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, were also selected as scouts for the Henriette Herz Scouting Program. They can now recruit up to three early career researchers from abroad for their research group with a Humboldt Research Fellowship.
Award winners and research fellowship holders
Key research priorities of current Humboldt award winners and research fellowship holders at the Chairs at FAU.
Dr. Cai Tian: Chair of Fluid Mechanics, February 2025
Dr. Cai Tian from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology will be conducting research with a Humboldt fellowship for postdocs at the Chair of Fluid Mechanics led by Prof. Dr. Philipp Schlatter until February 2027. His research interests lie in bluff body wake dynamics and boundary layer flows. During his stay at FAU, Dr. Tian’s research will focus on looking for an innovative design strategy to optimize fluid-dynamic loads on slender cylinders such as those in riser and cable systems for offshore platforms and wind turbines by applying a multidisciplinary approach involving high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics simulations, laboratory experiments, physical interpretations, and data-driven optimizations.
Prof. Dr. Xu Dai: Chair of Paleoenvironmental Analysis, February 2025
Prof. Xu Dai from Wuhan University, China, is carrying out research with a Humboldt fellowship until January 2027 at the Chair of Paleoenvironmental Analysis 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: Chair 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 Chair 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.