University Society awards Dissertation Prizes

On the 23rd of January, the Bielefeld University Society (UGBi) awarded Dissertation Prizes to young academics at Bielefeld University: the award goes to the best doctoral thesis of 2017 in each faculty. All 17 theses proposed by the faculties had received the highest classification of ‘summa cum laude’. This is the first time so many prizes have been awarded, and also the first time a prize winner has come from the Bielefeld School of Education (BiSED).

With the first ever Dissertation Prize to the BiSED being awarded to Dr. Natalia Hofferber, the Bielefeld University Society is emphasizing ‘the great importance of teacher training and subject-specific educational research,’ says Jürgen Heinrich, the director of the University Society in the Plenarsaal of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF). The fact that two prizes went to the Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies this year is due to the convincing arguments by the board member Professor Dr. Wolfgang Braungart.

The University Society has been awarding Dissertation Prizes since 1983. Each prize is worth 1000 euro and is sponsored by renowned companies in the region of East Westphalia-Lippe as well individual persons.

The event was moderated by Andreas Liebold. He presented the dissertation topics by discussing them with the prize winners. Maria Unger (board member of the University Society) awarded the prizes. Kanami Ito and Angelo Villari from the Hochschule für Musik Detmold accompanied the event musically on the piano.

The prize winners and their doctoral theses:

Dr. Natalia Hofferber (Bielefeld School of Education)
Autonomieförderung – Mehr als ein Nice-To-Have? Die Auswirkung autonomieförderlichen Lehrverhaltens auf intrinsische Motivation, die Wahrnehmung konstruktivistischer Prozessmerkmale und Wissenserwerb der Schülerinnen und Schüler im Biologieunterricht [Promoting autonomy – More than just something nice to have? The effect of autonomy-promoting teaching behaviour on pupils’ intrinsic motivation, perception of constructivist process features, and knowledge acquisition in biology classes)

Dr. Luke Eberhart-Phillips (Faculty of Biology)
Consequences of individual variation on population dynamics – a behavioural, molecular and demographic study of Charadrius plovers

Dr. Heike Wolf (Faculty of Chemistry)
The lysosomal storage disease fucosidosisi: Towards enzyme replacement therapy

Dr. Vera Christine Brinkmann (Faculty of Educational Science)
Fragen stellen an die Welt – Eine Untersuchung zur Entwicklung des Gegenstandsverständnisses und der Fragekompetenz in einem an den Schülerfragen orientierten Sachunterricht [Questioning the world – A study on the development of understanding and questioning competence in primary school science teaching oriented towards pupils’ questions]

Dr. Kristoffer Klammer (Faculty of History, Philosophy, and Theology)
„Wirtschaftskrisen“. Effekt und Faktor politischer Kommunikation Deutschland, 1929 – 1976 [‘Economic crises’. Effect and element of political communication in Germany from 1929 to 1976]

Dr. Cona Ehresmann (Faculty of Health Sciences)
Burn-out und das Sozialkapital von Organisationen – auf die Bindung kommt es an. Eine quantitative Analyse zu Sozialkapital, emotionaler Bindung und psychischer Erschöpfung am Beispiel von Mitarbeitern in medizinischen Rehabilitationskliniken [Burnout and the social capital of organizations – it’s the attachment that counts. A quantitative analysis of social capital, emotional attachment, and mental exhaustion in staff of medical rehabilitation clinics]

Dr. Mareike Gronich (Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies)
Lesen ist politisch! Zur politischen Dimension narrativer Strukturen in Wolfgang Koeppens „Das Treibhaus“ und Uwe Johnsons „Das dritte Buch über Achim“ [Reading is political! The political dimension of narrative structures in Wolfgang Koeppen’s ‘Das Treibhaus’ and Uwe Johnson’s ‘Das dritte Buch über Achim’]

Dr. Saskia Fischer (Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies)
Reflektierte Ritualität – Die Wiederaneignung ritueller Formen in der Dramatik nach 1945 [Reflected rituality – The reacquisition of ritual forms in post-1945 drama]

Dr. Pasha Tkachov (Faculty of Mathematics)
Front propagation in the non-local Fisher-KPP equation

Dr. Matthias Götte (Faculty of Physics)
Topological insulator based spintronics: Theoretical investigation of pure spin current devices and polarization measurements

Dr. Christian Hendrik Poth (Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science)
Episodic Visual Cognition. Implications for Object and Short-Term Recognition

Dr. Sandra Schneemann (Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science)
New Insights into Tournament Theory: Effort, Sabotage, Risk-Taking and Heterogeneity. Empirical Analysis of Sporting Contests

Dr. Johannes Schäffer (Faculty of Law)
Justizfähigkeit von Individualrechten – Eine historische und auch systematische Untersuchung zur juristischen Maßstabsbildung [Granting justice to individual rights – A historical and also systematic study of legal standard setting]  

Dr. Thomas Müller (Faculty of Sociology)
Governance by the Few in International Society: a History of the Institution of Great Power

Dr. Guillaume Holley (Faculty of Technology)
Pan-genome Search and Storage

Dr. Anna Wippermann (Faculty of Technology)
DNA methylationin CHO cells. Characterization of epigenetic phenomena under process conditions

Dr. Sabrina Backs (Faculty of Business Administration and Economics)
Akademische Patente als Mittel zum Wissens- und Technologietransfer zwischen Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft. Simulationsbasierte Managementunterstützung für Technologietransferzentren [Academic patents as a way of transferring knowledge and technology between science and business. Simulation-based management support for technology transfer centres]

Further information:
www.uni-bielefeld.de/ugbi