Prof Dr Viktoria Tkaczyk, historian of science and media at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU), will be awarded the Caroline von Humboldt-Professur in December. The named professorship is associated with project funding of 80,000 euros for one year. The Caroline von Humboldt Award, endowed with 15,000 euros, goes to the environmental researcher Dr Oleksandra Shumilova. This year, the Caroline von Humboldt Honorary Professorship will also be awarded for the first time. Prof. Dr Christina von Braun will be honoured for her life's work. The awards are part of the Caroline von Humboldt Programme, which bundles equal opportunities measures at the HU.
Award ceremony
The public award ceremony will take place at a festive event on 2 December 2025 at 6 pm in the Festsaal of Humboldt-Universität at Luisenstr. 56.
Registration for the event on 2 December is requested at cvh-prize☞ Please insert an @ at this point ☜hu-berlin☞ Please insert a period at this pointde is requested.
About the award winners
Viktoria Tkaczyk has been Professor of Media and Knowledge in the Department of Media Studies at HU since 2018. She teaches and researches at the interface between the history of science and media studies in the early modern and modern periods. Her publications deal with media in scientific experiments and test procedures, with the media of the natural sciences and humanities and generally with historical processes of gaining knowledge in and through media. She is also head of the project "Raw Materials of the Humanities: Material Provenances of Working Media", which is funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). Since 2024, together with Anke te Heesen, she has led the DFG-funded research group "Applied Humanities: Genealogy and Politics". She is also a member of the Teaching Faculty of the International Max Planck Research School "Knowledge and Its Resources".
After studying theatre studies, modern German literature and sociology in Munich, Madrid and Berlin, she completed her doctorate at the Free University of Berlin with the thesis "Himmels-Falten. Zur Theatralität des Fliegens in der Frühen Neuzeit", which won two awards. Her most recent publications include "Thinking with Sound. A New Programme in the Sciences and Humanities around 1900" (The University of Chicago Press, 2023). The study deals with the discovery of the auditory cortex at the end of the 19th century and its impact on research in the humanities and natural sciences.
The environmental researcher Dr. Oleksandra Shumilova conducts research at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries. Her research focus is on the dynamics, functioning and ecosystem services of river systems, in particular the geomorphology, hydraulics and biodiversity of rivers and their floodplains. Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, she has also been investigating the effects of the war on freshwater resources and infrastructure. With the Humboldt Award, she will conduct research at the Department of Geography in the Laboratory for Conservation Biogeography under the direction of Prof Tobias Kümmerle. In the "IconicFlood" project, Shumilova will link information from remote sensing images with biodiversity patterns in floodplains and investigate how these are influenced by self-organisation processes.
Christina von Braun, who was recently honoured with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, was Professor of Cultural Studies at the HU from 1994 to 2012. During this time, she initiated the Gender Studies programme at the HU, and her work in this field was central to the establishment of women's and gender studies in Germany. She is also the founding director of the Selma Stern Centre for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg, of which she was also the spokesperson from 2012 to 2017. Her work includes around fifty film documentaries and film essays on cultural-historical topics as well as twenty books and numerous essays on cultural and gender history. Her latest book is "Der Kampf ums Unbewusste. A Society on the Couch" (together with Tilo Held).
About the awards
The Caroline von Humboldt-Professur is awarded to excellent female professors of all disciplines at HU who are characterised by their international reputation, the relevance of their research results beyond their own discipline and their outstanding publication activity. The aim is to make outstanding female HU researchers even more visible and to support their work.
The Caroline von Humboldt Award is presented annually to an excellent postdoctoral researcher from Germany or abroad. The prize money is intended to enable the award winner to carry out a research project as part of a research stay at Humboldt-Universität.
Further information
Prof Dr Viktoria Tkaczyk
Link to the biography
Dr Oleksandra Shumilova
Link to the biography
Prof Dr Christina von Braun
Link to the website of Prof Dr Braun
Contact
Kristina Kütt
Equality and Gender Equality
Deputy Central Women's and Equal Opportunities Officer
Tel.: 030 2093 12842
cvh-prize☞ Please insert an @ at this point ☜hu-berlin☞ Please insert a period at this pointde