Prizes and Honours

Anastasiia Alekseeva has received the DAAD Prize 2025. She is a master student of „Economic Policy and Quantitative Methods“ at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences. Before commencing her masters at Potsdam University she completed her bachelor’s degree in economics in Moscow. Alekseeva’s contributions to teaching far exceed the standard: her engagement in supporting and academically instructing younger students next to maintaining an excellent academic record were specifically acknowledged by the commission. She can imagine doing her doctorate degree at Potsdam University.

Dr. Berenike Blaser first completed her Master’s degree and then continued to her doctorate at the Division of Biological Psychology and Affective Science of Potsdam University. She receives the Universitätsgesellschaft Potsdam e. V. Prize for an Outstanding Dissertation 2024 for her dissertation „Premenstrual Symptoms as a function of altered central autonomous nervous activity“. Dr. Blaser engaged wit the topic from a bio-psychosocial perspective, meaning she investigated both physical and psychological processes. For her contribution to a field with only a small body of work Dr. Blaser receives the title “Most Outstanding Dissertation”. Additionally, the jury stressed her variety of methods and short time needed to complete her dissertation. Her work aims to help closing the gender-data-gap in her field since there is too little research and data on people who are not cis-men. Dr. Blaser is pleased to receive the honours as a symbol for societal change and appreciation for research in her field.

Julia Sophie Messner, member of the Faculty of Science, receives the Graduate Prize 2025. She completes her master’s degree in Nutritional Science with a final grade of 1,0 and wrote her master’s thesis on »Influence of fatty acid quality and sex hormones on neuronal cell metabolism«. Nutrition is central to health. On one hand an oversupply of food can cause overweight and obesity, on the other hand ca. 70% of all new cases of Type 2 Diabetes result from a suboptimal diet. An unhealthy, high-calorie, high-fat diet reduces, specific to gender, the effect of insulin in the brain. To gain better insight, Ms Messner treated neural cells with sex hormones and different fatty acids (FA). There it showed that testosterone lowers sensitivity to insulin as well as cellular respiration. Additionally could be concluded that a FA’s saturation degree has deciding influence on neuronal metabolism.

»Ms Messner’s idea to examine the quality of fatty acids is scientifically interesting. Her choice to work with fatty acids that are components of important and appetizing Oils should be emphasized. Based on this her foundational research has the potential to have translational implications. […] Her results aim to be of help for testing new pre-clinical nutritional interventions that mitigate the metabolic derailment in obese patients,« reads the assessment.

Julia Sophie Messner already finished her bachelor’s degree with honors and completed her master’s degree as valedictorian of the Institute for Nutritional Science (INS). She is the first FastTrack PhD student at the INS and mentors other students parallel to her own studies. She shows her enthusiasm for research in public outreach like at Potsdam Day of the Sciences. The assessment also lauds Ms Messner’s motivation, commitment and voluntary participation in the advanced training program “Teaching Professionals” at Potsdam Graduate School. With the program she wants to gain early teaching experience as well as master teaching techniques. Therefore the assessment committee predict excellent perspectives for Ms Messner and have full faith she will have a successful academic career.