She is following in the footsteps of her predecessors Gotthilf Hempel and Venugopalan Ittekot, who also each led the ZMT for a decade. Hildegard Westphal will still remain at the ZMT as the head of the Geoecology and Carbonate Sedimentology research group and will carry out research and teach as professor of geology in the tropics within the Faculty of Geosciences in the frame of the cooperation professorship with University of Bremen Werner Ekau has temporarily taken on the role as scientific director until a successor has been appointed.