Prof. Dr. Katharina Herkendell, Officer for the Prevention of Antisemitism.
Officer for the Prevention of Antisemitism
Prof. Dr. Katharina Herkendell
W1 Professorship for Decentralized Energy Process Engineering
Fürther Str. 244 f, 90429 Nürnberg
Phone: +49 911 5302 99032
E-mail: antisemitismusbeauftragte@fau.de
Website: www.evt.tf.fau.de
Officer for the Prevention of Antisemitism
Due to the social responsibility resulting from the history of antisemitism that also occurred at FAU and through the commitment FAU makes in its mission statement (“Meeting all university members with appreciation regardless of gender, sexual identity, ethnic origin, religious confession or worldview, social origin, age or health impairment”), the Officer for the Prevention of Antisemitism is responsible for the practical implementation and communication of zero tolerance towards antisemitism at FAU. Among other things, she is a point of contact in the event of antisemitic concerns and for Jewish students, researchers, and faculty, as well as all other employees. The position includes representation in various committees, as well as collaboration with the Jewish communities of the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region, ministries, NGOs, professors, liaison lecturers, prosecutors, the Center for Teacher Education, and the Office of Equality and Diversity. The Officer for the Prevention of Antisemitism liaises with the Executive Board, and exercises the powers assigned to her by the Executive Board.
See also Website of the FAU Office of Equality and Diversity
Curriculum vitae
Born in 1987, Prof. Herkendell graduated with honors in bioengineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 2014. This was followed by doctoral research on “Switchable Electrode Assemblies Employing Nano-Bio Hybrid Structures in Cascaded Enzymatic Fuel Cells” and a postdoctoral position at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (Nanotechnology Group) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. She has been Professor of Decentralized Energy Process Engineering at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) since 2020.
Numerous research stays took her abroad, for example in 2013 to the Institute of Chemistry (Willner Group) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in 2012 to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Biomaterials Processing & Characterization Lab) at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, in 2011 as part of a research internship at BASF in New York (Bioactive Materials Group) and in 2010 to the Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering (Hestekin Lab) at the University of Arkansas.
Her research focuses on electrode modifications with bio-nano hybrid structures for distributed energy systems and scalable power-to-X/waste-to-energy applications. She conducts research in national and international consortia, such as the BMBF-funded project “Multikulti” for innovative bioreactor development and EU projects funded by Horizon Europe for biological methanation, in particular bioelectrochemical methane synthesis from CO2 residual streams and electricity from renewable resources. She is well established in the international research community with highly cited, competitively peer-reviewed publications, regular contributions as a reviewer, and networking in research alliances and scientific platforms, including as an advisory board member of the ProcessNet Department of Energy Process Engineering and a member of the International Society for Microbial Electrochemistry and Technology (ISMET). In teaching, she is highly committed to her lectures “Biocatalytic Energy Systems”, “Renewable Energies” and the lecture series “Antisemitism – Backgrounds, Challenges, Perspectives for Action”, co-organized for the first time in 2022, as well as in numerous committees for the administration of academic affairs.
She has been the Officer for the Prevention of Antisemitism at FAU since July 2021.