Professor Joybrato Mukherjee was re-elected as DAAD President in Bonn today. The General Assembly of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) also confirmed Vice President Muriel Helbig in office. In addition, a new Executive Committee and a part of the Board of Trustees were elected for the world’s biggest academic exchange organisation.

At today’s DAAD General Assembly in Bonn, the existing DAAD President Joybrato Mukherjee was unanimously elected for a further term of office. His second term begins on 1 January 2024 and ends on 31 December 2027. The representatives of the DAAD’s member higher education institutions and student bodies also unanimously re-elected the existing Vice President Muriel Helbig for a second term in office. 

Joybrato Mukherjee has been President of Justus Liebig University Giessen since 2009, and was the university’s Vice President prior to that. From 2012 to 2019 he was the Vice President of the DAAD, and he has been the DAAD’s honorary President since January 2020. Mukherjee was born in India and grew up in the Rhineland region in Germany. He studied English, biology and education at RWTH Aachen. He did his doctorate at the University of Bonn, where he also qualified to teach at professorial level. In 2003 he was appointed as professor for English linguistics at the Justus Liebig University Giessen. The 49-year-old is a member of various academic advisory boards and boards of trustees in Germany and abroad.

Muriel Kim Helbig has been the President of Technische Hochschule Lübeck since 2014. She has been a member of the DAAD’s Executive Committee since 2016, and the Vice President of the world’s biggest academic exchange organisation since 2020. The 48-year-old studied psychology at the University of Potsdam and obtained her doctorate from an SDG Graduate School in cooperation with the University of Haifa and the University of Jena. She went on to work for the University of Jena in the area of graduate support, before leading the International Office of Bauhaus-Universität Weimar as its Director. 

Election of the DAAD Executive Committee

The representatives of the DAAD’s 243 member higher education institutions and the 104 student bodies represented in the DAAD also elected twelve new members for the DAAD Executive Committee: nine individuals with experience in international work or university management and three student representatives. The new Executive Committee will also start its term in office on 1 January 2024. These are the elected individuals:

Representatives of the member universities

• Dr Birgit Barden-Läufer, University of Hanover
• Dr Mandy Boehnke, University of Bremen
• Professor Hiltraud Casper-Hehne, University of Göttingen
• Dr Jens Ewen, University of Music Weimar
• Dr Herbert Grieshop, Freie Universität Berlin
• Professor Angela Ittel, Technische Universität Braunschweig 
• Professor Karim Khakzar, Fulda University of Applied Sciences 
• Dr Yoan Vilain, Humboldt University of Berlin
• Professor Andreas Zaby, Berlin School of Economics and Law

Student representatives 

• Kumar Ashish, University of Oldenburg
• Sandra Paßreiter, Technical University of Munich
• Diana Zhunussova, University of Heidelberg

DAAD Board of Trustees election 

Five new members for the Board of Trustees were also elected at the General Assembly. The Board of Trustees advises the Executive Committee and is responsible for suggesting President, Vice President and Executive Committee election candidates, among other tasks. The Board of Trustees comprises 23 appointed and five elected members. Two of the elected board members are from the areas of research and business, and three are members of the student bodies.

These are the elected individuals:

• Professor Kerstin Mey, University of Limerick
• Dr Volker Treier, German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK)

Student representatives

• Muhammad Abdullah, Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences
• Janes Behr, University of Leipzig
• Daniel Janke, University of Würzburg