Humboldt research fellowships and awards
Funding for international research collaborations
With its Humboldt research fellowships and awards, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation provides funding for research collaborations between German and international researchers. Fellowship holders and award winners look for project partners and hosts in Germany with whom they can collaborate in places they believe are the most suitable for implementing their projects. FAU welcomes a large number of excellent researchers as a host university every year.
In June 2023, Prof. Andreas Hirsch, Chair of Organic Chemistry II, and Prof. Dr. Bernhard Egger, Professorship of Cognitive Computer Vision, have also been selected as scouts for the Henriette Herz Scouting Program. They can now recruit up to three junior researchers from abroad for their research group with a Humboldt Research Fellowship.
The most recent award winners and research fellowship holders
Prof. Dr. Xu Dai
Chair of Paleoenvironmental Research, February 2025
Prof. Xu Dai from Wuhan Universiy, China, is carrying out research with a Humboldt fellowship until January 2027 at the Chair of Paleoenvironmental Research together with Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kießling and Prof. Dr. Rachel Warnock. His research interests focus on the impact climate had on environmental patterns in the earliest Mesozoic era. During his stay at FAU, Prof. Dai will work on ammonoids, in order to understand how this group of cretaceous squids managed to become the most prolific sea creatures in the Triassic period in record time after having experienced mass extinction at the end of the Permian period In order to test the hypothesis of a climatic impact, Prof. Dai will first clarify the relationships between the squid and evaluate new time markers before establishing the connection to climatic paleodata using modern statistical methods. Ammonoids are considered model organisms in paleontology, similarly to Drocophila fruit flies in evolutionary biology. Accordingly, the project is expected to deliver fundamental insights into the connection between the climate and evolution.
Dr. Nadir Jori
Chair of Inorganic and General Chemistry, February 2025
With a Humboldt Research Fellowship for postdocs, Dr. Nadir Jori from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, is conducting research at the Chair of Inorganic and General Chemistry from February 2025 until January 2027 under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Karsten Meyer. During his stay at FAU, Dr. Jori is focusing on the synthesis and characterization of multinuclear transition metal complexes using various tripodal ligands. The existence of several metals in these complexes should facilitate reactions with various substrates, with the aim of developing new catalysts for the transformation of small molecules available in abundance in high-quality raw materials.
Dr. Alisson Ceccatto dos Santos
Chair of Physical Chemistry II, February 2025
Dr. Alisson Ceccatto dos Santos from the University of Campinas, Brazil, is conducting research at the Chair of Physical Chemistry II under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Steinrück with a Humboldt Research Fellowship for a period of two years as of February 2025. During his stay at FAU, he will focus on basic research into the interfaces of ionic liquids, in particular the enrichment of metal complexes at liquid/vacuum interfaces and tailored properties of liquid/solid interfaces. Due to their unusual properties and wide range of technical applications, ionic liquids are extremely important in processes such as catalysis.
Prof. Dr. Matin Mahmoudifard
Institute of Biomaterials at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, November 2024
Prof. Dr. Matin Mahmoudifard from the National Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (NIGEB), Iran, has been granted a Humboldt Scholarship to conduct research for up to 24 months at the Institute of Biomaterials under Prof. Dr. Aldo R. Boccaccini. His research interests lie in developing innovative nanomaterials for biomedical applications such as tissue engineering, biosensors and systems for administering medication. During his stay at FAU, Prof. Mahmoudifard will work on developing multifunctional scaffolding for bone tissue engineering based on nanobiomaterials and exosomes made from stem cells.
Dr. Manuel Buendía
Chair of Organic Chemistry II, September 2024
Dr. Manuel Buendía from Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Spain, is performing research with a Humboldt Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers between September 2024 and August 2026 at the Institute of Advanced Materials and Processes (ZMP) in the group called Synthetic Carbon Allotropes led by Prof. Dr. Andreas Hirsch. During his stay at FAU, Dr. Buendía is focusing on the chemically structured functionalization of graphene with different robust and flexible aromatic molecules to obtain 2D materials and quasi-3D heterostructures with unprecedented electronic properties. He will place particular emphasis on their potential chiral properties.
Dr. Papia Haque
Institute of Biomaterials at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, September 2024
Dr. Papia Haque from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, is performing research with a Humboldt Fellowship from September 2024 to February 2026 at the Institute of Biomaterials at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering led by Prof. Dr. Aldo R. Boccaccini. She focuses on bioactive glass-based biomaterials for wound healing applications. During her stay at FAU, she will investigate cell activity on bioactive glass.
Dr. Karthikeyan Hariharan
Chair of Surface Science and Corrosion and Chair of Materials Science and Engineering for Metals, August 2024
From August 2024 until the end of July 2026, Dr. Karthikeyan Hariharan from the Fontana Corrosion Center at the Ohio State University, USA, is performing research at the Chair of Surface Science and Corrosion (Prof. Dr. Sannakaisa Virtanen) and at the Chair of Materials Science and Engineering for Metals (Dr.-Ing. Christopher Zenk) with a Humboldt fellowship for postdoctoral researchers. His research interests include corrosion, high temperature oxidation, superalloys and the development of alloys. Dr. Hariharan’s work during the Humboldt fellowship will focus on understanding high temperature corrosion mechanisms in newly developed Fe-based superalloys and Ni-based superalloys with emphasis on the role of metal 3D printing processing and microstructure.
Dr. Zhexin Zhao
Chair of Laser Physics, July 2024
Starting in July 2024, Dr. Zhexin Zhao will be researching with a Humboldt Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers at the Chair of Laser Physics led by Prof. Dr. Peter Hommelhoff. Her research interests lie in efficiently coupling photons and free electrons. As a theorist, she works at the interface between theory and experiments. During her stay at FAU, Dr. Zhao’s research will focus on setting up an experiment where a beam of electrons is passed through optical structures in order to generate interesting electron light states.
Prof. Dr. Maria Jennifer Falcone
Chair of Classical Philology, June 2024
With a Humboldt Fellowship for experienced researchers, Prof. Dr. Maria Jennifer Falcone will conduct research at the Chair of Classical Philology (Latin) under the direction of Prof. Dr. Christoph Schubert from June 2024 until August 2026. During her stay at FAU, Prof. Falcone will be undertaking a comprehensive study of the Ilias Latina in the form of a monograph. The work, which was composed during the reign of Emperor Nero, became an important means of teaching students about the subject of Troy during the Middle Ages as it was included in the educational canon of schools at that time. However, up to now, the work has not been researched in full. The study will examine the Ilias Latina in the context of Roman Hellenism, its literary aspirations and the creative translation process.
