News
27 December 2025:
The year 2025 will only last for a few more days, so we would like to give you some insights into the events in our network in the last year:
Three new PhD students started in our network, although all of them were already working with us during their Master thesis: Alexis Gerbe and Simon Linhart in Munich and Viktor Deines in Rostock. In January 2026, Ziying Wu from the workgroup of our colleague Yu Liu at Yunnan University (China) will join our network and come to Munich for one year with a CSC scholarship.
Our postdocs Sofía Arce and Ana Zippel both received a Bavarian Gender Equality Grant and money from the Postdoc Support Fund. Sofía was additionally included into the BioMentoring program of the Faculty of Biology at LMU Munich. Ana was invited to present her research at the Tilly Edinger symposium of the Paläontologische Gesellschaft as one of only three candidates. Florian Braig successfully applied for funding via the Walter Benjamin Programme of the German Research Foundation for two years at the University of Oulu (Finland). Yanzhe Fu received the position as Associate Professor at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (China). Congratulations to all!
We also had another DAAD RISE student visiting our lab: Esme Flandro from McGill University (Canada) was supervised by our PhD student Jéhan Le Cadre.
Carolin received support from the LMU Sustainability Fund for one year to explore new methods for measuring insect diversity.
After a long planning phase, the research of our network became part of the exhibition Ludwig, Max + U in the central building of LMU Munich, which will be open until end of September 2026. Currently, the plannings for a special exhibition about larvae at the Natural History Museum Braunschweig are running, which will open in summer 2026 and is supported by the Volkswagen Foundation.
We are looking forward to 2026 and wish you all a good start into the new year!
25 December 2024:
As the year is about to end, we want to share what has happened in our network this year:
Two PhD students successfully defended their PhD theses: Christine Kiesmüller in Greifswald and Florian Braig in Munich (the latter with highest honours). Congratulations! Christine received a DAAD grant with which she went to the University of Warsaw (Poland), and Florian relocated to Oulu (Finland) to join his wife Jelena. We wish both of you all the best for your future career!
A new postdoc joined our network: Thomas Laville is in Munich for two years with a fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH); in fact he is not new to the network as he has already been here in 2019. Yanzhe Fu got an extension of his AvH fellowship by another six months. Our postdocs Sofía Arce and Ana Zippel successfully applied for support via the Postdoc Support Fund of the LMU, and Ana additionally received a Bavarian Gender Equality scholarship of the LMU for one year. Congrats to all of you!
Our Master student Laura Buchner received a research award for excellent students of the LMU. Great to see that her hard work was recognised!
Also in the past year we were able to welcome several research guests: Derek Briggs from Yale University visited us again. Alexis Gerbe from the University of Lyon did a research internship and will come back next year to start a PhD in Munich. Additionally, we had two students via the DAAD RISE programme: Alexandra Kwiatkowski from Pennsylvania State University (supervised by Florian) and Soma Elefánti from the University of Florida (supervised by Ana).
Carolin received funding from LMUexcellent to prepare a DFG Research Unit proposal.
Joachim's DFG proposal for a new fluorescence microscope was granted as well as a DFG proposal to study Orsten fossils (joint project with Alexander Nützel from Palaeontology & Geobiology at LMU).
Looks like 2025 will be exciting, all the best wishes to all of you!
25 February 2024:
Also in the last year a lot has happened, here are some highlights:
Several new PhD students joined our network: Jéhan Le Cadre, Tiana Renard and Elham Mahdipour in Munich, and Swane Jung in Rostock. Two PhD students successfully defended their theses: Ana Zippel and Serita Van der Wal. Congratulations!
Moreover, new postdocs joined our network: Sofía Arce via Joachim's Lichtenberg professorship and Yanzhe Fu with a fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Ana Zippel is now also a postdoc in our network. All three successfully applied for support via the Postdoc Support Fund of the LMU, Ana is additionally supported by the BioMentoring program of the Faculty of Biology at LMU.
We could welcome Derek Briggs, Yale University, as research guest, also funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He will visit us again this year.
Carolin received her teaching qualification. Since April 2023 she is substitute professor for Systematic Zoology (previously Prof. Haszprunar)
Joachim is tenured professor since April 2023.
06 February 2023:
Since our last news entry, a lot has happened. Here is a short summary of the positive news despite the pandemic years:
Viktor Baranov received the Hintelmann award of the Friends of the Zoological State Collection Munich in 2020. In December 2022, he moved to Sevilla with a Ramon y Cajal Fellowship. Congratulations!
Marie K. Hörnig moved to Rostock in December 2022 to start her own workgroup on functional morphology in the department of medical biology. All the best to her!
Several new PhD students joined our network: Ana Zippel, Florian Braig, André Amaral and Alejandro Caballero in Munich, Christine Kiesmüller and Joshua Gauweiler in Greifswald. Two PhD students defended their theses: "Jamie" Michel Schmidt and Mario Schädel. Congrats!
Carolin submitted her habilitation thesis and had her habilitation colloquium.
Joachim's Lichtenberg professorship was positively evaluated and will be supported for another three years by the Volkswagen Foundation.
Older news can be found here:
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