Copy (1) of Forscher-Alumni-Tandem

Dr. Daria Berdnikova came to Siegen for the first time in 2011 as a visiting PhD student (DAAD fellow) to perform her research project on photocontrollable interactions with DNA in the group of Prof. Dr. Heiko Ihmels (Organic Chemistry II). After three fruitful months in Siegen, she went back to Moscow where she successfully defended her PhD thesis and received a position as a research associate at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Later, Dr. Berdnikova returned to the group of Prof. Dr. Ihmels several times for short stints as a postdoctoral researcher to work on joint projects of the University of Siegen and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since October 2017, Dr. Berdnikova is an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow in the group of Prof. Dr. Ihmels. Her research is focused on the development of photocontrollable binders for therapeutically relevant RNA sequences.

When Prof. Dr. Page R. Laws, Professor of English and Dean of the R. C. Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University, returned to the Adolf-Reichwein campus last summer, she did not travel alone. Invited by Prof. Dr. Daniel Stein, chair of North American Literary and Cultural Studies in the English Department at Siegen, for a conference on Migration and Immigration in Europe and the Americas, Prof. Laws brought five colleagues from Norfolk State, one of the three remaining historically black colleges and universities located in Virginia, to present papers and discuss current and past movements of people across borders. The group had already visited Graz, where they had participated in the “Ethnicity and Kinship: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Family, Community, and Difference” conference of the Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas (MESEA), and they were eager to share their work with colleagues from Siegen.

Prof. Samuel Adler is an acclaimed composer and conductor, and holds the position of Professor emeritus at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School in New York, United States. He came to Siegen in June 2018 for a workshop in which he used his many years of experience to help music students with their compositions. His latest visit to Siegen is one of many to have emerged as a result of the close cooperation between him and Prof. Martin Herchenröder. Prof. Herchenröder has been a professor of music theory at the University of Siegen since 1994. He also teaches at the Organ and Composition Departments of the Eastman School of Music as a guest professor. It was during Prof. Herchenröder’s first stay at Rochester in 2008 that he got to know Prof. Adler and suggested him to visit Siegen the next time he would be in Germany. The next year Prof. Adler attended the University of Siegen’s Alumni Homecoming Day as a keynote speaker. After that, he came back to Siegen every couple of years, primarily to feature his music and to share his expertise with composition students.

Asst. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Wahl completed his PhD in Siegen at the Research Institute for Water and Environment (FWU), which is led by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Jensen. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wahl now based at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, United States. He cooperates closely with his former colleagues in Siegen to understand coastal flooding, and to work to develop methods of mitigating and adapting to sea level rise and changing extreme weather conditions.

Prof. Dr. Korakoch Attaviriyanupap has now completed her eighth research stay with Prof. Dr. Petra M. Vogel, chair of German Linguistics at the University of Siegen. Prof. Dr. Attaviriyanupap, who is an associate Professor at the German Department at Silpakorn University in Thailand, is focused on contrastive differences between the Thai and the German languages. Prof. Dr. Attaviriyanupap has been working closely together with Prof. Dr. Vogel on various projects since 2009.

Dr. Efua Esaaba Agyire-Tettey is a lecturer at the Department of Social Work, University of Ghana. Dr. Agyire-Tettey came to Siegen, thanks to the International Education Doctorate (INEDD) which advertised for doctoral students to come to Siegen from abroad, and provided them with help adjusting to their new country. Since completing her PhD at the University of Siegen, she continues to work with her PhD supervisor, Prof. Dr. Johannes Schädler, who manages the Center of Planning and Evaluation of Social Services (ZPE) at the University of Siegen. Dr. Agyire-Tettey and Prof. Dr. Schädler work together on a joint project which looks at the role of social work to promote inclusivity for people with disabilities in the Suhum district in Ghana.

Prof. Dr. Laura Black has arrived in Siegen from the American state of Montana, to work with Jun.-Prof. Dr. Kerstin Ettl on a paper which looks at sensemaking and success of entrepreneurs. The questions of how entrepreneurs recognise success and how they come to value some aspects of success rather than others are difficult, requiring consideration from multiple points of view. Professors Black and Ettl first met one another in 2013, at a conference organised by the FOKOS (Research Centre) in Siegen. They recognised their common interest in the topic of women entrepreneurship and started to work together. In June 2015 they presented the first results of their work at the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference and the DIANA conference in the United States in 2016. Both academics have benefited from their cooperation and are looking forward to presenting new results of their research to the scientific community.

Dr. Xiaoqiu Dou came to Siegen in 2016 as a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow. After 2 successful years she has returned from China to collaborate with other researchers in Prof. Dr. Schönherr’s Physical Chemistry I research group. Her projects include a new method to improve the effectiveness of drug testing, and utilising natural structures found in rose petals to improve the diagnosis of cancer. Dr. Dou has enjoyed her time in Siegen very much and there will hopefully be a permanent joint research program between Siegen and Dr. Dou’s home Institution, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Both universities, the University of Siegen and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University are currently working on a project application to set up a permanent joint research program with a cluster of research groups in Shanghai.

Prof. Dr. Kathleen Clark, who is an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at Florida State University, United Sates, has just completed her sixth research visit to the University of Siegen. She has been working closely with Prof. Dr. Ingo Witzke, of the Mathematical Education Department, in order to design seminars which help students to make the transition from learning mathematics at school to the more formal abstract style of mathematics taught at universities. Because they are interested in investigating the transition using historical perspectives, there are not so many other researchers in their respective countries with whom they can collaborate. For this reason international cooperation is invaluable for both sides. We hope to see Prof. Dr. Clark soon for another research visit.

Dr. Nowsheen Goonoo came to Siegen in 2018 to conduct her second research visit. She is based at the Centre for Biomedical and Biomaterials Research at the University of Mauritius. Her research focus was on using polymers derived from seaweed and Aloe vera to capture tumour cells from the bloodstream. Her host was Prof. Holger Schönherr, head of the Physical Chemistry I Department. Since they met at the PolyChar21 conference in South Korea in 2013, there has been close engagement between both research groups, and they have mutually benefitted from one another’s scientific expertise. This cooperation will continue in future, with plans to examine different parameters of these polymers to gauge their effectiveness for biomedical purposes.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ahmad Kamal Nasir kam aus Pakistan an die Universität Siegen, um hier im Jahre 2009 seinen Master of Science zu absolvieren. Ein vom DAAD gewährtes Anschlussstipendium gab ihm die Möglichkeit zur Promotion im Bereich Mobile Robotik am Lehrstuhl für Regelungs- und Steuerungstechnik unter der Betreuung von Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hubert Roth. Nach seiner Promotion erhielt Nasir einen Ruf als Associate Professor im „Electrical Engineering Department“ der „Lahore University of Management Sciences“ in Pakistan. Diese Position gibt ihm die Möglichkeit für weitere wissenschaftliche Zusammenarbeit mit der Universität Siegen. Seit 2016 entwickelt man gemeinsam ein System, das mit Hilfe von Drohnen den Gesamtbaumbestand in Teilgebieten von Pakistan ermittelt.

Im Rahmen des Programms „Einladung von Forschungspreisträgerinnen und Forschungspreisträgern zu erneuten Forschungsaufenthalten in Deutschland“ der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung war die Germanistin und Sprachwissenschaftlerin Frau Prof. Dr. Jin Zhao von der Tongji-Universität Shanghai, China, vom 30. Juni bis zum 30. September 2017 erneut an der Universität Siegen zu Gast. Wissenschaftlicher Gastgeber der Universität Siegen war damals und auch in diesem Jahr Prof. Dr. Stephan Habscheid, Germanistisches Seminar, Fachgebiet Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft. Die Zusammenarbeit mit der Germanistischen Linguistik und der Philosophie findet ihren vorläufigen Abschluss in Form eines öffentlichen Humboldt- Workshops, zu dem Frau Prof. Dr. Zhao über "Wilhelm von Humboldt in China: Rezeption, Forschungen und Probleme" referieren wird.

Humboldt-Workshop am 19. und 20. Oktober 2017: Humboldt und „Humboldt“ - Zur Rezeption und Popularisierung Wilhelm von Humboldts in Wissenschaft und politischer Öffentlichkeit. Die Tagung ist öffentlich und lädt ein zu einer sicherlich kontroversen Diskussion. Hier mehr zum Humboldt-Workshop mit Einladung zur Teilnahme!

Anlässlich neuster Forschungsergebnisse am Pierre-Auger-Observatorium in Argentinien, trafen sich die an der Kollaboration beteiligten Physiker Dr. Alexey Yushkov von der Akademie der Wissenschaften der Tschechischen Republik in Prag und Prof. Dr. Markus Risse, Department Physik, Arbeitsgruppe Experimentelle Teilchenphysik, an der Universität Siegen zur wissenschaftlichen Nachlese. Der persönliche Austausch bildet die Grundlage für die weitere gemeinschaftliche Forschung.

Durchblick im kosmischen Nebel. Das Pierre-Auger-Observatorium in Argentinien ist das größte jemals gebaute Observatorium für kosmische Strahlung. Dort ist der Nachweis gelungen, dass diese Strahlung von außerhalb unserer Galaxis kommt. Hier mehr dazu lesen