Current Fellows
2024/25 FRIAS Fellows
Each year, researchers from around the world gather at FRIAS to further their research projects and exchange ideas with fellow scholars. This creates a distinctive intellectual and interdisciplinary environment, bringing together young postdoctoral fellows and esteemed senior professors from the humanities, natural sciences, and life sciences. On this page, we introduce the current cohort of fellows, their events, as well as their research projects and activities. An overview of all previous cohorts can be found here: Fellow Finder
Fellow Projects
Prof. Dr. Chikodili Collins Ajibo
University of Nigeria
Law
Senior Fellow
October 2024 – April 2025
Sustainable Governance of Natural Resources as a Pathway to Conflict Management
Dr. Atreyee
Banerjee
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität
Physics (Soft Matter)
Early Career Fellow
October 2024 – June 2025
Structure-property relationship in soft matters to discover novel materials in silicon
Dr. Jenny Benham
Cardiff University
History, Medieval Studies
Senior Fellow
January 2024 – June 2025
Espionage in the Middle Ages
Dr. Berit Callsen
University of Osnabrück
Romance Cultural Studies
Senior Fellow
November 2024 – April 2025
Watery Surroundings – Islandic Conditions: Active Waterscapes in Latin American Literature and Film
Prof. Dr. Bret Davis
Loyola University Maryland
Philosophy
Senior Fellow
July 2023 – December 2025
Knowledge and Wisdom in Zen Buddhism
Prof. Dr. Christina Grozinger
Pennsylvania State University
Entomology
Senior Fellow
March 2022 – December 2025
Accelerating research on land use and climate change effects on pollinator populations through high-throughput tools
Dr. Austin Himes
Washington State University
Forestry
Senior Fellow
June 2025 – August 2025
Standards for social-ecological systems research in forests
Dr. Philipp Höfele
University of Freiburg
Philosophy, Ethics
Early Career Fellow
October 2024 – September 2027
Digital Anthropocene: AI and Sustainability
Prof. Dr. Birgit Hopfener
Carleton University
Art history, Contemporary art and theory in a global framework
Guest Researcher
August 2024 – December 2024
Doing Critical Global Art History. Transcultural analyses and a pluriversal conceptual framework for contemporary art historiographic art
Dr. Stephen Howard
KU Leuven
Philosophy
Early Career Fellow
October 2024 – July 2025
A Kantian Epistemic Approach to Climate Change Debates
Dr. Apoli Bertrand Kameni
Université Omar Bongo / Sciences Po Lyon
Political Science, Strategic International Relations
Guest Researcher
November 2024 – December 2024
The Dead Sea’s Minerals: the Blind Spot of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Dr. Agata A. Konczal
Wageningen University
Environmental Anthropology, Political Ecology, Environmental History
Senior Fellow
July 2025 – August 2025
Relational values within frameworks for social-ecological systems research in forests
Dr. Benjamin Kraemer
University of Freiburg
Aquatic Ecology
Early Career Fellow
October 2024 – July 2025
Lake dead zones: global drivers and sensitivity to climate change
Prof. Dr. André Krischer
University of Freiburg
History
Senior Fellow
October 2024 – September 2025
FRIAS Project Group: Post-war Periods. Plurality – Temporality – Re/Constructions
Dr. Robert Lee
University of Cambridge
History
Early Career Fellow
September 2024 – June 2025
Superintending Conquest: United States Expansion along the Indian Boundary Line
Prof. Dr. Shelly Levy-Tzedek
Ben Gurion University
Human-Robot Interaction & Motor Control
Senior Fellow
July 2025
Senior Fellow
October 2018
Ethical and Legal Implications of Social Robots in Rehabilitation
Prof. Dr. Jie-Hyun Lim
Sogang University
History
Senior Fellow
May 2025 – July 2025
Global Easts as a Problem Space
Prof. Dr. Thomas Manganaro
University of Richmond
English Literature
Guest Researcher
August 2025 – July 2026
Saying and Showing in the Early Novel
Prof. Dr. Suzanne Mohney
Pennsylvania State University
Materials Science and Engineering
Senior Fellow
December 2023 – December 2025
Novel Electrodes for Energy Conversion
Prof. Dr. Daniela Müller
Radboud University Nijmegen
Church History, History of Christianity, Canon Law
Senior Fellow
July 2021 – December 2025
Old and New Debates about the Cathars. The Controversy on Catharis
Dr. Ervan Nurtawab
State Islamic Institute (IAIN) of Metro
Malay-Indonesian Islamic Studies
External Junior Fellow
September 2022 – August 2024
Early Career Fellow
September 2024 – August 2025
Dr. Nneka Adaora Okechukwu
Independent Researcher
Public international law, human rights, and politics
Senior Fellow
June 2025
The Legal Implications of Geopolitical Splintering on Sustainable Development: A Case Study of Socio-Political Rights Frameworks in Africa
Prof. Dr. Onookome Okome
University of Alberta
African Studies, Literature and Cinema
Senior Fellow
June 2021 – December 2025
Nollywood: Text, Context, Controversy
Dr. Felicitas Opwis
Georgetown University
Islamic Studies
Senior Fellow
July 2021 – December 2025
Language and Hermeneutics in the Islamic Sciences
Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Osterhammel
University of Freiburg
History
Distinguished Fellow
March 2019 – December 2027
Balzan Project in Global History: Global Processes and the Dynamics of Regions
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Piller
University of Freiburg
History
Early Career Fellow
October 2024 – September 2025
Prof. Dr. Klaus J. Puettmann
Oregon State University
Forest Ecology
Senior Fellow
June 2021 – December 2025
Developing and managing new forest ecosystems in times of global change
Dr. Ayesha Qurrat ul Ain
International Islamic University Islamabad
Religious Studies
Senior Fellow
October 2024 – January 2026
Modernity, science and Qurānic Hermeneutics in the Sub-continent: A study of selected responses to Darwinism in the twentieth Century
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Bastian E. Rapp
University of Freiburg
Microsystem Engineering, Material Science
Senior Fellow (FRIAS Project Group)
October 2024 – September 2025
Prof. Dr. Lauren Rickards
La Trobe University
Human Geography
Senior Fellow
July 2023 – December 2025
Well-adapted sustainability; sustainable adaptation
Dr. Sergio Francisco Romero
University of Texas at Austin
Linguistic Anthropology
Senior Fellow
January 2025 – August 2025
On God, idols, and language: Latin, Spanish, Arabic, and the Christianization of the highland Maya
Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Sansone
University of Freiburg
Physics
Senior Fellow
September 2024 – April 2025
Attosecond correlation spectroscopy and coherent control of molecular dissociation
Dr. Arantzazu Saratxaga Arregi
Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Philosophy
External Junior Fellow
September 2023 – August 2024
Guest Researcher
October 2024 – December 2024
Epistemologien der Komplexität
Prof. Dr. Marek Schönherr
Durham University
Theoretical Particle Physics, Particle Physics Phenomenology
Senior Fellow
June – July 2025, October – November 2025
Electroweak precision for the Large Hadron Collider
Prof. Dr. Scott R. Sehon
Bowdoin College
Physics
Guest Researcher
June 2025
Nihilism, Magic, and Mystery: An Essay about Rationality, Norms, and Agency
Prof. Dr. Sandro Sessarego
University of Texas at Austin
Spanish and Portuguese Languages
External Senior Fellow
May 2023 – August 2024
Senior Fellow
June 2025 – August 2025
Afro-Veracruz Spanish and the Afro-Hispanic Language Atlas
Dr. Ari Sitas
University of Cape Town / University of Stellenbosch
Sociology
Senior Fellow
September 2024
The Shredding of the Mandela Dividend: the Ethic of Reconciliation Proscribed? & Sociology and the London Universal Race Congress of 1911
Prof. Dr. Claudius Sittig
University of Freiburg
Contemporary German Literature
Senior Fellow
October 2024 – September 2025
FRIAS Project Group: Post-war Periods. Plurality – Temporality – Re/Constructions
Dr. Robert Spindler
English and German Literature
Early Career Fellow
June 2023 – December 2024
Outsiders, Lawbreakers, Apostates, Witches: Figures of Transgression in Narrative English Broadside Ballads (1550-1800)
Prof. Dr. Paulina Starski
University of Freiburg
European and International Law
Senior Fellow
October 2024 – September 2025
FRIAS Project Group: Post-war Periods. Plurality – Temporality – Re/Constructions
Prof. Dr. Fabian Stroth
University of Freiburg
Byzantine Archaeology
Senior Fellow
October 2024 – September 2025
FRIAS Project Group: GlassAge. A Transparent View of Ancient Innovation
Prof. Dr. Gregg Jørgen Suaning
The University of Sydney
Neuroprotheses
Senior Fellow
July 2021 – December 2025
Neural regeneration in spinal cord injuries
Dr. Linus Ubl
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Medieval German Literature and Culture
Early Career Fellow
October 2024 – March 2025
Ars se necandi. Cultural poetics of suicide in the Middle Ages
Prof. Dr. Eva von Contzen
University of Freiburg
English Literature
Internal Junior Fellow
April 2017 – December 2023
Senior Fellow
October 2024 – September 2025
FRIAS Project Group: GlassAge. A Transparent View of Ancient Innovation
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julia von Ditfurth
University of Freiburg
Art History
Senior Fellow
October 2024 – September 2025
FRIAS Project Group: GlassAge. A Transparent View of Ancient Innovation
Events
We warmly invite our Fellows to the following events, which are an integral part of the Fellowship program at FRIAS. Guests are also welcome to join the colloquium. Please register at events@frias.uni-freiburg.de.
Academic Life 2024/25
