The three scientists will assume office for five years: Professor Michal Kucera will become the new Vice President for Research and Transfer on September 1. Dr. Mandy Boehnke will assume office at the same time as the new Vice President for International Affairs, Academic Qualification, and Diversity. On October 1, Professor Maren Petersen will succeed her as the new Vice President for Teaching and Studies.
The three future Vice Presidents presented their visions and goals for their ministries to the Academic Senate. After a general discussion in the committee, which consists of professors, employees from science, administration, and technology as well as students, a secret ballot was held. The decision was unanimous.

“I thank the Academic Senate for its confidence,” said President Bernd Scholz-Reiter, who will retire at the end of August after a ten-year term. “I wish Jutta Günther, the three new Vice Presidents, and Director of Finance and Administration Frauke Meyer all the best in their work for the University of Bremen.” His successor echoed his words. “My thanks also go to all AS members. I would also like to thank the University Executive Board for its good work over the past years. I am looking forward to working with the three new Vice Presidents and Director of Finance and Administration Frauke Meyer. As a team, we want to shape and develop the University of Bremen together with all university members.”

For the First Time, a Representative of the Central Academic Structure in the University Executive Board and New Areas of Focus for Two Vice Presidents

The three new Vice Presidents bring further changes. For the first time, Dr. Mandy Boehnke, a representative of the so-called central academic structure (which includes all nonprofessorial academic employees), will be represented in the University Executive Board as Vice President. In addition, two Vice Presidents will have new ministries. While Professor Maren Petersen’s Vice President’s Office for Teaching and Studies is set, Professor Michal Kucera will assume office as Vice President for Research and Transfer. The previous third focus of this ministry, “young academics,” will in future be the responsibility of the Vice President Dr. Mandy Boehnke. Her office will include the focus areas of internationalization, scientific qualification, and diversity. “We removed the phrase ‘young academics’ because it is no longer in keeping with the times,” she explains. A not insignificant part of the research associates have been working for years without being bound to instructions, have been teaching independently, and have been raising third-party funds. “This is where I would like to work on further development opportunities,” says the future Vice President.

Professor Michal Kucera, Future Vice President for Research and Transfer

Professor Michal Kucera will replace Professor Jutta Günther on September 1, 2022, after a term of approximately two and a half years. “The University of Bremen can look back on considerable successes. These prove that it has the potential to compete nationally and internationally for bright minds and project funding,” Kucera says. “We should develop new ideas in the long term, beyond the Excellence Strategy, and look beyond the boundaries of individual disciplines even more than before. I would therefore like to promote interdisciplinary exchange at the university. Sustainability, climate justice, and climate neutrality as well as data science would be excellent topics for this, in which the university could cooperate more closely with society, politics, and business to combine research and transfer into a single entity.”

Professor Michal Kucera studied geology in Prague and received his PhD from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. This was followed by stays in Santa Barbara in California, in London, and in Tübingen, before he moved to Bremen in 2012 to the Faculty of Geosciences and the MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen as Professor of Micropaleontology/Paleoceanography. In his research, the 51-year-old examines the influence of climate change on the marine environment and its inhabitants in the older and more recent past. In addition to his role on the board of the Excellence Cluster “The Ocean Floor – Earth’s Uncharted Interface,” he has been spokesperson for the German–Canadian Research Training Group ArcTrain since 2013 and a member of the DFG Senate Commission on Earth System Research since 2017. From 2015 to 2019, he was dean of the Faculty of Geosciences, and since 2019 he has been an elected member of the Academic Senate of the University of Bremen.

Professor Maren Petersen: Vice President for Teaching and Studies from October 1

Professor Maren Petersen will replace Professor Thomas Hoffmeister in the Vice President’s Office for Teaching and Studies on October 1 after a tenure of approximately eight years.
“Shaping technological, environmental, and social change is the challenge of the future,” says Maren Petersen. “This makes it both a goal and a task to prepare our students for this challenge as well as possible. In the coming years, the topics of sustainability and climate change will be the focus of all activities, along with digitization. The result is changed demands on the ability of graduates to learn, cooperate, and innovate, which must be reflected in how teaching and studies are organized.” The common goal of all stakeholders should be to enable the student body to good quality education: “I consider the task of a Vice President for Teaching and Studies to be creating the framework conditions so that everyone can implement this together in their respective disciplinary self-image in the best possible way in an appreciative atmosphere. What’s important here is that it’s also possible to break new ground.

Professor Maren Petersen studied chemical engineering in Clausthal-Zellerfeld and earned her doctorate at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH). In addition to her work as a research assistant and then senior engineer at the TUHH in the Institute of Laser and System Technologies, she oversaw the founding and development of the LZN Laser Zentrum Nord GmbH (now Fraunhofer IAPT). In parallel, the engineering scientist taught at HAW Hamburg. From 2013 to 2015, she went to the Bergische Universität Wuppertal as a substitute professor for “Didactics of Technology.” Since 2015, Maren Petersen has been a professor of “Vocational Discipline Metal Engineering and Related Didactics” in the Faculty of Production Engineering and part of the Institute of Technology and Education at the University of Bremen. The 53-year-old has been Dean of Studies in the faculty since 2017.

Dr. Mandy Boehnke, Future Vice President for Internationalization, Academic Qualification, and Diversity

Dr. Mandy Boehnke replaces the Vice President International and Diversity, Professor Eva Maria Feichtner, who has held the position since 2017. “In the past ten years, there has been a lot of movement in the area of internationalization, which is reflected in the increase in English-language degree courses, a growing number of international students, and cross-boarder research cooperations.” Mandy Boehnke would like to combine and focus the existing central and decentralized cooperations.
She would also like to advocate for the systematic promotion of the central academic structure and strengthen the development opportunities of this heterogeneous group. The central academic structure “is one of the most important pillars of the university. It provides essential teaching, research, and transfer services and, at over 50 percent, represents the largest employee group at the University of Bremen.”
In the area of diversity, Mandy Boehnke announced plans to build on past efforts and continue to remove barriers. To this end, it would make sense to evaluate the activities of recent years and current needs, to examine priorities, to strengthen synergies, and to link the topic more sustainably with the areas of research and transfer as well as academia and teaching.
Dr. Mandy Boehnke studied sociology at TU Chemnitz and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has been a member of the University of Bremen since 2004. After a one-year stay abroad at the National University of Singapore, she worked as a research assistant in the field of theory and empirics of social structure. After completing her doctorate in sociology of the family, the social scientist joined the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS). There, as Director of Studies, she was responsible for the implementation of the structured doctoral program and, as a member of the board, was involved in its further development and allocation of funds. At the University of Bremen, the 45-year-old has been involved in various committees, such as the Academic Senate and other commissions. Dr. Mandy Boehnke has been the Dean of Studies in Faculty 8: Social Sciences since 2021.

Further Information:

Professor Michel Kucera https://www.marum.de/Prof.-michal-kucera.html

Professor Maren Petersen https://www.itb.uni-bremen.de/ccm/profiles/petersen/index.de

Dr. Mandy Boehnke https://www.bigsss-bremen.de/people/inhouse-faculty/dr-mandy-boehnke

Click here to go to the current University Executive Board website https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/university/organization/university-executive-board

www.uni-bremen.de

Contact:

Professor Bernd Scholz-Reiter
President of the University of Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-60011
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