Five pioneering doctorates successfully completed

Congratulations to Jenny Hammerich and Fabio Weiß, who successfully defended their doctorates in September as the first cohort of the Biosphere Reserves Institute (BRI) Graduate Programme at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE).

Jenny Hammerich researched "Assessing the effects of peatland restoration". What she found important about her doctorate was: "Being able to study the many restored peatlands in the forests of Brandenburg and see the positive effects of rewetting."

Fabio Weiß, who now works at the Cawthron Institute in Nelson, New Zealand, wrote his doctoral thesis on "Long-term trends in carabid communities of old lowland beech forests in the context of severe drought." It was important to him "that my work was so diverse and varied: planning, field work, identifying insects in the lab, working with students, modelling, writing papers..." Both doctoral students defended their work in Lüneburg. The background to this is the cooperation agreement between the Biosphere Reserve Institute (BRI) and Leuphana University.

With the defences of Jenny Hammerich and Fabio Weiß, the first cohort of the BRI Graduate Programme graduates with summa and magna cum laude. Congratulations on these successes also to: Dr Martin Balaš, Dr Caroline Hélène Dabard and Dr Charlotte Gohr!

Over the past five years, the doctoral students have been able to research, learn and laugh together in 15 workshops, scientific colloquia and countless exchange sessions. Over 18 research articles and transfer-relevant papers have been produced, including a joint paper by the doctoral students together with other BRI researchers and students. The programme's first coordinator, Jenny Hammerich, did a great job in setting up the programme and keeping motivation high during the coronavirus years. From March 2022, Dr Jarne Jargow took over the coordination of the graduate programme in order to make her fresh doctoral experience in cognitive neuroscience available to others. Thank you to both coordinators!

A big thank you also goes to all the supervisors at HNEE (Prof Pierre Ibisch, Prof Andreas Linde, Prof Vera Luthardt, Prof Carsten Mann, and Prof Wolfgang Strasdas) and Leuphana (Prof Henrik von Wehrden, Prof David J. Abson and Prof Berta Martín-López) as well as the colleagues at BRI who actively supported this pioneering project. Of course, we would also like to thank our current alumni who have contributed to the success of the BRI with their research work. After the completion of the first cohort, we look forward to even more innovative biosphere reserve research projects and welcome enthusiastic young scientists to HNEE.

Note on image material
The photos available here may be used in the context of reporting. Please note the copyright notice © Private (Jenny Hammerichs, Charlotte Gohrs, Caroline Dabards defence) and Jarne Jargow (Fabio defence, Martin Balas defence with BRI team)