Four new Alexander von Humboldt Professors selected

With funding of up to five million euros, an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship not only ensures ideal financial conditions but also maximum flexibility for cutting-edge research in Germany. On the strength of the country’s most valuable international research award the aim is to recruit the newly selected award winners for the long term at German research institutions.

The following four professors have been selected:

• The biochemist Simon Elsässer is a world leader in the continued technological and methodological development of epigenetics and synthetic biology. At the University of Freiburg he would like to drive the research focus on the “Signals of Life.” He is currently a professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden.
• Reinhard Maurer is a pioneer in the application of methods deriving from machine learning and artificial intelligence to theoretical chemistry and physics. He was nominated by the University of Göttingen in conjunction with the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences. At present, he is a professor at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. 
• Top researcher Luisa Petti is striving to make electronics more sustainable and flexible, for example by using environmentally friendly materials and printing technologies. Her technical expertise is sought after to fill the gap between neuromorphic computing and bioelectronics at RWTH Aachen University. She is currently a professor at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy.
• The economist Michael Weber, to date a professor at the University of Chicago, United States, is a global authority on household finance and inflation. The ESMT Berlin (European School of Management and Technology) is seeking to harness Weber’s expertise to develop the “European Expectations Center.”

The award will be presented to these internationally recognised researchers in 2026 when they have successfully completed their appointment negotiations with the German universities that nominated them. The latter are RWTH Aachen University, the University of Freiburg and the University of Göttingen in conjunction with the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences. ESMT Berlin is the first private, university-level institution of higher education to successfully nominate a Humboldt Professor.

At its meeting in April, the selection committee considered eight nominations. The second selection round for the 2026 Humboldt Professorship will be held in autumn 2025.
The Alexander von Humboldt Professorship is granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space.

Every year, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables more than 2,000 researchers from all over the world to spend time conducting research in Germany. The Foundation maintains an interdisciplinary network of well over 30,000 Humboldtians in more than 140 countries around the world – including 61 Nobel Prize winners.