The Alexander von Humboldt Professorship is an academic prize named after
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, natural history, naturalist, List of explorers, explorer, and proponent of Romanticism, Romantic philosophy and Romanticism ...
and awarded by the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation () is a foundation that promotes international academic cooperation between scientists and scholars from Germany and abroad. Established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, it is funded by t ...
since 2008. The prize is intended to attract internationally leading scientists from abroad to Germany so that they can carry out top-level research there and strengthen Germany as a research location. The prize includes a permanent full professorship at the hosting university, plus 5 million euros for experimentally working scientists or 3.5 million euros for theoretically working scientists (in addition, the university is expected to provide matching funds). This makes it the most highly endowed research prize in Germany, and possibly world-wide. A maximum of ten Alexander von Humboldt Professorships can be awarded every year to researchers of all disciplines. From 2020 to 2024, an additional six Humboldt Professorships in the field of
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
can be awarded each year.
Nominations are made by German universities, possibly in cooperation with research institutions. The award is financed by the
Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the framework of the International Research Fund for Germany.
List of Alexander von Humboldt Professorships
The laureates are:
2009:
* (born 1969), German computer scientist
* (born 1971), Dutch theoretical solid state physicist
*
Giorgi Dvali (born 1964), Georgian particle physicist and cosmologist
* (born 1960), German developmental biologist
* (born 1958), German astrophysicist
*
Martin Bodo Plenio (born 1968), German quantum optician
*
Burkhard Rost (born 1961), German bioinformatician
2010:
*
Marc Levine
Marc Levine (born April 26, 1974) is an American politician, who served in the California State Assembly representing the California's 10th State Assembly district, 10th district between 2012 and 2022. A member of the Democratic Party (United S ...
(born 1952), US-American mathematician
* (born 1956), German psychologist
*
Gerard J. van den Berg (born 1962), Dutch economist
* (born 1962), Dutch classical philologist
* (born 1963), German process engineer
2011:
* (born 1955), German psycholinguist
*
David DiVincenzo
David P. DiVincenzo (born 1959) is an American theoretical physicist. He is the director of the Institute of Theoretical Nanoelectronics at the Peter Grünberg Institute at the Forschungszentrum Jülich and professor at the Institute for Quantum ...
(born 1959), American physicist
*
Brian Foster (born 1954), British elementary particle physicist
* (born 1970), Canadian-German communications engineer
*
Dirk Kreimer (born 1960), German theoretical physicist
*
Hannes Leitgeb (born 1972), Austrian philosopher and mathematician
* (born 1966), Iranian-American physicist
* (born 1959), American chemist
2012:
* Rolf Harald Baayen (born 1958), Dutch linguist
*
Friedrich Eisenbrand (born 1971), German mathematician (funding ended prematurely)
*
Jochen Guck (born 1973), German biophysicist
* Hans-Arno Jacobsen (born 1969), German computer scientist
* Robert Schober (born 1971), German engineer
*
Matthias Tschöp
Matthias H. Tschöp (born 7 April 1967) is a German physician and scientist. He is the chief executive officer and scientific director of Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health. He is also Alexander von Humbo ...
(born 1967), German physician
*
Michael Weiss Michael Weiss may refer to:
Sports
* Michael Weiss (figure skater) (born 1976), American former figure skater
* Michael Weiss (swimmer) (born 1991), American swimmer
* Michael Weiss (triathlete) (born 1981), Austrian triathlete and cyclist
* Michae ...
(born 1955), German mathematician
2013:
* Gregory Crane (born 1957), US-American classical philologist
* Frank Fehrenbach (born 1963), German art historian
*
Michael Neil Forster
Michael Neil Forster (born December 9, 1957) is a British-American philosopher and the Alexander von Humboldt Professor, holder of the Chair in Theoretical Philosophy, and Co-director of the International Center for Philosophy at Bonn University, ...
(born 1957), US-American philosopher
*
Stephan Hartmann
Stephan Hartmann (born 1 March 1968) is a German philosopher and Professor of Philosophy of Science at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, known for his contributions to formal epistemology.
Biography
Hartmann was born in Limburg an der Lahn ...
(born 1968), German philosopher of science
* (born 1975), German physicist
*
Oskar Painter (born 1972), Canadian physicist (funding ended prematurely)
* Wolfram Ruf (born 1958), German medical doctor
2014:
*
Giuseppe Caire
Giuseppe Caire (born 1965 in Turin) is an Italian telecommunications engineer.
Career
Caire received his B.Sc. in electrical engineering from Politecnico di Torino in 1990, his M.Sc. in electrical engineering from Princeton University in 1992, ...
(born 1965), Italian information theorist
*
Emmanuelle Charpentier
Emmanuelle Marie Charpentier (; born 11 December 1968) is a French professor and researcher in microbiology, genetics, and biochemistry. As of 2015, she has been a director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. In 2018, sh ...
(born 1968), French immunobiologist
* Stefanie Engel (born 1968), German environmental economist
*
Stuart Parkin
Stuart Stephen Papworth Parkin (born 9 December 1955) is an experimental physicist, Managing Director at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle and an Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the Institute of Physics of the M ...
(born 1955), British physicist
* Andreas S. Schulz (born 1969), German mathematician
* (born 1972), Spanish-US-American physicist
* (born 1961), Japanese physicist
2015:
*
Élisabeth Décultot Élisabeth Décultot (born 13 May 1968 in Fécamp, Département Seine-Maritime, France) is a French Germanist, art historian and literary scholar. Since February 2015 she has held an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at the Martin Luther Univer ...
(born 1968), French literary scholar
*
Harald Helfgott
Harald Andrés Helfgott (born 25 November 1977) is a Peruvian mathematician working in number theory. Helfgott is a researcher ('' directeur de recherche'') at the CNRS at the Institut Mathématique de Jussieu, Paris. He is best known for submitt ...
(born 1977), Peruvian mathematician
*
Sharon Macdonald
Sharon Jeanette Macdonald (born in 1961) is a British anthropologist and museologist.
Career
In 1987, Macdonald received her Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and subsequently taught at Brunel University and Keele University. From 1996 until 2 ...
(born 1961), British ethnologist
*
Karen Radner
Karen Radner (11 May 1972) is an Austrian Assyriologist, the Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Ancient History at the University of Munich.
Early life and education
Karen Radner started her studies at the University of Vienna in 1990 in Ancient ...
(born 1971), Austrian Orientalist
*
Marja Timmermans
Marja Timmermans (born 1964) is a Dutch plant geneticist. Her research focuses on how leaves in plants develop on a molecular biological level.
Timmermans studied biology at Rutgers University and Yale University. From 1998 she was affiliated w ...
(born 1964), plant geneticist
2016:
*
Till Winfried Bärnighausen
Till Winfried Bärnighausen (born 1969) is an Alexander von Humboldt University Professor and Director of the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Germany. He is also Adjunct Professor of Glo ...
(born 1969), German epidemiologist
* Sven Bernecker (born 1967), German philosopher
*
(born 1960), British mathematician
*
Heinrich Jasper
Heinrich Jasper (21 August 1875 – 19 February 1945) was a Weimar Germany, German politician (Social Democratic Party of Germany, SPD). During the 1920s, he served three terms as regional prime minister (''Minister-president, Ministerpräsident' ...
(born 1974), German molecular biologist
* Tiffany Knight (born 1975), US ecologist and environmental researcher
* Katrin Kogman-Appel (born 1958), Austrian Judaist
* Judith Pfeiffer (born 1964), German Islamic scholar
* Wolfgang Wernsdorfer (born 1966), German solid-state physicist
2017:
* Largus T. Angenent (born 1969), Dutch environmental microbiologist
* Peter Baumann (born 1969), German cell biologist
* Jijie Chai (born 1966), Chinese structural biologist
*
James F. Conant
James Ferguson Conant (born June 10, 1958) is an American philosopher at the University of Chicago who has written extensively on topics in philosophy of language, ethics, and metaphilosophy. He is perhaps best known for his writings on Wittgenste ...
(born 1958), US-American philosopher
* Wolf-Bernd Frommer (born 1958), German plant molecular biologist
*
Ran Hirschl (born 1963), Israeli constitutional lawyer
2018:
*
Anne van Aaken
Anne Sophia-Marie van Aaken (born 19 April 1969 in Bonn, West Germany) is a German lawyer and economist, who is a full professor of law and economics, legal theory, public international law and European law at the University of Hamburg.
Life
V ...
(born 1969), German jurist and economist
*
Wil van der Aalst
Willibrordus Martinus Pancratius van der Aalst (born 29 January 1966) is a Dutch computer scientist and full professor at RWTH Aachen University, leading the Process and Data Science (PADS) group. His research and teaching interests include inf ...
(born 1966), Dutch computer scientist
*
B. Andrei Bernevig (born 1978), Romanian physicist
* Marco Caccamo (born 1971), Italian computer scientist
*
Margaret C. Crofoot (born 1980), US biologist
*
Ewa DÄ…browska (born 1963), Polish linguist
*
Raul Fidel Tempone (born 1969), Italian-Uruguayan mathematician
* (born 1971), German quantum optician and nuclear physicist
* Guus F. Rimmelzwaan (born 1959), Dutch virologist and immunobiologist
* Michael Sieweke (born 1963), German cell biologist
2019:
* Malte Gather, German physicist
*
Anke Hoeffler
Anke Hoeffler is a German economist and political scientist who is known for her work on social causes of morbidity and mortality.
Life
Hoeffler studied in Würzburg (Diploma in Economics) and London (Birkbeck College, Master's degree in econo ...
, German economist and political scientist
*
Jens Meiler
Jens Meiler (born August 31, 1974) is a German-American biologist and structural chemist. He currently serves as a Professor of Chemistry and Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University. His research f ...
, German structural biologist
*
Alexandre Obertelli
Alexandre Obertelli (born 10 April 1978 in Paris) is a French experimental nuclear physicist and Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Experimental Nuclear Structure Physics at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Technische Universität Darmstadt ...
(born 1978), French nuclear physicist
*
Stefanie Petermichl
Stefanie Petermichl (born 1971) is a German mathematical analyst who works as a professor at the University of Toulouse, in France.[Enrique Zuazua
Enrique Zuazua (Iriondo, second family name) is the Head of the Chair for Dynamics, Control, Machine Learning and Numerics - FAU DCN-AvH (Alexander von Humboldt Professorship) at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg (FAU). He is also Distingui ...](_blank)
(born 1961), Spanish mathematician
2020:
*
Peter Dayan
Peter Dayan is a British neuroscientist and computer scientist who is director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, along with Ivan De Araujo. He is co-author of ''Theoretical Neuroscience'', an influent ...
(born 1965), Theoretical Neuroscience
*
Kristian Franze, Physical Biology
*
Francisco Jesus Moreno-Fernández, Linguistics
*
Daniel Rückert, Computer Science
2021:
*
Andrea Bréard
Andrea Bréard (also published as Andrea Eberhard and Andrea Eberhard-Bréard) is a German historian of mathematics and sinologist specializing in Chinese mathematics. She is Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Sinology in the Department of Class ...
, History of Science & Sinology
*
Christian Frezza, Metabolic Physiology
*
Oskar Hallatschek, Biophysics
*
Ive Hermans, Chemiker
*
Stefan G. Hofmann, Translational Clinical Psychology
*
Gustav Holzegel, Mathematics
*
Jan Huisken, Medical Engineering
*
Kou Murayama, Psychology
*
Angela Schoellig, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
*
Bart Thomma, Microbiology
*
Thorsten Wagener, Hydrology
*
Aimee van Wynsberghe, AI and Robot Ethics
2022:
*
Catherina G. Becker, German neurobiologist
*
Matthias Doepke, economic theorist
* Bas E. Dutilh, bioinformatics scientist
*
Holger Hoos, computer scientist
*
Stefanie Jegelka, computer scientist
*
Yaochu Jin, Chinese computer scientist
*
Jan Karlseder, molecular biologist
* Markus Klute, German physicist
*
Sven Koenig, computer scientist
* Sayan Mukherjee, Indian mathematician
*
Vincent C. Müller, philosopher
*
Kate Rigby
Catherine Elizabeth Rigby (born 1960 in Canberra, Australia) is a scholar in the interdisciplinary field of environmental humanities.
Early life
Kate Rigby was born and grew up largely in Canberra, where she attended St John's Primary School, ...
, environmental humanities scholar
* Joacim Rocklöv, Swedish epidemiologist
* Suvrit Sra, mathematician
*
Radu Timofte Alexandru-Radu Timofte (; 7 April 1949 – 19 October 2009) was a Romanian soldier, politician and spy chief. A member of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), he sat in the Romanian Senate from 1990 to 2001, representing NeamÈ› County. From 2001 t ...
, Romanian computer scientist
* Angela Yu, neuroscientist
2023:
* Samarjit Chakraborty, computer scientist
* Dirk Englung, physicist
*
Hanna Kokko
Hanna Kokko (born 1971) is a scientist and full professor at the University of Zurich. She works in the fields of evolution and ecology and is known for her research on the evolution and maintenance of sex, the feedback between ecology and evol ...
, theoretical ecologist
*
Tina Malti, clinical-developmental psychologist
* Edvardas Narevicius, chemist
*
Thomas C. Südhof
Thomas Christian Südhof (; born December 22, 1955), ForMemRS, is a German-American biochemist known for his study of synaptic transmission. Currently, he is a professor in the school of medicine in the department of molecular and cellular physi ...
, neuroscientist
*
Heike Vallery
Heike Vallery is a German mechanical engineer whose research involves the development of robot legs and exoskeletons to assist in human walking, including applications in prosthetics and medical rehabilitation. She is a professor of biomechanica ...
, mechanical engineer
* André Platzer, computer scientist
* Thomas Strohmer, mathematician
*
Ingmar Weber
Ingmar Weber is a German computer scientist known for his research on Computational Social Science in which he uses online data to study population behavior. He was the Research Director for Social Computing at the Qatar Computing Research Institu ...
, computer scientist
* Miki Ebisuya, developmental biologist
*
Daniel Jobst Müller
Daniel Jobst Müller (born 22 March 1965) is a German scientist and Professor of Biophysics at ETH Zürich. He is known for work on Single-molecule experiment, single molecule and cell biophysics, bionanotechnology, and membrane proteins.
Educat ...
, cell biologist
* Robert Raußendorf, quantum information scientist
*
Dieter Schmalstieg, computer scientist
*
Hector Geffner, computer scientist
* Marcus Rohrbach, computer scientist
2024:
''New Alexander von Humboldt Professors Selected for 2024''
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, ccess-date=2023-06-20
* , (born in 1976), Turkish physicist
* Juan Daniel Prades Garcia, physicist
* Ariel Dora Stern, economist
* Arnim Wiek, sustainability scientist
* Peter N. Robinson, computational biologist
References
{{Reflist
Alexander von Humboldt
German science and technology awards
Science policy in Germany