We represent you!
The Doctoral Representatives Council consists of two doctoral representatives from each department of the MNF and was built to enable and improve the exchange between all departments and their students.
You can contact us for ideas and suggestions regarding the Doctoral Representatives Council or everything related to your doctoral studies. We will collect your input and bring it to the attention of the different graduate school steering committees and/or offices. Vice versa we will bring information or requests to your attention.
Concerning our interests, we elect delegates for different commitees like the Hochschulkonferenz, the student consilium, the Board of the Graduate Schools, the Promotionsausschuss and the Consilium AMNZ.
Doctoral Representatives Council
Linda Maßon - Main Representative
Linda Maßon completed her Bachelor in Banking and Finance at the University of Applied Science Cologne before she moved on to the University of Cologne, where she obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Geography. During her Geography studies she focused on physical Geography mainly in the fields of paleoenvironment reconstruction. Linda’s PhD project is part of the CRC1211 in the Cologne Luminescence Laboratory and supervised by Prof. Tony Reimann. She is currently investigating luminescence-based inventories for measuring vertical and lateral upper ECZ particle fluxes and for dating the exposure of typical Atacama Desert soils and surfaces.
Stefan Schöttle - Deputy Representative
Stefan Schöttle finished his Bachelor in Geophysics at the Karlsruher Institute for Technology. Afterwards he moved to Cologne to complete his Master's Degree in Physics of the Earth and Atmosphere - Geophysics at the University of Cologne. He thereby mostly concentrated on Planet-Moon interaction by the example of Jupiter and Ganymede. For his PhD he changed fields towards applied Geophysics under supervision of Prof. Bülent Tezkan. His work focuses on the controlled source electromagnetic method in frequencies of above 1 kHz to investigate 3D subsurface structures in depth of around 5 to 150 m.
Joshua Nicolas Friedel
Joshua Nicolas Friedel completed his Bachelor studies in chemistry at the University of Cologne, focusing on metal organic chemistry in the research field of luminescent cyclometalated Pt(II) complexes. During his Master he focussed on cyclometalated light harvesting Pt(II) complexes. Currently, Joshua is a PhD student in Prof. Klein’s group at the University of Cologne (Institute for Inorganic Chemistry), working on cyclometalated light harvesting d8 complexes. His PhD project is part of the SPP priority program 2102 "light-controlled reactivity of metal complexes".
Leo Payen
Leo Payen studied chemistry at the University of Cologne and obtained his bachelor degree in organic chemistry working on Palladium-catalysed natural product synthesis. During his master studies in Cologne, he focussed on synthesis and catalysis. He wrote his master thesis in the workgroup of Prof. Klein in inorganic chemistry, focussing on cyclometallated complexes of Nickel, Palladium and Platinum with terpyridine-derived ligands. Currently he is a Ph.D. student in the workgroup of Prof. Klein, further working on cyclometallated complexes of Nickel, Palladium and Platinum with tridentate ligands.
Sarah Buchholz
Sarah Buchholz studied Biology at the University of Cologne. During her Master’s she focussed on biochemical and cellular functions of mitochondrial proteins. She moved on to neurobiology when she started her PhD in late 2018 in the lab of Hans Zempel at the Institute of Human Genetics. Her project focusses on the functional characterization of the microtubule-associate protein Tau and its brain-specific isoforms under physiological and neurodegenerative conditions.
Mark Goh
Mark Goh obtained his Bachelor degrees in Physics and Philosophy at the National University of Singapore with his theses on asymptotically flat space-time, and the physics and phenomenology of time. Afterwards, he moved to Cologne to begin his master's degree in Physics where he is also an associate member of ML4Q. Currently he is finishing his master thesis on practical implementations of quantum algorithms before continuing his PhD on efficient quantum computations under Prof. David Gross.
Luis Bonah
Luis Bonah obtained his Bachelor degree in laboratory astrophysics at the University of Cologne in the group of Prof. Schlemmer. For his master thesis in the same group, he examined complex organic molecules via double resonance spectroscopy. His PhD continues on this topic of deciphering the fingerprints of complex molecules.
Konstantin Weiss
Konstantin Weiss obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main where he also completed his Master studies in Biochemistry. During his studies he spent half a year at the University of Toronto (Canada) investigating novel inhibitors for uncommon EGFR mutants in non-small cell lung cancer. His Master thesis was focussed on the recombinant expression and characterization of cyanobacterial tripartite efflux pumps. Currently, Konstantin is a PhD student in the group of Prof. Dr. Riemer (University of Cologne). In his project he investigates the regulation of DPP9 and its role in controlling dual protein localization between cytosol and mitochondrial IMS.
Helena Aptyka
Helena Aptyka studied English and biology for secondary education and graduated with a Master of Education in 2019. Since then, she has been a PhD student at the Institute for Biology Education (Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Cologne). In the research group of Prof. Dr. Großschedl, she investigates learning and teaching about evolution. In particular, she focuses on secondary students’ conceptual ecology, the effects of different instructional strategies on secondary students’ learning about evolution, and pre-service teachers’ intentions to teach evolution in the biology classroom.
Tom Konrad Anton
Tom Konrad Anton studied chemistry and social sciences for teaching at grammar schools and comprehensive schools at the University of Cologne from 2014 to 2019 and graduated with a Master of Education. Since 2020, he has been working on his doctoral project in the research group of Prof.' Dr.' Ch. S. Reiners at the Institute of Chemistry Education. He is working on enabling chemistry teacher students to participate in discourses about societal challenges and to transform selected socioscientific issues into teaching practice of scientific literacy.
Laslo Hunhold
Laslo Hunhold obtained his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mathematics at the University of Cologne, focusing on Numerical Mathematics, High Performance Computing, Information Theory and Signal Analysis. He is currently part of Professor Angela Kunoth's working group ‚Numerical Mathematics and Scientific Computing‘ and researching and developing mathematical foundations for deep neural networks.
Alumni Representatives
Dennis Zeh, Chemistry, former Main Representative (2019-2022)
Joss Pepe Strache, Chemistry, former Deputy Representative (2019-2022)
Stephan Schlegel, Geosciences, former Representative (2020-2022)
Yana Staneva, Mathematics, former Representative (2018-2021)
Leonardo Rydin, Physics, former Representative (2018-2021)