Skip to main content

Academics & Guests

This year's hosts are climate scientist Daniela Jacob, occupational health psychologist Franziska Kößler, political scientist Tobias Lenz, and AI expert Ricardo Usbeck. The professors lay the foundation for the study program and moderate the focus interviews on the stage of the Libeskind Auditorium.

The academics provide subject-specific guidance to the project groups: they offer an initial orientation to the project topic, clarify questions of understanding, and contribute both critical and visionary perspectives. In total, 30 professors, research associates, lecturers, and experts from across the university and beyond support the students in their first project studies.

Table of contents for this page

Guests

Shai Hoffmann

Shai Hoffmann ©Steve Herud
Shai Hoffmann, Sozialunternehmer und Aktivist

   

Ursula Schröder

Ein Portraitfoto von Ursula Schröder ©IFSH, Felix Matthies
Ursula Schröder, wissenschaftliche Direktorin des Instituts für Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik an der Universität Hamburg

   

Claudia Kalisch

Portrait of Claudia Kalisch ©Claudia Kalisch
Claudia Kalisch, Mayoress of Lüneburg

   

Carlo Masala

Carlo Masala ©Christoph Busse
Carlo Masala, Professor für Internationale Politik an der Fakultät für Staats- und Sozialwissenschaften der Universität der Bundeswehr München

   

Ferdinand Müller-Rommel

Ferdinand Müller-Rommel ©Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, Co-Director of Leuphana Center for Cooperative Security and Senior Professor of Political Science Leuphana University Lüneburg

   

Abdulla Fahimi

Abdullah Fahimi ©DGAP, Zsofia Pölöske
Abdullah Fahimi, Research Fellow im Zentrum für Klima und Außenpolitik der DGAP

   

Nina Krüger

Nina Krüger ©Frank Thon
Nina Krüger, DGB-Bundesjugendsekretärin

   

Julian Jepsen

Julian Jepsen ©Hereon
Julian Jepsen, stellvertretender Institutsleiter am Institut für Wasserstofftechnologie des Helmholtz-Zentrums Hereon

   

Premilla D'Cruz

Premilla D'Cruz ©Premilla D'Cruz
Premilla D'Cruz, Professorin für Organizational Behaviour am Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

   

Ole John

Ole John ©Fraunhofer CML
Ole John, Head of the Ship and Fleet Management Department at the Fraunhofer Center for Maritime Logistics and Services CML

   

Hosts

Daniela Jacob

Daniela Jacob ©Jewgeni Roppel
Prof. Dr. Daniela Jacob studied meteorology in Darmstadt and obtained her doctorate in Hamburg. Since 2015, Daniela Jacob has been Director of the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), an institution of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon. She is also honorary professor at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Daniela was the coordinating lead author of the IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and one of the lead authors of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (WG 2). Daniela Jacob is Chair of the Climate Council of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and of the German Committee for Sustainability Research in Future Earth (DKN) and Co-Chair of WPN2030 as well as member of the Earth League. Her research focuses on regional climate modelling, climate services and adaptation to climate change, climate resilient development, sustainability as well as scientific support for the societal transformation towards a sustainable and climate-resilient 1.5°C lifestyle.

   

Franziska Kößler

Franziska Kößler ©Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Franziska Kößler is an assistant professor for 'Psychology, in particular the Transformation of the World of Work'. Her research activities focus on social inequalities and inequities in the workplace, migration, economic stressors, and health. She is part of various national and international networks that are concerned with theoretical, methodological, and interdisciplinary perspectives on recent developments in the world of work.

  

Tobias Lenz

Tobias Lenz ©Julia Knop
Tobias Lenz is a Professor of International Relations at Leuphana University of Lüneburg. His research deals with international governmental organizations, comparative regionalism as well as diffusion and legitimation processes in world politics.

  

Ricardo Usbeck

Ricardo Usbeck ©Brinkhoff-Moegenburg/Leuphana
In 2021, Prof. Usbeck took over the Junior Professorship for Semantic Systems at the University of Hamburg. Afterwards, in 2023, he was appointed at Leuphana University Lüneburg. He works in and leads several national and international research projects on knowledge graphs, large language models, chatbots and AI for social good. He is interested in transformation-related domains such as sustainability and creative spaces for technology. Ricardo Usbeck tries to build a bridge between research and application.

  

Academics

Jelta Aden

Jelta Aden ©WZB - Kathrin Kliss
Jelta Aden studied the "Sustainability Science“ Masters at Leuphana University Lüneburg, specializing in climate policy conflicts and their impact on political systems. Since 2025, she has been studying for her second Master’s degree "Peace and Security Studies" at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg. Currently she is also working at the Berlin Social Science Centre (WZB) as an assistant in the Institutions and Political Inequality department.

  

Veronica Bremer

Veronica Bremer ©Brinkhoff-Moegenburg/Leuphana
Veronica Bremer is a post-doctoral research associate, lecturer, and advisor at Studium Individuale, the liberal arts programme at Leuphana. Her work explores the photography of Mariana Yampolsky and the sculpture of Elizabeth Catlett as part of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)) project „TransExil. Negotiations of Aesthetics and Community in Post-Revolutionary Mexico." Her work also explores visual culture and transformative pedagogy through visual and experiential learning and the didactics of art history. 

  

Kevin Drews

Kevin Drews ©Kevin Drews
Prof. Dr. Kevin Drews is a literary scholar and Junior Professor of Literature and Theory at Leuphana University. His research focuses on the critical role of literature in historical and contemporary moments of social crisis and transformation, as well as on the relationship between literature and historiography, the poetics of knowledge, and the work of Walter Benjamin.

   

Daniel Eckert

Daniel Eckert ©UMO - Sebastian Römer
Daniel Eckert is working as policy advisor for the Sustainability Forum Hamburg since September 2022. A graduate in political science and sustainability studies, he is campaigning for a more sustainable Hamburg from a civil society perspective. A particular focus of his work lies on the inclusion of young voices in decision-making processes.

   

Rebecca Endtricht

Rebecca Endtricht ©Rebecca Endtricht
Dr. Rebecca Endtricht works as a Research Fellow in the Research Programme “Accountability and Participation” at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA). She completed her PhD at the University of Hamburg with a dissertation on “Identity and Intolerance” as part of the MOTRA project (Monitoring System and Transfer Platform Radicalisation). She is a sociologist and criminologist whose work lies at the intersection of political sociology and social psychology. Her research focuses on collective identities, societal threat perceptions, political emotions, and the ideological foundations of right-wing extremism.

   

Oliver Genschow

Oliver Genschow ©Oliver Genschow
Oliver Genschow is professor for Cognitive-, Social-, and Economic Psychology. In his research, he mainly focuses on interaction patterns among humans with a strong focus on perception-action coupling, such as imitation, mimicry, and anticipated action as well as free will beliefs. As one of four editor-in-chiefs of the In-Mind magazine, Oliver Genschow supports science communication from scientifically working psychologists.

   

Jannis Gries

Jannis Gries ©Johanna Detering, Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht
Jannis Gries is a fully qualified lawyer and PhD candidate in the Artificial Intelligence and Explainability (AIX) research group, led by Ricardo Usbeck. He studied law in Hamburg and Leuven, completed his legal traineeship at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court and worked as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law. His research focuses on Legal NLP and Legal Alignment of AI systems.

   

Markus Groth

Markus Groth ©GERICS
Dr. Markus Groth is an economist and senior researcher at the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS). A key focus of his work is on the impacts of climate change on critical infrastructure, including disaster preparedness and relevant regulatory frameworks. More broadly, he investigates how climate change affects key areas of society and collaborates with practitioners to develop climate services for companies, cities and counties, supporting them in adapting to the impacts of climate change.

   

Nike Hornbostel

Nike Hornbostel ©Nike Hornbostel
Nike Hornbostel is a trainer and facilitator focused on connecting nature and business. She helps people and organizations learn from natural systems, applying resilience, circularity, and collaboration to real-world challenges. Through workshops and sustainable transformation projects, she shows how nature can inspire innovative solutions and stronger teamwork.

   

Wolfgang Minatti

Wolfgang Minatti ©Bernhard Ludewig
Wolfgang Minatti (he/him) is a postdoctoral research associate at Leuphana University of Lüneburg. His research focuses on the legitimacy, governance and violence of armed actors during conflict with a particular focus on the Colombian conflict. He holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence and was a visiting research fellow at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia (2021) and at the centre of excellence SCRIPTS at the Free University Berlin (2022). His work has appeared, inter alia, in Review of International Studies, Journal of Peace Research and Qualitative Research.

    

Christine Nam

Christine Nam ©Christine Nam
Dr. Christine Nam is a senior climate scientist who is working at the nexus of climate change, space, and security. Her recent publications in the journal of Space Policy demonstrated that climate change poses significant safety and security risks to European space sovereignty and the broader NATO alliance. This work laid the foundation for her selection as one of the inaugural fellows of the NATO Climate Change and Security Center of Excellence in 2025.

    

Maxine Rubin

Maxine Rubin ©Maxine Rubin
Dr. Maxine Rubin is a research fellow at the Institute of African Affairs at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. She is also a research associate at the Department of Political Studies at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and the co-Editor-in-Chief of the African studies journal, Africa Spectrum. Her research interests include state behaviour in the International Criminal Court, South African politics and international relations, and various transitional justice themes.

    

Tuba Sari

Tuba Sari ©Thomas Schaaf
Tuba Sari is a Research Associate and Academic Advisor for the Master´s Programme in Law at Leuphana Law School and has been teaching in the training programme for the Refugee Law Clinic Lüneburg since April 2025. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies at Bucerius Law School, where her research focuses on categories of extremism within the legal framework governing Germany´s domestic intelligence services. Tuba Sari studied law at the University of Hamburg, where she completed her First State Examination in Law in 2023, with a specialization in Crime and Crime Control.

   

Valentin Schatz

Valentin Schatz ©Brinkhoff-Moegenburg/Leuphana
Prof. Dr. Valentin Schatz has been Junior Professor at the School of Sustainability and the Institute of Sustainability Governance (INSUGO) since September 2022. Prof. Dr. Valentin Schatz is also an associate member of Leuphana Law School and the Leuphana Center for European and International Law (CEIL). He is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, member of the Board of Directors of the International Foundation for the Law of the Sea (IFLOS), and German delegate in the International Law Association (ILA) Committee on Protection of People at Sea. Prof. Dr. Valentin Schatz frequently advises NGO, governmental authorities and think tanks on questions of international law, such as maritime security, marine environmental protection and fisheries.

   

Marlene Schulz

Marlene Schulz ©Marlene Schulz
Marlene Schulz is pursuing her Ph.D. at the Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media in the field of the philosophy of technology as a member of the AI and Explainability (AIX) Research Group. In her dissertation, she examines the ontological distribution of agency across entities within the genesis of technology, particularly AI. With her background in the humanities, she has explored the history, aesthetics and ethics of AI in relation to implications for autonomy both in humans and machines.

   

Vera-Simone Schulz

Vera-Simone Schulz ©Odeon Davis
Vera-Simone Schulz is W1 professor for transcultural art history at Leuphana University. Working at the crossroads of African, Islamic and European art histories and critical museology, she is academic coordinator of Black Archive Alliance at the Recovery Plan, and co-founder of Planetary Patchwork: A Perpetual Seminar on Artistic Practices, Heritage, and Epistemologies, sounding out possible alliances between academic and artistic research. Funded by the Gerda Henkel and the Volkswagen Foundation, she directs projects that question traditional notions of center and periphery, challenge conventional art historical hierarchies, and foreground perspectives from the Majority World.

   

Isabell Sluka

Isabell Sluka ©Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Isabell Sluka is a Research Associate for Community Development at the Leuphana AI Campus, where she contributes to the development and coordination of the AI Literacy Hub, a hybrid space for collaboration and experimentation in AI literacy education. She creates and facilitates opportunities for knowledge exchange, connecting people across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Greenhouse Studios, an interdisciplinary research incubator at the University of Connecticut. She holds a PhD in German Studies and researches the sociopolitical implications of digital technologies, with a particular focus on participation and belonging.

   

Lukas Tank

Lukas Tank ©Lukas Tank
Lukas Tank is a moral philosopher who works in applied and normative ethics, with a special focus on the ethics of climate change. He holds positions at CAU Kiel, HU Berlin and PLU Salzburg.

   

Laura Venz

Laura Venz ©Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Laura Venz is Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Her research focuses on social relationships and interpersonal behavior at work, occupational well-being and recovery from work stress, as well as demographic change and ageing workforces. She is particularly interested in how working conditions and the organisation of work shape employees’ well-being, behaviour, and everyday lives. 

   

Jan Wilkens

Jan Wilkens ©Jan Wilkens
Jan Wilkens is a Research Fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and works in the project “Co-Creating Narrative-Based Near-Term Climate Predictions to Prepare for Volatile Future Climates” as part of the Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change and Society (CLICCS)”. He studied in Hamburg, Damascus, and London. He is co-editor of two Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook editions: The Plausibility of a 1.5°C Limit to Global warming-Social Drivers and Physical Processes (2023) as well as Conditions for Sustainable Climate Change Adaptation (2024). He is also one of the coordinating lead authors of the MedECC Special Report on environmental change, conflicts, and human migration in the Mediterranean Basin. 

   

Monika Wulz

Monika Wulz ©K. Weduwen
Monika Wulz is a philosopher and historian of science at Leuphana University. Her research focuses on „Economies of Intellectual Work“ from the 19th century to the present and on the history of „Non-aligned Science“ in the era of decolonization and development policies.

   

Natascha Zaun

Natascha Zaun ©Brinkhoff-Moegenburg/Leuphana
Natascha Zaun is Professor of Public Policy and Law at the Institute of Political Science at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Prior to coming to Lüneburg, she was first Assistant and later Associate Professor at European Institute of the London School of Economics. Natascha specialises in EU policymaking with a special focus on policymaking in the area of immigration and asylum as well as the global refugee regime.