Current Trefftz-Professors 2020 - 2024

Dr. Tijana Levajković - Vienna University of Technology (Austria)

April 1, 2024 – March 31, 2025 | Institute of Mathematical Stochastics, Faculty of Mathematics

Dr. Tijana Levajković completed her Habilitation in Mathematics at the University of Innsbruck in 2020, where she was also Deputy Professor. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics at the Vienna University of Technology. Dr. Levajković's research focuses on stochastic partial differential equations. These are often used to model the temporal dynamics of systems in science and technology that are subject to probabilistic uncertainty. Dr. Levajković also works on the numerics of equations as well as some implications on optimal control problems. Since her PhD in 2012, Dr. Levajković has co-authored three books and published about 25 articles in various international journals.

During her stay as part of the Eleonore-Trefftz-Program, Dr. Levajković will conduct joint research with the Faculty of Mathematics that contributes to the research focus "Partial Differential Equations and Applications". The joint project aims to study stochastic delay differential equations (SDDEs) driven by Levy noise and to investigate the probabilistic and sampling path properties of their solutions. Levy processes form a large class of stochastic processes and have many applications ranging from physics to finance. As part of her teaching, Dr. Levajković will offer courses on probability theory, stochastic analysis and statistics for Master's students.

Dr. Anne-Marie Lachmund - University of Potsdam

April 1, 2024 – March 31, 2025 | Institute of Romance Studies, Faculty of Linguistics, Literature and Cultural Studies

Dr. Anne-Marie Lachmund studied to become a teacher of French and English at the University of Leipzig and then completed her doctorate summa cum laude in media culture at the University of Leipzig. Since then, she has worked as a research assistant at the University of Potsdam's departments of Didactics of English as a Foreign Language and Didactics of Romance Languages. She also has teaching experience at schools and in teacher training programs. She was honored by the University of Potsdam in 2023 for her teaching project on digital texts in foreign language teaching.

Dr. Lachmund's research ranges from didactic projects to cultural and literary studies and media sociology topics. Her research profile is characterized by considerations on the teaching of media skills and media didactic reflections between social media and artificial intelligence. This research is particularly compatible with the Institute of Romance Studies and should lead to interdisciplinary cooperation in research and teaching within the Humanities and Social Sciences department, for example with the Master's program in Digital Humanities. Dr. Lachmund will also be extensively involved in teaching at the institute.

Ludivine Gragy - Studio LUDIVINE GRAGY (Germany)

March 1, 2024 – February 28, 2025 | Institute of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Architecture

Ludivine Gragy works as a freelance landscape architect in Berlin. Her work is based on a strong relationship with plants and her extensive experience as a gardener. Gragy has been honoured with the German Academy Rome scholarship at Casa Baldi and the Villa Kujoyama scholarship in Kyoto. Her projects range from the open space design of public areas, the management and regeneration of historical parks, such as the park at the Kranich Museum in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, to experimental façade greening, such as at the Telegraph building in Berlin. She also develops temporary interventions, e.g. for the Lausanne Jardins Garden festival in Switzerland. In 2021 she took on a guest teaching position at the Institute of Landscape Architecture at TU Dresden.

As part of her stay on the Eleonore-Trefftz-Program at TU Dresden, Ludivine Gragy is involved in various aspects of teaching. For example, she will offer seminars on main designs for students on the topics of water and care. She will also work with architecture students to develop designs for various buildings, their façade greening and maintenance and offer excursions on the specific design topics. Ms Gragy will also offer practice-orientated elective courses with a focus on the connection between plant use and landscaping. Ludivine Gragy's work is an example of how practice-orientated research can provide answers to important questions in landscape architecture, such as climate change. The results she has already achieved will serve as a basis for further development during her stay at TU Dresden and support the transfer of knowledge at the Institute of Landscape Architecture. Points of overlap arise, for example, in the areas of climate adaptation strategies, ecological maintenance and the relationship between humans, animals and plants.

Dr. Andrea Augsten - German Development Cooperation (Germany)

January 1, 2024 – December 31, 2024 | Chair of Industrial Design Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Science and Engineering

Dr. Andrea Augsten has worked as a design scientist at various organisations such asVolkswagen AG and the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) for many years and is, since 2021, an honorary board member of the German Society for Design Theory and Research. She completed her doctorate in design management and organisational development at the University of Wuppertal as part of her work at Volkswagen AG in the field of futurology and digital transformation.

In her work, Dr. Augsten pursues the goal of incorporating and shaping the human-centred ways of thinking and acting of design in the context of innovation development and the digital transformation of organisations. She has been bringing this perspective to teaching nationally and internationally for ten years, focussing on design thinking and design management, among other things, at the Technical University of Munich, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China, and the University of Design Schwäbisch Gmünd.

During her stay at TU Dresden, she advises and supports the School of Engineering Sciences in the further development of intersectoral and collaborative human-centred design. She thus complements the process and methodological expertise of the Chair of Industrial Design Engineering with aspects of social and organisational change. In the area of teaching, Dr. Augsten offers elective modules on the design of sustainable product-service systems and human-centred design. She will also be involved in public colloquia and the qualitative evaluation of existing courses as well as in the development of an interdisciplinary Master's programme on human-centred technology development. Dr. Augsten will be involved in research by participating in research work on strategic orientation in the areas of social innovation and human-centred organisational and technological development in the context of digital and sustainable change in collaboration with the CeTI Cluster of Excellence and the joint project Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health. It will also support the application for the establishment of a junior research group in the aforementioned subject areas

Dr. Joanna Feder-Kubis - Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (Poland)

September 1, 2023 – August 31, 2024 | Chair of Inorganic Chemistry I, Faculty of Chemistry and Food Chemistry

Dr. Joanna Feder-Kubis holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Poznan University of Technology. She currently works as an Associate Professor at the Institute of Process Engineering and Technology of Polymer and Carbon Materials at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. She is a renowned expert in the field of organic chemistry, especially in the synthesis of ionic liquids. These are modern solvents that are considered particularly environmentally friendly because they do not emit toxic fumes. She is also an expert in the synthesis of chiral ionic liquids.

During her stay at TU Dresden, she will work on applications of both ionic and chiral ionic liquids in joint research activities. On the one hand, these are to be used as reaction media for sustainable solvents to produce nanostructured or porous materials. On the other hand, they are to be used together with bioactive organic molecules for electrochemical applications. Furthermore, application in the field of catalysis is being tested. Dr. Feder-Kubis is also involved in teaching. Among other things, lectures on the synthesis and application of ionic liquids are planned as part of the bachelor's and master's degrees.

Dr. Feder-Kubis can already point to a large number of publications, all of which have appeared in internationally recognized journals. In addition, she is co-inventor of 46 patents, which are mainly substance patents on ionic liquids. Her work has received several awards. Among other things, she was awarded the Grand Prix Prize at the Kaohsiung International Invention & Design EXPO in Taiwan, as well as awards from the World Invention Intellectual Property Associations.

Dr. Julia Olivia Linke - University of Texas Health Science Center (United States)

April 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024 | Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Psychology

Dr. Julia Olivia Linke is a graduate of TU Dresden who, following her PhD at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim and a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health in the United States, has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, U.S., since 2022.

Dr. Linke's research is situated at the intersection of clinical psychology, cognitive-affective neuroscience and developmental psychology and uses methods and procedures from these three fields to identify mechanisms of affective disorders and develop new interventions for children, adolescents and adults based on these findings. Specifically, Dr. Linke works on identifying mechanisms of affective and anxiety disorders, exploring neurobiological mechanisms of short- and long-term behavioral change in a therapeutic context, and developing and testing technology-based approaches for targeted prevention and intervention. The quality and relevance of her research is evidenced by 45 high-impact publications in international journals. Her work has also been honored with numerous international research awards.

During her stay in Dresden within the Eleonore Trefftz Program, Dr. Linke will collaborate with various professorships in the Faculty of Psychology. Specific projects include the application of analytical procedures developed by Dr. Linke to the data sets existing at the respective chairs and their evaluation. Dr. Linke will also involve the doctoral and postdoctoral students working at the chairs in these analyses and support them in publishing the results of these collaborations. In addition, Dr. Linke will support the teaching of the new clinical master’s program with two seminars.

Dr. Somar Varela - Yachay Tech University (Ecuador)

January 1, 2023 – December 3, 2023 | Institute of Materials Science, Faculty of Mechanical Science and Engineering

Dr. Solmar Varela obtained her Ph.D. in Physics at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Her doctoral thesis focused on the study of electronic-spin transport in chiral organic molecules, for the analytical design of models that explain the origin of the CISS (Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity) effect. Since 2017, she has been a Lecturer at the School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at Yachay Tech University in Ecuador. In 2022, Dr. Varela already stayed at the Institute of Materials Science as a guest researcher within the Dresden Fellowship Program.

Dr. Varela conducts research in molecular spintronics, an interdisciplinary area, where she develops analytical models for electronic and spin transport in low-dimensional structures. She has participated in several research projects and has an extensive teaching experience. Besides, she has a video series on the social media platform TikTok with more than 12,700 followers, where she popularizes various complex topics in fields of physics and material science. More recently, she has started to create a YouTube channel with the same scope.

During her stay in the Eleonore Trefftz Program, Dr. Varela will conduct modelling studies to develop a general theory linking circular dichroism and spin-polarised properties in chiral molecules. She will also offer a series of lectures covering applications of the CISS effect in various fields such as spintronics and quantum biology, e.g. magnetic orientation of birds. Dr. Varela will also lay the groundwork for a series of educational videos on CISS physics and applications, which will be published on a YouTube channel.

Dr. Rehana Malgas-Enus - Stellenbosch University (South Africa)

September 5, 2022 – ✝ September 19, 2022 | Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Food Chemistry

Dr. Rehana Malgas-Enus came to Dresden in September 2022 for a planned three-month guest stay as part of the Eleonore Trefftz Program. She passed away in Dresden on 19 September 2022. We are very saddened by her sudden death and extend our heartfelt sympathy to her family, friends and colleagues.

An obituary has been published here: https://tu-dresden.de/tu-dresden/universitaetskultur/news/nachruf-auf-die-eleonore-trefftz-gastprofessorin-dr-rehana-malgas-enus

Dr Rehana Malgas-Enus was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science at the University of Stellenbosch and led a research group on the development of organic and inorganic nanomaterials. As leader of her own research group, independently funded by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF), she was a high-performing young scientist who was already well established.

Her work opens up a wide range of applications – from catalysis to water treatment to biomedical applications, e.g. in the context of cancer treatments. In view of her excellent achievements, Dr. Malgas-Enus, who was awarded the NRF Excellence in Science Engagement Award in 2018, was selected by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training in 2020 for the prestigious, highly competitive Future Professors Program. Among other things, Dr. Malgas-Enus has maintained long-standing collaborations with the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden. During her stay in Dresden, this cooperation was planned to be deepened.

Dr. Sandra Buchmüller - Technische Universität Braunschweig (Germany)

September 1, 2022 – August 31, 2023 | Institute of Power Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Science and Engineering

Dr. Sandra Buchmüller is a research assistant at the professorship "Gender, Technology, Mobility" at the Institute of Flight Guidance at the Technical University of Braunschweig. She studied at the Cologne International School of Design and completed her doctorate at the Berlin University of the Arts. As a freelance designer, she worked for various companies and institutions such as RTL Enterprises, the Zollverein Development and Exhibition Company, Vodafone, T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom and the Telekom Innovation Laboratories. As part of her doctorate, she developed a power-critical and gender-informed design methodology that provides reflexive and methodological recommendations for a conscious and non-stereotypical approach to gender and diversity aspects in design research and development processes.

Dr. Buchmüller's concern is to contribute to socially responsible technology development by integrating gender and design research approaches into engineering teaching and research – this is also her central task in the context of her visiting professorship as part of the Eleonore Trefftz Program. During her stay at TU Dresden, she will offer courses on topics such as "Technology MAKES Responsibility" and "What makes technology successful? Learning from (mis)success stories, science, technology and design research".

Prof. Dr. Anke Meyer-Baese - Florida State University (United States)

September 1, 2022 – February 28, 2023 | Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Prof. Meyer-Baese is an expert in the fields of medical image processing as well as computational biology and computational neuroscience. She holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Darmstadt. Currently, Prof. Meyer-Baese is Professor of Scientific Computing at Florida State University.

Her research over the past 30 years has included the development of theoretical machine learning methods such as learning in graphical models, biosignal processing, artificial intelligence and applications of these methods in medical imaging, e.g. for the diagnosis of dementia and tumors. Prof. Meyer-Baese discovered the potential of computational intelligence as a key element for the design of integrated systems in biomedicine. She subsequently created the framework for applying theoretical artificial intelligence tools to biomedical imaging and collaborated across disciplines, among others with the Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in breast cancer research and with the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in brain cancer research. Prof. Meyer-Baese has published four monographs in her main research area and over 250 peer-reviewed publications. In recognition of her research, she has received numerous international and national research awards.

During her stay at TU Dresden, Prof. Meyer-Baese was able to contribute her expertise in an interdisciplinary way, for example in cooperation between the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Neurology at Dresden University Hospital, where joint research took place in the fields of sleep medicine and neurodegenerative diseases. She also offered lectures on topics such as data mining for medical data and computational neuroscience.

Dr. Kirsty Wan - University of Exeter (United Kingdom)

May 5, 2022 – May 22, 2022| October 16, 2022 - November 12, 2022| April 27, 2023 - May 18, 2023 | Center for Molecular and Cellular Bioengineering (CMCB)

Dr. Kirsty Wan received her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Cambridge in 2014. Since 2017, she has been a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and a Senior Research Fellow and Group Leader at the Living Systems Institute at the University of Exeter. Dr. Wan specializes in research at the interface of physics, mathematics and biology. She seeks to combine and develop new interdisciplinary methods to gain insights into the origin, control and mutability of life at the microscale. Her current interests focus on the study of locomotion strategies of microscopic organisms, particularly those with cilia and flagella – microscopic extensions of cells that enable them to move through fluids. To do this, she uses theoretical, computational and experimental approaches. The proper function and coordination of motile cilia are essential for many physiological processes in the human body.

As part of the Eleonore Trefftz Program, Dr. Wan collaborated in the field of biological physics with the Center for Molecular and Cellular Bioengineering (CMBC) and the Cluster of Excellence “Physics of Life”. During her visit, she investigated, among other things, the physical principles underlying oscillations in cilia and flagella together with researchers from Dresden. In the long term, Dr. Wan's stay is intended to strengthen research on interdisciplinary studies in the field of biological physics at TU Dresden and establish collaborations with the Living Systems Institute at the University of Exeter.

Dr. Anna Maria Asunta Eder - University of Cologne (Germany)

April 1, 2022 – March 31, 2023 | Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science

Dr. Anna Maria Asunta Eder works as a research assistant in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Cologne. Her research focuses on the philosophy of science, epistemology and the still young and innovative field of metaphilosophy. Her academic career has already taken her to internationally renowned universities. Among other things, she was a visiting scholar at Leuven and Berkeley during her doctoral studies at the University of Konstanz. With the prestigious Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship, she then completed a postdoctoral stay at Northeastern University in Boston. Dr. Eder's publications appear in internationally renowned journals and publishers. She is also present at international conferences and has organized numerous international high-level workshops and conferences.

Dr. Eder's profile complemented the research and teaching profile at the Institute of Philosophy within the framework of the Eleonore Trefftz Program. With her specialization in the philosophy of science, she was able to perform a bridging function to other faculties. The demand for courses and research cooperation in this area is particularly high among the Faculties of Physics and Psychology. Thematically, the courses offered by Dr. Eder dealt not only with philosophy of science, but also with concepts of rationality, trust in science and science and values, among others.

Dr. Helena Reichlova - Czech Academy of Sciences (Czech Republic)

March 1, 2022 – February 28, 2023 | Institute of Solid State and Materials Physics, Faculty of Physics

Dr. Helena Reichlova is an experimental condensed matter physicist specialising in spintronics at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. For her Ph.D. in 2015 at Charles University in Prague in the field of spintronics and nanoelectronics, she was awarded the Czech National Prize for the best doctoral thesis. In addition, she has already received other prestigious prizes and scholarships, such as a prize from the Czech Ministry of Education and a Fulbright scholarship. Her great scientific success is reflected in her total of 29 publications, including many in high-ranking journals such as Nature Communications and Applied Physics Letters.

During her stay at TU Dresden, Dr. Reichlova assisted the Institute of Solid State and Materials Physics in researching fundamental interactions between spin, charge and heat in the resulting materials, as well as developing efficient devices for heat generation. She was also involved in teaching, including giving a lecture on transport properties of new materials in solid state physics. In addition, she co-organized several workshops, conferences and an international meeting of young researchers on the interaction of spins, charge and heat.

Prof. Dr. Carolina Granados Mendoza - National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico)

June 25, 2021 – September 22, 2021 | Chair of Botany, Faculty of Biology

Prof. Dr. Carolina Granados Mendoza is Full Professor at the Institute of Biology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Associate Researcher at the National Institute of Biodiversity in Quito, Ecuador.

Prof. Mendoza and the Chair of Botany at TU Dresden have been working together for many years with several mutual research stays and publications. During her stay within the Eleonore Trefftz Program, this collaboration was strengthened and new fields of cooperation were opened up.

One of the subjects of the joint research was to identify reasons for the species richness of certain plant strains. The genus Tillandsia served as a model system for this. By applying state-of-the-art sequencing techniques, a large amount of molecular data was generated that will serve as a basis for future assessments of factors and processes that have promoted the current organismic diversity in Tillandsia. Within the project, established researchers worked together with students and young scientists. Subsequently, joint publications were published.
As part of the teaching, Prof. Mendoza offered a course on molecular botany and also taught at iSCOPe, the international summer course of the School of Science.

Dr. Sarah Bianchi - Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany)

April 1, 2021 – March 31, 2022 | Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science

Dr. Sarah Bianchi completed her doctorate in philosophy at Humboldt-Universität of Berlin in 2014. She is currently a postdoc in the project "Perspectives of Critical Theory" at the Chair of Social Philosophy at Goethe University Frankfurt. Within this framework, she is researching the project "Enlightenment Micropolitics after Adorno and Foucault". Previously, she was head of a sub-project within the program "The Enhancing Life Project" at the University of Chicago in conjunction with Humboldt University of Berlin and associated with Princeton University. In this context, she published the book "Government of the Self and Desire: Critical Aesthetics of Digital Enhancement".

At TU Dresden, Dr. Bianchi worked, among other things, on the Collaborative Research Centre 1285 "Invectivity. Constellations and Dynamics of disparagement". She was also involved in teaching at the Institute of Philosophy. For example, she offered seminars on her main research areas, including Nietzsche's philosophy and literature as well as classic texts of the Enlightenment from a feminist perspective.

Dr. Olga Klimecki - German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (Germany)

September 1, 2020 – December 31, 2021 | Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Psychology

Dr. Olga Klimecki is an internationally renowned expert in the fields of social psychology and social neuroscience. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Zurich and a master’s degree in Neuroscience from University College London. From 2016 to 2020, she was a faculty member in Psychology and Political Science at the University of Geneva. Dr. Klimecki has been researching the neuroplasticity of the brain for over 17 years. She studies the effects of meditation and compassion training on social behavior and on how we deal with conflict. Her academic work has been awarded with several prestigious international prizes, scholarships and fellowships. Among others, she received the Society for Social Neuroscience's Early Career Award and a Marie-Curie fellowship from the European Commission. The insights of her work have been implemented in the trainings of major companies, including the Search Inside Yourself Program at Google.

At TU Dresden, Dr. Klimecki represented the fields of social neuroscience, biological psychology and emotions and social psychology. Among other things, she offered a colloquium on the role of emotions in conflict resolution, which was accompanied by a seminar. She also offered the course "Mindfulness Meditation" for psychology students. In addition to research at the Faculty of Psychology, she additionally worked at the Centre for Demography and Diversity (CDD) at TU Dresden. Furthermore, she worked on a joint research project with the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases, where she is currently interim group leader.

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