A native of Berlin and Brandenburg by choice, he studied German and history at the University of Potsdam from 2013-2019 to become a teacher for secondary levels I and II and received his Master of Education in 2019. Following his studies, he completed his teacher training in the state of Brandenburg at the Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium Fürstenwalde and passed the state examination for the teaching profession with the grade "very good" in January 2020. This was followed by tenure in the state of Brandenburg and the continuation of teaching at the Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium. When he took up his full teaching position, he also taught the subject Life Studies-Ethics-Religion (LER) in addition to German and History. After the end of his teaching position at the Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium in July 2021, he has held the position of academic assistant at the junior professorship for Inclusive German Didactics under the direction of Prof. Dr. Giera since 01 August 2021. This task is connected with a PhD project. This focuses on the connection between the concept of scaffolding and the investigated writing, reading, and debating skills in the context of the school-based intervention study Fair Debating and Debating (see tab "Research"). His other interests also include the study of language education and support in the classroom from an inclusion pedagogy perspective.

Ms. Menike is a doctoral student under Prof. Dr. Winnie-Karen Giera, University of Potsdam and Prof. Dr. Thorsten Roelcke, Technical University of Berlin. A native of Sri Lanka, university lecturer and former international scholarship holder of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Ms. Menike completed her master's degree in German as a Foreign and Second Language/ Foreign German Studies at Friedrich Schiller University Jena in 2017. Immediately after completing her Bachelor's degree in German Studies at the University of Kelaniya, she started her first job as an Assistant Lecturer in German at the same university in 2008. After five years of teaching experience in German, she was hired as the first Lecturer of German in Tourism in the Department of Tourism Management at Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka in 2013. Since May 2018, she has been working there as a Senior Lecturer in German. During her academic time, she has gained experience as a researcher in DaF/DaZ teaching, as an intern at ÜAG Sprachinstitut Jena, and student mentor in Germany and abroad. She has also worked as a lecturer in German for vocational education at Arugambay in Sri Lanka and as a guest lecturer at University College, Batangala and Sabaragamuwa University. In addition, she supervises bachelor theses, organizes conferences, and conducts baccalaureate examinations in German in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, she coordinated the Diploma of Tourism Management at Sabaragamuwa University. As an experienced university lecturer in Sri Lanka, she is enrolled as a PhD student with Prof. Dr. Winnie-Karen Giera at the University of Potsdam since the winter semester 2021/22. In her doctoral thesis (term: 2022-2026), she is investigating the development of German language teaching in Sri Lanka.

Born in Austria, Susanne began her academic career with a Master's degree in German Studies at the University of Vienna, which she completed in 2005, specialising in children's and young adult literature. From 2002 to 2006, she worked as a teaching and research assistant at the International Institute for Young People's Literature and Reading Research in Vienna. This experience significantly shaped her expertise in the areas of language, literacy and reading skills.Her professional career led her to a bilingual training institute for deafness, hearing loss and diversity, where Susanne worked as a project manager from 2006 to 2012. Here she taught, designed and managed support measures for people with hearing impairments in sign language and spoken language at the interface to the labour market. After completing a part-time teacher training programme for special schools at the University College of Teacher Education in 2014, she joined the regular teaching staff at Viennese compulsory schools.Until 2022, she worked full-time as a special school teacher at several school locations in Vienna in reading and language support with (hearing) impaired learners. In this role, she mainly taught primary school children with multilingual backgrounds in inclusive settings and initiated reading and theatre projects such as the Kamishibai theatre in cooperation with the ‘Haus der Barmherzigkeit’ or preschool learning opportunities to promote language and literacy.From 2019, Susanne played a key role in setting up the ‘Department of Reading at Primary School Level’ at the Vienna Department of Education and contributed to the transfer of successful language and reading promotion measures to teacher training. She has received several awards for her work in reading promotion, including two awards from the Vienna School Board and a nomination for the 2016 Reading Award with the project topic ‘Reading tandems in multilingual classes’. She has been a freelance university lecturer and author since 2009. Her publications include a textbook on the initiation of written language acquisition in heterogeneous classes and materials to promote written language skills. As an experienced university lecturer, she moved to a full-time position at the University College of Teacher Education Lower Austria in 2022. Employed in the Department of Diversity, she is primarily dedicated to German and written language didactics, the focus on hearing and communication and mentoring in school practice.

With her broad range of experience, which combines theoretical approaches and practice-oriented methods, she is continuously committed to promoting inclusive, equitable and diversity-conscious education and has been working on her dissertation on ‘Inclusive German didactics for the specialisation area of hearing and communication’ since June 2024.