the Centre for Cognitive Science at TU Darmstadt and at hessian.AI, the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence. The Alexander von Humboldt Professorship is the most highly endowed German science award, and is given exclusively to researchers who are world-leading and internationally active in their field.