New LMU Vice Presidents elected

Today, the University Council of LMU Munich has unanimously elected nine Vice Presidents, following the proposal by President-elect Professor Matthias Tschöp. The LMU University Council consists of ten members of the University Senate and ten external members.

Four of the newly elected Vice Presidents at LMU represent specific academic domains and will oversee research, teaching, and appointments in their respective area, with Professor Biagini also remaining in charge of International Affairs. All other LMU Vice Presidents will be responsible for university-wide cross-cutting topics. The six-year term of the new University Executive Board will begin on 1 October 2025 and end on 30 September 2031.

Vice Presidents for academic domains at LMU:

• Prof. Benedikt Grothe, Vice President for the Natural and Life Sciences & Deputy LMU President
• Prof. Armin Nassehi, Vice President for Law, Economics and Social Science & Deputy LMU President
• Prof. Francesca Biagini, Vice President for Mathematics and Computer Sciences
• Prof. Carola Metzner-Nebelsick, Vice President for Humanities

Vice Presidents for cross-cutting topics at LMU:

• Dr. Philipp Baaske, Vice President for Entrepreneurship
• Prof. Julia Dittrich, Vice President for Digital Strategy
• Prof. Jochen Kuhn, Vice President for Innovation in Education and Teacher Training
• Ms. Beatrice Lugger, Vice President for Communication
• Dr. Margit Weber, Vice President for Equity, Talent Management and Diversity

Vice President for Finance and Administration, Dr. Christoph Mülke, has already been reappointed by the LMU University Council in July 2024.

“Today, the University Council has unanimously set the course for a strong repositioning of LMU within the national and international university landscape. As a University of Excellence offering a comprehensive range of programs, we are determined to play a more active role in shaping the discourse on addressing the social challenges of our time. This complexity calls for increased interdisciplinarity, combined with specialist expertise in key areas such as digitalization and artificial intelligence. To meet these demands, the incoming University Executive Board will be both strong and agile, equipped with a broad and complementary set of skills”, says Professor Matthias Tschöp.

“The University Council of LMU has unanimously approved the proposal of President-elect Matthias Tschöp for the future Vice Presidents. I look forward to working with the new University Executive Board and wish the new team at the helm of LMU a good start and every success at this important time for the university,” says Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, Chair of the LMU University Council.

Vice Presidents for Academic Domains at LMU

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Prof. Benedikt Grothe has served as Chair of Neurobiology at LMU since 2003. During this time, he founded the master’s program in Neurosciences, the Munich Center for Neurosciences – Brain & Mind, and the Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences. He was also a founding member of the Munich Center for Ethics. Grothe has led a DFG Collaborative Research Centre and is a member of both the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In addition, he chairs several advisory boards in national and international academic contexts.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to neuroscience, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Cross of Merit on Ribbon) in 2010.

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Prof. Armin Nassehi has held the Chair of General Sociology and Theory of Society at LMU since 1998. Since 2023, he has also served as Chair of the Board of University Representatives and Deputy Chair of the University Council at LMU. He is a member of numerous high-profile councils, including the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the German Ethics Council, and serves as Deputy Chair of the Bavarian Ethics Council.

Beyond academia, Nassehi advises companies, political actors, and associations, and is widely recognized as a prominent science communicator in the public sphere.

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Prof. Francesca Biagini has been LMU’s Vice President for International Affairs and Diversity since 2019. She has held the Chair of Applied Mathematics since 2009 and led LMU’s Department of Mathematics for nine years. From 2020 to 2021, she served as President of the Bachelier Finance Society, and from 2017 to 2019, she was Secretary of the SIAM Activity Group for Financial Mathematics and Engineering.

Biagini received the Princess Therese of Bavaria Prize in 2019 and has since served on various advisory boards of the Max Planck Society.

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Prof. Carola Metzner-Nebelsick has held the Chair of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology since 2007. She leads several interdisciplinary research projects funded by third parties and is a member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz as well as a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

She is also Deputy Chair of the Executive Committee of the German Archaeological Institute. In addition, Metzner-Nebelsick has served as a member of the German Research Foundation’s “Ancient Cultures” Review Board and as Deputy Scientific Consultant for the Classical Studies Department of the Austrian Science Fund’s Scientific Board.

Vice Presidents for cross-cutting topics at LMU

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Dr. Philipp Ewald Baaske was CEO of LMU’s spin-off NanoTemper Technologies until the end of 2024 and has since served as Executive Chairman of its Supervisory Board. NanoTemper is a global market leader in biophysical measuring instruments. An alumnus of LMU’s Center for NanoScience, Baaske has collaborated extensively with LMU faculties, including within the Cluster for Nucleic Acid Therapeutics Munich.

He is a member of several councils, including the Federal Economic Senate of the German Association for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (since 2019), and serves on the advisory boards of various companies.

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Prof. Julia Dittrich is a digitalization expert with over 15 years of leadership experience in the private sector. She has led large-scale transformation projects in international tech companies and digital start-ups. Since 2022, she has been Professor of E-Commerce and Digital Business at Rosenheim Technical University of Applied Sciences, Campus Chiemgau, where she established an English-language degree program focused on digitalization, entrepreneurship, and future skills, serving as Academic Program Director and Faculty Ambassador for Entrepreneurship.

Since 2024, she has also been Liaison Professor for the German Academic Scholarship Foundation at Rosenheim Technical University of Applied Sciences.

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Prof. Jochen Kuhn has served as Chair of Physics Education at LMU’s Faculty of Physics since 2022. Previously, he worked as a teacher in Rhineland-Palatinate and later as a professor at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, where he led the Physics Education Research Group. From 2016, he was scientific leader of the Teacher Training Quality Offensive (QLB), and from 2018, he co-designed the immersive Quantified Learning Lab (iQL) – a “Classroom of the Future” – at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI).

Kuhn is actively involved in various interdisciplinary initiatives, including the Collaborative Research Centre “SHARP” on personalized and simulation-based learning, as well as LMU’s Clusters of Excellence “ORIGINS” and “MCQST.”

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Beatrice Lugger is a science journalist and expert in science communication. From 2015 to 2024, she was CEO of the National Institute for Science Communication (NaWik), which she helped establish from 2012 as Deputy Scientific Director.

A trained science journalist with a background in chemistry, Lugger serves on multiple councils as a science communication expert, including the steering committee of the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space’s #FactoryWisskomm initiative and the advisory board of the Bavarian AHA Science Communication Hub. She also contributed to the German Science and Humanities Council’s position paper on science communication.

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Dr. Christoph Mülke has led LMU’s administration since 2010. He began his career at the German Science and Humanities Council in Cologne in 1999, where he held various roles, including Personal Advisor to the Chair and Secretary, and Deputy Head of the Department for Teaching, Studies, and Emerging Academic Talent. He joined LMU in 2005 as Head of the Strategy and Development Department.

From 2022 to 2024, Mülke served as spokesperson for the Chancellors of Bavarian Universities and was part of the federal Association of University Chancellors’ spokesperson team. He is also a board member of the Society for Academic Study Preparation and Test Development and represents German universities in the General Assembly of the Heads of University Management & Administration Network in Europe.

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Dr. Margit Weber has been active in higher education policy for nearly two decades. Since 2006, she has served as LMU’s University Women’s Representative. She received the Award for Good Teaching in 2002 for her teaching excellence. Weber has been spokesperson for the State Conference of Women’s Representatives and Equal Opportunity Officers at Bavarian Universities (LaKoF). In 2008, she was instrumental in establishing a Bavarian Program for Realizing Equal Opportunities for Women in Research and Teaching.

Her contributions to higher education policy have earned her several distinctions, including the Pro meritis scientiae et litterarum prize and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Cross of Merit on Ribbon).