Field of research:
Anthropology

Research interests:
Medical Anthropology; Political and Legal Anthropology; Politics of Life

Planned research project:
“Nembutal as a Global Pharmaceutical Object: Medico-legal entanglements”
In 2011, 60 medical doctors penned an open letter to Ulf Wiinberg, CEO of Lundbeck, a pharmaceutical company based in Denmark. In their letter, they requested Lundbeck to stop providing the drug Nembutal to prisons in the United States, arguing that it was turning into “the drug of choice for US executions.” Just 5 months before, it was Ulf Wiinberg who had written a letter to the director of Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction urging him not to use Nembutal in the execution of prisoners. Lundbeck, he wrote, “is adamantly opposed to the use of Nembutal (…) for the purpose of capital punishment,” stressing that its usage in this context “contradicts everything we are in business to do—provide therapies that improve people’s lives.” But as Nembutal continued to be employed for this purpose, the aforementioned physicians urged Lundbeck to implement measures that would hinder its circulation within the United States. As a result, the company restructured its US distribution program of Nembutal, thus restricting its commercialization to prisons. As this brief chain of events illustrates, the transnational circulation of Nembutal—a commercial name of the barbiturate sodium pentobarbital—was a vital element of medico-legal practices that are locally implemented. But its circulation was not shaped solely by commercial reasons. As global objects, pharmaceuticals acquire their meaning when embedded relational networks, therefore allowing the absorption of ideas, epistemologies, and policies. Following this theoretical perspective, this project sets out to analyze how the transnational circulation of Nembutal entangles medical, legal, political, and moral concerns, impacting on the implementation of the death penalty in the US as a local medico-legal practice.

Keywords:
Death penalty; Nembutal; pentobarbital; pharmaceuticals; politics of life

German host institution:
Freie Universität Berlin

Host institution during the mobility phase:
University of Edinburgh, UK

Website:

Field of research:
Medieval Literature

Research interests:
Medieval funeral lament, anthropology of death and grief, medieval heroic texts, emergence of Romance languages and cultures (and vernacular, in general)

Planned research project:
“The Funerary Lament in Medieval Literature: Models and Archetypes Between Literature, Religion and Anthropology”
The subject of the proposed project will be the funeral lament in medieval literary texts. Planctus (by convention the Latin term is used) can be found in texts of different genres, from epic to lyric, from romance to drama, and is witnessed in all cultures of the European Middle Ages, in medieval Latin, in the various Romance and Germanic languages. The motif requires a character A mourns the passing of character B in a stereotyped form: the deceased may be a relative, a hero fallen on the battlefield, a sovereign or an aristocrat. It can be seen as a simple motif, a circumscribed passage within a broad narrative framework (for example: the mourning of a knight fallen in battle, inside an epic text) but it can also constitute a textual device, a codified literary genre, especially within lyric poetry, in which a poet can lament the disappearance of a real person, giving the text a contextual and immediate function. The griever laments the deceased through formulas or conventional gestures repeated from one case to another (for example: beard and hair torn, list of the deceased’s enterprises, damages that the death of the person brings to the world, etc.). Therefore they are traditional literary forms, if not the reflection of real rituals and practices, widespread in folklore and found in almost all human cultures: planctus presents anthropological structures. Aim of the proposed project will be an analysis of the phenomenology of this literary motif on several levels: semiological, historical and anthropological. The approach will be aimed at identifying the main structures of planctus in the various literary genres and linguistic expressions; we will look for common patterns and the way in which the literary application of this cultural theme can diverge based on the context, the literary genre, the people involved in the mourning (mourner and mourned). What will emerge is a poetic of planctus.

Keywords:
planctus - Passion - Hero's Death - Lauda - Vernacular

German host institution:
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Exzellenzcluster "Religion und Politik")

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Eötvös József Collegium - ELTE, Budapest, Hungary

Field of research:
Philosophy

Research interests:
Systematic: Practical Philosophy and Ethics, Philosophy of Nature, Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of History, Philosophical Aesthetics, Philosophy of Religion.
Historical: German Idealism and Romanticism (esp. Kant, Schelling, Reinhold, Fichte, Hegel; Spinoza, Goethe, Novalis, Steffens), Post-Idealism (esp. Schopenhauer, Kapp, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Marx), 20th century ‘continental’ philosophy (esp. Whitehead, Adorno, Heidegger, Rosenzweig, Jonas, Canguilhem, Arendt, Levinas, Ricoeur, Derrida, Haraway, Honneth).

Planned research project:
“Nature and Technology in the Modern Age: Perspectives on the Current Discours about the Anthropocene.”
The present age is increasingly characterized by terms such as the Anthropocene and the Technosphere, since man and technology dominate and irrevocably permeate the entire biosphere of our planet, and thus living as well as inanimate nature. The aim of this project is to re-explore the relationship between nature and technology in the present age and to ask about its ethical relevance.
First of all, we have to deal with the broad current discourse on the concepts of the Anthropocene and the Technosphere for the characterization of the present age. It has to be shown how philosophy is not only able to contribute something substantial to this interdisciplinary debate that originally comes from geology, but at the same time, how philosophy has to question itself in the face of this debate. Secondly, this calls for a re-evaluation of traditional strands that have not been considered at the present time – namely the in part forgotten, in part incompletely recaptured prehistory of this debate in the philosophy of nature around 1800, in order to give the modern discussions a historical background and to expand their horizon fundamentally. Thirdly, we must reflect critically on the ethical demands that accompany this changed theoretical basis, especially since ethics can no longer focus on human action as if it were clearly distinguishable from a human-independent nature. Instead, holistic models are required that assume complex interactions and repercussions.
It is the epistemic interest of this project, beyond the alternative of a mere rejection or affirmation of tradition, to put the traditional coordinate system of philosophy to the test again in the focus of this current debate, and thus to fulfill a desideratum of one’s own subject. At the same time, we pursue the intention to build a bridge between the continental and Anglo-American discourses on this topic, which run partly in tandem.

Keywords:
Nature, Technology, Anthropocene, Philosophy of nature around 1800, Process Philosophy, Ontology, Ethics, Holism.

German host institution:
Institute of Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Department of Philosophy / Rock Ethics Institute at Pennsylvania State University, USA

Website:

Field of research:
German, European and International Public Law

Research interests:
Constitutional Law and Constitutional Theory (Constitutional Courts, Constitutional Rights, Proportionality Analysis, Comparative Constitutional Law, Institutional Analysis, Multi-Level Governance)
Administrative Law (Global Administrative Law, Regulation, Security, Data Protection)
Public International Law (International Economic Law, International Human Rights, International Dispute Settlement, International Organizations)
European Law (European Economic Law, European Constitutional Law)

Planned research project:
“Non-judicial rights review. The Promise and Limits of Rights Review by Non-Judicial Institutions in Germany, the EU and the UN”
The research proposal aims at analyzing non-judicial rights review by parliaments, ministerial bureaucracies, ombudsmen and data protection officers, fundamental rights agencies and human rights councils and committees from a multi-level perspective. While legal scholarship tends to equate rights review with judicial review, this research project asks as overarching questions which structures, instruments, principles and specific features characterize non-judicial rights review, how it is distinct from judicial review, how it functions in legal and political practice, and what prospects and limitations it has as an effective mechanism for the protection of fundamental and human rights. The research project has an empirical dimension and relies upon a broad variety of sources such as qualitative interviews with key actors as well as publicly available and internal governmental documents. The aim is to systematically analyze the field of non-judicial rights review in its various manifestations, to develop a typology, to contribute to the institutional dimension of human rights theory through the specific perspective of non-judicialness in rights protection, to stimulate regulatory reorientation with regard to institutional and procedural design and to develop a better understanding of the interaction between judicial and non-judicial actors.

Keywords:
non-judicial review, fundamental rights, human rights, EU, UN, multi-level governance, Bundestag, Bundesregierung, Rechtsförmlichkeit, Commission, European Parliament, Human Rights Council, Human Rights Committee, High Commissioner for Human Rights, legislative process, lawmaking, ombudsman, data protection commissioner

German host institution:
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Jean Monnet Center at NYU School of Law, USA

Website:

Field of research:
Social Anthropology and South Asian Studies

Research interests:
Space and place; religion and politics; shared and contested heritage; securitisation and policing; inter-religious spaces; religious offence; temple politics; pilgrimage; Hindu nationalism; ethnography.

Planned research project:
“Security and heritage: Globalised aspirations and material futures in urban north India.”
Security’ and ‘heritage’ constitute prominent but distinct research topics in anthropology. Scholars in the fields of critical heritage studies and the anthropology of security have demonstrated that security and heritage respectively are produced by historical, social and political contexts and forces. At the same time, heritage and security are individually productive of new socio-spatial formations, inasmuch as they both transform places and ways in which people relate to them. Their realms are deeply affective.
Yet questions about the similar functioning of these two phenomena, and ways in which they may be co-produced and co-productive, remain to date almost unexplored. To what extent are security and heritage comparable or compatible? And how do their collusion and collision play out in, and impact on, urban environments and the everyday lives of people? 
In order to address these urgent questions I begin by undertaking an intensive anthropological analysis of a specific urban setting in north India—where matters of security and heritage are pervasive. Through the combination of historical, discourse and visual analysis with extensive ethnographic research about everyday and material entanglements of security and heritage, I seek to understand the impact of their combination on the city and its diverse citizens. The wider aim of the project, however, is to open up a new avenue of research and foster broader comparisons with other urban settings in South Asia and beyond.

Keywords:
heritage, security, urban space, religion, development, everyday life, India.

German host institution:
Heidelberg University

Host institution during the mobility phase:
University of Delhi, India

Website:

Field of research:
History of education, comparative education

Research interests:
I deal with the history of education and the comparative analysis of educational policies, school programs and textbooks and the relationship between identity and education, starting from the variables of gender, cultural and religious diversity.

Planned research project:
“Religious Education Textbooks in England and Tunisia”
This proposed research is framed within the hypothesis that textbooks, manuals and curricula in general act as a litmus test for identity affiliations. I intend to subject the textbooks and religious education curriculum across the two countries to systematic analysis on that basis. My working hypothesis will be that religious education textbooks, along with those in, history and geography, are culturally located and socially defining. Increased sensitivity to this has important ramifications on policy and practice in religious education, which my proposed work will directly inform.  This is especially crucial in developing a richer and more nuanced understanding on how the religion (both Islam and Christianity) is understood, represented and taught in key texts used in religious education. How religious education textbooks are seen as contributing to national identity formation, and the processes of racial, cultural and religious assimilation will be an important point of focus across the research.

Keywords:
textbooks, teachers’ practices, otherness, inclusion, Islam, intercultural skills, identity, religious education, curricula

German host institution:
University of Hamburg

Host institution during the mobility phase:
University of Worcester, UK

Website:

Field of research:
Theology

Research interests:
Early Christianity; New Testament; Classics; Trauma Studies

Planned research project:
“Mockery and Torture from Homer to the Gospels”

Keywords:
Religious Studies; Early Christianity; Gospels; Non-Canonical Gospels; Passion Narratives; Torture Studies; Mockery; Ancient Historiography 

German host institution:
Universität Tübingen

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Universität Zürich, Switzerland

Website:

Field of research:
Linguistics

Research interests:
My research interests revolve around the relationship between speech production, perception and representation. In particular, I am interested in the relationship between the cognitive representation of speech units and the physical manifestation of these units. I am also interested in modelling acoustic-articulatory relations and how these are interpreted by speakers.  

Planned research project:
“The representation of articulatory gestures: the case of liquid consonants”
The project focuses on the link between the temporal organization of articulatory gestures and the mental representation of these timing patterns in two languages: English and German. Kinematic data of speech movements captured with MRI and Electromagnetic articulography will be correlated with speakers’ intuition on perceived speech samples in order to get a better understanding of the relationship between speech motor control and the cognitive representation of speech.

Keywords:
experimental linguistics, articulatory phonology, acoustic-articulatory relations, temporal organization of speech, cross-linguistic comparison

German host institution:
University of Potsdam

Host institution during the mobility phase:
University of Southern California (USC), USA

Field of research:
Contemporary European History

Research interests:
Borders and borderlands in everyday life; Environmental, social, and transnational history

Planned research project:
“Working the Border: Policing Labor along the Polish-East German Border, 1980-1989”
Despite East Germany’s unilateral closure of its border with Poland in 1980, thousands of Polish commuters continued to cross over daily for work in GDR factories throughout the decade. For these mostly female workers, GDR jobs meant higher wages, privileged mobility, and access to scarce goods—which might be resold on the unofficial market in Poland. “Working the Border” will consider their transnational activity as an instance of Europeanization from below, examining the practices of commuters and border police in the region of Görlitz/Zgorzelec during the 1980s to show how Eastern Europeans incorporated border-crossing into daily life prior to EU accession, even under highly restrictive conditions in the final decade of state socialism. 

Keywords:
borders, labor, policing, German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Poland

German host institution:
Universität Erfurt

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Uniwersytet Wrocławski, Poland

Website:

Field of research:
Translational hepatology

Research interests:
Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, Liver fibrosis, Gastroenterology, Targeted therapeutics, 3D culture, Translational research

Planned research project:
Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a chronic liver disease characterized by the pathological triad of metabolic stress, inflammation and fibrosis. NASH is the leading cause of liver transplantation and the pathological mechanisms of NASH remain still elusive. In this project, I propose to study the pathological role of the lipoxygenases (LOX), enzymes involved in fatty acid metabolism and lipid signaling, in the progression of NASH. This project is a unique collaboration combining fundamental liver research and translational liver targeting research contributing towards improved understanding of disease pathogenesis and a novel (nano) therapeutic for the treatment of NASH.

Keywords:
Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH); therapeutic target; lipotoxicity; lipoxygenases (LOX); hepatic stellate cells (HSCs); drug delivery

German host institution:
RWTH-University Hospital, Aachen

Host institution during the mobility phase:
University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

Field of research:
Conservation biology

Research interests:
My research mainly focuses on understanding the mechanisms for successful invasions of non-native species, predicting their potential distributions, and using invasive species as the model system to answer ecological and evolutionary questions.

Planned research project:
“Understanding temporal dynamics of climate niche to optimize the prediction of invasion risks”

Keywords:
Biological invasions, climatic niche, crayfish, fish, freshwater systems

German host institution:
Freie Universität Berlin

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Université Paris Saclay, France

Website:

Field of research:
Behavioral ecology

Research interests:
Quantitative ecology, Behavioral ontogeny, movement ecology, global change

Planned research project:
“Ontogeny of soaring flight in birds”
Soaring flight is a crucial mode of transport for many large birds, enabling them to cover long distances while expending little energy. Successful soaring requires effective interaction with the environment, particularly the atmosphere, and is therefore a skill that needs to be developed in young birds. Young soaring birds must learn to integrate dynamic environmental information with still-developing neuromuscular control systems to execute these flights. Understanding the ontogeny of soaring flight requires high-resolution and continuous monitoring of the young birds as they move through life. Recent advances in bio-logging technology provide an opportunity to monitor the behavior of flying birds and facilitate investigations into movement ecology at high temporal and spatial resolutions. The aim of this project is to use bio-logging technology to quantify the ontogenetic patterns of soaring flight in relation to environmental conditions in multiple bird species and to make intra- and inter-specific comparisons in these patterns. I will take advantage of already collected bio-logging data for juvenile soaring birds to achieve this aim. Using already existing data is an ethical and cost-effective means of multi-species investigations and enables me to compare the ontogeny of soaring flight in species occupying different habitats, with a range of soaring-flight dependencies, from facultative to obligate, and a range of life-styles, such as resident and migratory. This study will contribute to the field of behavioral ecology by explaining the patterns and mechanisms of developments in the flight behavior and movement ecology of young soaring birds towards energetically efficient flight.

Keywords:
Movement ecology, bio-logging, flight development, thermal soaring, resource selection

German host institution:
University of Konstanz

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Swansea University, United Kingdom

Website:

Field of research:
conservation biology, social-ecological research

Research interests:
human-wildlife interactions; social-ecological systems, conservation biology, sustainability science

Planned research project:
“Navigating human-wildlife interactions in shared landscapes”
In regions where people and wildlife share the landscape, human-wildlife interactions are inevitable. Understanding the nature of interactions, and in particular those causing negative outcomes for both wildlife and humans, is a pressing issue for biodiversity conservation. The costs associated with negative interactions can severely affect different dimensions of human well-being (e.g. food-security, health, social relationships) and can lead to retaliation against wildlife, which in turn can compromise conservation initiatives.
In the highlands of southwestern Ethiopia there is a strong intersection of humans and wildlife. The forests in the landscape host a diverse mammal community (more than 30 mammal species) and the forests are used by farmers for coffee production and for many other purposes (e.g. collection of firewood, spices, timber, medicinal plants). Livelihoods are based on subsistence farming and food crop are frequently raided by wild mammals. In addition, human population has been increasing in the region and it is plausible that negative interactions may be exacerbated in the future, due to encroachment of human activities in the forest.
Here, as a DAAD-Prime fellow, I aim to better understand the nature of human-wildlife interactions in the region to enhance biodiversity conservation and livelihoods. To this end, I will (i) examine how wildlife activity patterns are affected by human disturbance in the forest, and (ii) how different dimensions of livelihoods are affected by wildlife damages. I aim to produce fine-scale integrated insights on human-wildlife interactions in these shared landscapes, to inform the development of conflict mitigation and coexistence measures that aim to manage wildlife and sustain livelihood needs.

Keywords:
interactions, ecology, livelihoods, coexistence

German host institution:
Leuphana Universität Lüneburg

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE-CNRS), Montpellier, France

Website:

Field of research:
Computational Psychiatry

Research interests:
Computational modeling of behavioral and brain imaging data for precision psychiatry, approximate Bayesian models of action and cognition, sampling based representations and inference in biological and artificial neural networks, computational neuroscience, computational cognitive science, stochastic dynamical systems, complex systems

Planned research project:
“Unifying the Bayesian and the stochastic dynamical systems perspective on brain function via sampling based variational inference – Model development and empirical evaluation for computational psychiatry”
This project will investigate computational models of behavior and neural dynamics, which implement approximate Bayesian inference via sampling based, so called “implicit” representations of the relevant probability densities. It will study how a variational bound on model evidence, central to variational Bayesian inference, can be approximated and optimized using such implicit distributions, building on recent advances in machine learning. Thereby, the project will examine, how such models might build a bridge between physiologically informed, mechanistic models of spiking neural circuits, which afford explicit modeling of neuromodulation, genetic effects and pharmacological interventions, and high-level, Bayesian models of action and cognition, which afford explicit modeling of perception and learning processes, environmental effects, social interaction and psychotherapeutic interventions. The project will further study, how such models could be used to analyze behavioral and functional brain imaging data, to gain insights into the biological and psychological mechanisms underlying group differences in behavior and neural activity.

Keywords:
Amortized variational inference, generative adversarial networks, sampling based representations, variational inference in implicit models, spiking attractor network models, functional brain imaging

German host institution:
Department of General Psychiatry, Center of Psychosocial Medicine, Heidelberg University

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, UK

Website:

Field of research:
Atmospheric science

Research interests:
My research focus is mainly related to the retrieval of atmospheric trace gases, in particular ozone profiles from satellite limb observations and the study of long term trends in the stratospheric ozone distribution.

Planned research project:
"Stratospheric ozone long-term changes: a look from satellite limb observations and model simulations"
The stratospheric ozone layer suffered a significant decline at the end of the last century as a consequence of anthropogenic emissions of halogenated substances. An ozone recovery has been predicted for the current century in response to the actions taken under the Montreal Protocol and its amendments. The onset of this recovery has been detected over the last decade and analyzed using satellite measurements. The observed ozone changes show a complex structure as a function of altitude and latitude, which is related to the interplay between atmospheric transport and chemistry, both affected by climate change.
The goal of this project is to investigate the ozone changes in the stratosphere over the last 15-20 years at high spatial resolution, by using satellite observations in limb geometry and simulations from a chemistry transport model. First, I will focus on the study of the long-term stability of OMPS limb observations and its influence on the resulting ozone trends. The second goal is the interpretation of the ozone changes that were identified in a merged satellite data set (SCIAMCHY + OMPS), by exploring with model simulations the relevant atmospheric processes driving these changes and their zonal asymmetries.

Keywords:
stratospheric ozone, long-term ozone trends, satellite limb observations, chemistry transport model.

German host institution:
University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics

Host institutions during the mobility phase:
NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, USA
University of Leeds, School of Earth and Environment, UK

Website:

Field of research:
Intracavity absorption spectroscopy; laser physics; mid-infrared lasers

Research interests:
Optical diagnostics; lasers based on dyes, crystals and fibers; nanoparticle synthesis; combustion

Planned research project:
"Novel infrared laser systems for intracavity absorption spectroscopy"
Significant progress in such research fields as synthesis of nanoparticles, combustion and plasma technology, or medical breath analysis, is only possible with in situ spectroscopic diagnostics techniques that offer high sensitivity, species selectivity and high time-resolution. A suitable spectroscopic technique capable to fulfill such demanding requirements is Intracavity Absorption Spectroscopy (ICAS). Despite promising results achieved with ICAS in the recent years, there is a great but largely unused potential for significant progress in this field, namely the advancement into the mid-infrared (MIR) spectral range.
Within this project, novel laser systems based on innovative laser crystals doped with chromium and iron will be developed and optimized for ICAS. Our vision is to develop a few broadband and widely tunable lasers to cover a large fraction of the MIR spectral range, specifically 2–8 µm. The ultra-high sensitivity of ICAS and the high absorption cross-sections of many molecular species in the MIR will enable ultra-sensitive in situ detection of gas-phase species in various environments. The envisaged ICAS systems will additionally involve non-linear crystals enabling the conversion of MIR radiation into the visible range, thus dramatically reducing the costs for detection.

Keywords:
Ultrasensitive laser spectroscopy, laser crystal growth, mid-infrared laser development, non-linear optics

German host institution:
University of Duisburg-Essen

Host institution during the mobility phase:
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation

Field of research:
Nanophotonics. Plasmonics. Photocatalysis.

Research interests:
I am an experimental physicist working in the nanophotonics field. I enjoy developing state-of-the-art photonics tools to tackle challenges in nanotechnology.

Planned research project:
"Optical thermometry of functional nanoparticles for plasmon- assisted chemistry"
Plasmon-assisted chemistry is an emerging field that aims at exploiting plasmonic nanoparticles as platforms for manipulating chemical reactions at the nanometer length scale. In the recent years, plasmonic nanoparticles have been combined with semiconductors and catalytic materials in a variety of shapes, geometries and compositions. These hybrid reactors have enormous perspectives in a variety of important applications, including photodecomposition of organic pollutants, solar water splitting, and organic synthesis.
However, the increase in complexity of hybrid reactors brings difficulties to model and predict absorption and heat generation on these systems. Measuring temperature, a key parameter in any chemical reaction, is currently a challenging task in the nanoscale that was approached with invasive or indirect methods.
The main goal of this proposal is the implementation of an optical thermometry for in operando temperature measurement at the single nanoparticle/reactor level by using the temperature-dependant photoluminescence properties of plasmonic materials. The developed technique will be used to elucidate the elusive role of temperature in plasmon-assisted catalysis and will allow future rational design of hybrid reactors with enhanced functionality.

Keywords:
Plasmon-assisted chemistry. Nanothermometry. Optical spectroscopy.

German host institution:
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Host institution during the mobility phase:
CIBION (Center for Bionanoscience Research). Argentina

Website:

Field of research:
Theoretical Physics

Research interests:
My research explores gravitational phenomena ranging from microscopic particles to gigantic black holes to unveil novel ways to indirectly learn about the fundamental nature of gravity and the tiniest quantised building blocks of space and time.

Planned research project:
"Black-hole dynamics: From quantum to strong-field gravity"
As a DAAD Prime fellow, I will, for the first time, numerically simulate the dynamics of black-holes including Quadratic Gravity corrections to Einstein's theory of General Relativity. While the predictions of General Relativity are in impeccable agreement with observations at comparatively weak gravitational field, such higher-order curvature corrections induced by quantum gravity are, at present, practically unconstrained. The existing constraints can be improved dramatically by advances of theory and experiment into the strong-gravity regime in the vicinity of black holes. With a rapidly increasing number of gravitational-wave events, the experimental breakthrough is already in the making. Matching theoretical progress is therefore absolutely vital.
During my 12-month research stay with Prof. Frans Pretorius, world-renowned expert on the numerical evolution of black-hole binaries and director of The Princeton Gravity Initiative, I will (i) determine the stability of Schwarzschild black-holes in the full dynamics of Quadratic Gravity and (ii) identify potentially exotic final states of spherically-symmetric gravitational collapse. During the subsequent reintegration phase in Jena, in collaboration with the acclaimed quantum-theory expert Prof. Holger Gies and based on my PhD research, I am poised to (iii) consolidate the resulting implications for fundamental quantum-gravity theories at the origin of Quadratic-Gravity corrections. My proposal thereby bridges the gap between quantum and strong gravity in theories beyond Einstein's General Relativity.

Keywords:
fundamental physics, theoretical physics, black holes, strong gravity, numerical relativity, quantum gravity, effective field theory, higher-derivative gravity

German host institution:
Institute for Theoretical Physics, Friedrich Schiller University (FSU), Jena

Host institution during the mobility phase:
The Princeton Gravity Initiative, Department of Physics, Princeton University, USA

Field of research:
Organic Chemistry

Research interests:
Origin of Life, Self-Assembly, Supramolecular Polymerisation, Conjugated Polymers, 2D-Materials

Planned research project:
"New-Self-Replicators in Darwinian Evolution of Synthetic Systems and Photocatalysis in Confined Spaces"

Keywords:
Self-Replicators, Life-like Materials, Supramolecular Polymerisation, Darwinian Evolution

German host institution:
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Field of research:
Atmospheric Science

Research interests:
My research focuses on the interaction between aerosol particles and clouds, and more specifically, it aims at improving the knowledge on the formation of ice crystals in clouds. I am interested to investigate the occurrence and nature of aerosol particles relevant for heterogeneous ice nucleation.

Planned research project:
"Identifying the nature of ambient ice nucleating particles: Coupling a mobile ice chamber with a single particle mass spectrometer"
The first formation of ice crystals in clouds is triggered by specific aerosol particles, so-called ice nucleating particles (INPs). The presence of INPs have an important impact on cloud properties, since they can glaciate a liquid cloud completely, or initiate precipitation formation. On the other hand, in the absence of INPs, a cloud remains liquid down to temperatures of -38°C. At the current state of science, the atmospheric concentration and identity of INPs is unclear. This is related to the fact that INPs are a rare subset of the ambient aerosol population, and measuring them is technically challenging. In this project, I propose to develop a novel system for single particle analysis of the chemistry and the size of INPs. A mobile INP counter will be coupled to single particle mass spectrometer, giving real-time information on INPs in ambient air.

Keywords:
Aerosol cloud interaction, heterogeneous ice nucleation, ice nucleating particles, single particle mass spectrometry.

German host institution:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research

Host institutions during the mobility phase:
Purdue University, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, USA;
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Earth System Research Laboratory, Chemical Science Division, USA.

Website:

Field of research:
Dynamical Systems, Mathematical Physics

Research interests:
Aperiodic Structures, Spectral Theory, Number Theory, Lyapunov Exponents

Planned research project:
"Renormalisation, Self-Similarity, and Spectral Theory"
This project aims to investigate a class of mathematical models for quasicrystals, which is that of self-similar aperiodic dynamical systems. We want to be able to exploit the self-similarity they satisfy to find appropriate renormalisation schemes satisfied by structures such as point sets, tilings, and measures, with the ultimate goal of being able to say something about their spectra (diffraction and dynamical).
In particular, we aim to build a systematic approach to exclude the presence of specific spectral components (pure point, absolutely continuous, or singular continuous) in these systems without requiring spectral purity, and be able to provide sufficient conditions under which two systems related by some equivalence possess the same spectral type.

Keywords:
Self-similar tilings, Mathematical diffraction, Dynamical spectrum, Aperiodic structures

German host institution:
Universität Bielefeld

Host institution during the mobility phase:
The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

Website:

Field of research:
Inorganic Materials Chemistry

Research interests:
Porous materials as adsorbents for adsorption-based air-conditioning and refrigeration

Planned research project:
"Next Generation Microporous Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) for Advanced Sorption Processes: Green Synthesis, Structural Characterization and Shaping, towards Pratical Applications"

Keywords:
Aluminum, Titanium, Fumarate, Muconate, Stable Metal-Organic Frameworks, Adsorption

German host institution:
University of Düsseldorf

Host institution during the mobility phase:
Institute of Porous Materials from Paris (IMAP), Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris

Field of research:
Zooarchaeology, Paleoecology

Research interests:
My research interests lie at the intersection between past environmental change and human cultural evolution. I am particularly interested in how faunal records can inform us about past environments and resource availability during periods of human social, cultural or biological transition. My specialty is microfaunal analysis, specifically using the remains of small mammals such as rodents, insectivores, and bats, as paleoecological proxies. I also co-direct the Northern Cape Archaeology and Ecology Project (NCAEP), an international and multidisciplinary research project focused on understanding the interplay between the environment and cultural evolution during the Later Stone Age in this understudied South African region.

Planned research project:
"New high-resolution paleoecological records of Wonderwerk Cave and Klasies River during the late Pleistocene and Holocene Later Stone Age"
As a DAAD PRIME fellow, I will work within the framework of the Northern Cape Archaeology and Ecology Project (NCAEP) producing diachronic terrestrial paleoenvironmental records of the LSA period at Wonderwerk Cave and Klasies River Mouth. I will apply both traditional zooarchaeological methods and stable isotope analysis to faunal material recovered during renewed excavation at both sites to derive a diachronic record of past landscape change and isolate shifts in vegetation, temperature and precipitation through time. These two climatic sequences will illuminate the ecological context of a number of key LSA cultural developments within both coastal and interior biomes. Specifically, this project will provide the groundwork for ongoing material culture studies of the of the Wilton lithic industry, a technocomplex defined by specialized bladelet production and long-distance trade of raw material. Understanding the climatic context of the Wilton occupation of Wonderwerk and Klasies River Mouth will help clarify the drivers behind these groups mobility strategies and behavioural adaptations. Overall, this project will help resolve many outstanding questions surrounding the complexity of southern Africa’s LSA climate and vegetative dynamics and contribute to a growing body of knowledge on the variability of African biotic and anthropogenic response to local and global climatic events.

Keywords:
Paleoecology, Stable Isotopes, Small Mammals, Microvertebrates, Archaeology, South Africa

German host institution:
Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen, Biogeology Working Group

Host institutions during the mobility phase:
University of Toronto, Anthropology Dept., Canada
University of the Witwatersrand, Origins Institute, South Africa

Website:

Field of research:
Food Engineering and Chemical, Biological & Environmental Engineering

Research interests:
Dairy science, dairy microbiology, process and food safety, inactivation kinetics, fractionation of milk proteins, membrane separation process, biobased adhesives from casein protein

Planned research project:
Synthetic adhesives are predominantly produced from petroleum-based polymers. However, from a sustainability point of view, there is a need and demand for manufacturing of adhesives from naturally-produced polymers such as starch, milk proteins. The production of adhesives from proteins has a long tradition. Adhesives from casein protein has been applied for bottle labelling, paper coatings, paper glue and wood. Caseins are the major proteins in milk and composed of individual casein fractions, which are αS1-, αS2-, β-, and ĸ-casein and have different properties. Isolation of these fractions and their physiochemical and techno-functional properties are of research interest. Different methods for the isolation and purification of casein fractions were intensively investigated in the recent years at the University of Hohenheim and it has been shown that the fractions with a high purity and yield of can be obtained. However, it has not been investigated, yet, which casein fraction is responsible for this specific adhesive property of casein. Due to limited availability of pure casein fractions, to the best of our knowledge, application of individual casein fractions as adhesive has not been studied. Furthermore, the unproven theory that the phosphorylation has an influence on the adhesive properties of casein, has not been examined. The aim of this research project, which is to be conducted as an international cooperation project between the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany and the Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA, is to achieve an in-depth understanding of the molecular basis of functional properties of casein fractions. The findings of this project can enable a broader application of casein based adhesives as a potential environmentally friendly and sustainable adhesive form renewable sources. With a profound knowledge, the targeted proteins, protein domains and peptides having an optimized adhesive features could be produced.

Keywords:
Milk proteins, αS-casein, adhesive properties, sustainable use of natural resources, separation process

German host university:
University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany

Host during the mobility phase:
Oregon State University, Corvallis, United States