The Hector Foundation awards its Science Prize to outstanding researchers at top German universities. Recently, the Bremen professor Antje Boetius was admitted to the exclusive circle of prizewinners. Other prizewinners this year beside Prof. Antje Boetius were Prof. Christoph Klein (Ludwig Maximilian University Munich) and Prof. Karl Leo (Technical University of Dresden), each of whom received the 150,000-euro prize money that comes with the award. They have all been appointed “Hector Fellows”. Although the areas of research covered by the current number of 18 Fellows are manifold, they all share a dedication to high-level research activities and academic teaching.

Antje Boetius has been professor for Geomicrobiology at the University of Bremen since 2009. She also leads the research group Microbial Habitats at the Bremen Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and the Helmholtz Max Planck Research Group for Deep Sea Ecology and Technology at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven. This bridge group was founded jointly in December 2008 by the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. In January 2014 Antje Boetius was also elected to the chair of the Scientific Commission of the German Science Council.

Antje Boetius’ research is focused on the deep sea and Polar regions. Her investigations include, for example, the way life can be supported by extremely small sources of energy. With over 40 research expeditions behind her, she has among other things researched into how changes to the Arctic ecosystem are being brought about by the retreat of Arctic ice.

For further information, please contact:
University of Bremen
Faculty of Geosciences
Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Phone: +49 421 2028860
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