Awards and Honors
Prof. Dr. Nanna Fuhrhop was appointed to the Council for German Orthography (“Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung”) by the Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs.
On the council, she represents the German Academy for Language and Literature (“Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung”), of which she has been a member for over a year. The Council for Orthography is an cross-national body whose 41 members represent seven countries. It makes recommendations on spelling rules. In July 2024, for example, it passed a revised version of German punctuation rules. The council’s primary aim is not to reorganize spelling, but to formulate appropriate rules.
Nanna Fuhrhop has been Professor of German Linguistics at the University of Potsdam since 2022. Orthography and the associated grammar issues have been among her research focuses for a long time. She completed the habilitation process almost 20 years ago with a thesis on the grammatical foundations of separate and compound spelling. Her book "Orthografie" was first published in 2005 and is now in its fifth edition. She is currently working on an anthology entitled "Interpunktion im Korpus".
Prof. Dr. André Kleinridders has been confirmed as a new board member of the German Obesity Society (“Deutsche Adipositas-Gesellschaft” – DAG). At the same time, he was elected President of the 2026 DAG Conference.
The DAG is committed to boosting the prevention and treatment of obesity, a chronic disease that affects around 17 million people in Germany. Its main goals are to raise awareness of the causes and consequences of obesity, to promote research in this field, to combat stigmatization, and to develop evidence-based guidelines to improve the quality of care for obesity patients.
André Kleinridders has been Professor of Molecular and Experimental Nutritional Medicine at the University of Potsdam since 2020. His research focuses on molecular mechanisms of central insulin resistance and its connection to obesity and emotional changes.
Prof. Dr. Claudia Matthäus received the 2024 Walther Flemming Award for her work in the field of cell biology.
The cellular uptake of nutrients is highly regulated. Dysregulation in these processes can promote type 2 diabetes, cancer, or cardiovascular diseases. Caveolae, invaginations of the plasma membrane with a size of 50 to 80 nanometers, are essential for the uptake of lipids, i.e. water-insoluble natural substances. Claudia Matthäus is investigating how caveolae facilitate the uptake of lipids into cells and how they can influence metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes.
Since 2004, the German Society for Cell Biology (“Deutsche Gesellschaft für Zellbiologie” – DGZ) and ibidi GmbH have presented the Walther Flemming Award in recognition of excellent research in cell biology. The prize includes a financial contribution of EUR3,000 awarded to postdocs and early-career research group leaders for work that defines their new, independent research profile. The award was created in honor of Walther Flemming, one of the pioneers of cell biology and cytogenetics.
Claudia Matthäus has been a junior professor at the University of Potsdam since 2023 and works on cell membrane processes involved in lipid metabolism and metabolic diseases.
