The expert committee

Decisions on applications for the Global Young Faculty VII are made by the four-member expert committee.
The members of the committee are (in alphabetical order):

Dr. Gunter Friedrich, historian, was managing director of the Mercator Research Center Ruhr from 2016 to 2021. Prior to that, he held various positions in science management. For a period of five years he headed the Research and Young Scientists department at Ruhr University in Bochum. Further, he worked as a project manager at the Science Competence Center of Stiftung Mercator in Essen, and as a research officer at Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg.

Thomas Hesse has been Deputy Secretary General of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation since February 2011. From 2000 to September 2011, he was also Head of the Selection Department. Prior to that, he worked as a program director in the Selection Department and in the Foreign Grants Department. Mr. Hesse studied biology in Bonn, majoring in molecular biology (botany), genetics and biochemistry. He completed his dissertation at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne and received his doctorate from the University of Bonn in 1989. He then continued his research as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and at the Monsanto Company in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. In 1990, he was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max-Planck Society for his research in plant molecular biology. Mr. Hesse was born in Bonn, Germany. He is married and has three children.

Wilhelm Löwenstein is Professor of Development Research (Faculty of Economics) and Executive Director of the Institute for Development Research and Development Policy at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB). Prof. Löwenstein is, among other things, project director of the South African-German Center for Development Research in South Africa (DAAD) and spokesman of a European graduate school (HORIZON2020) dealing with poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. At RUB, he has led the campus-wide RUB Research School since 2012 (DFG until 2019). Further, he has served as a spokesperson for the Research Academy Ruhr (MERCUR, MKW) in the University Alliance Ruhr since 2017, which serves as a joint platform for RUB, TU Dortmund University and the University of Duisburg-Essen to support young researchers.
Research interests: Economic growth and absolute poverty; welfare effects of development projects; food security and food safety.

Dr. Christine Petry has been working in science management since 2003. At the DFG, she was initially employed in the group "Collaborative Research Centers, Research Centers, Clusters of Excellence", where in recent years she was particularly involved with issues relating to the Excellence Strategy. Since 2020, she has been deputy head of the group "Research Training Groups, Graduate Schools, Promotion of Young Researchers." With a doctorate in history, she studied history and law in Germany and France. Ms. Petry is a member of the selection committee of the German National Academic Foundation and regularly serves as an "evaluation expert" for the Austrian Ludwig Boltzmann Society.