Research

Research, discover, invent – lateral thinking is welcome

FAU - Research

FAU is a full-spectrum university with a long tradition of research. Over 250 degree programmes and long-standing partnerships with international research institutions such as Max Planck, Fraunhofer and Helmholtz give staff and students the opportunity to look beyond the boundaries of their own subjects, network with others and consider research questions from different perspectives. FAU encourages its members to think in every direction – above all laterally! This diversity makes FAU one of Germany’s leading research universities.

  • Does stress in social situations cause a particular posture? Do I move in a different way when I feel under pressure or fear a potential conflict? FAU researchers have been investigating these questions in their research. Using their results, they were able to train machine learning models to distinguish between people who were stressed and those who were not - a first step towards non-invasive methods of measuring stress.

  • The smartphone in your jacket pocket, LEDs for lighting your home and electronics for your charger, solar panels or your electric vehicle all have one thing in common: they depend on semiconductor materials and their properties. Researchers at FAU are researching how to make such devices more powerful, compact and energy efficient. Dr. Saskia Schimmel is one of them.

  • Until now, the generation and storage of electricity from solar energy has been dependent on various devices, leading to conversion losses. That may change soon: chemists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and other research institutes are conducting research into a hydrocarbon molecule that can either convert sunlight into electricity or save the energy for a long time in a chemical form.

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FAU STEM-Scientists

Multifaceted, inspiring and innovative, female STEM scientists from FAU’s Faculty of Engineering and Sciences are presented in varied interviews.