Career Booster North America: Interviews with German researchers in the USA and Canada
Esther Lagemann
Mount Rainier
The campus of the University of Washington in winter with the snow-covered Mount Rainier in the background.
© DFG
The campus of the University of Washington in winter with the snow-covered Mount Rainier in the background.
© DFG
(26.06.2024) Mechanical engineer Dr.-Ing. Esther Lagemann has been at the University of Washington in Seattle on a Walter Benjamin Fellowship since the end of 2023, where she is working in Prof. Dr. Steven Brunton’s group, using neural networks to gain a better understanding of wall shear stress – a fundamental problem in fluid dynamics. Her interview with the DFG Office North America covered topics such as women in the male-dominated field of mechanical engineering, the underlying reason for measuring velocity fields in flows and her working environment in Seattle, Washington.
Dr. Teresa Gerhardt
Dr. Teresa Gerhardt in the lab
© private
(17.01.24) Since the beginning of 2023, medical practitioner and life scientist Dr. Teresa Gerhardt has been on a DFG Walter Benjamin Fellowship at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, where she is a member of Professor Cameron McAlpine’s group investigating the connection between sleep, inflammatory processes and cardiological health. Her interview with the DFG’s Office North America covered topics such as the subject of her research project, the disadvantages of excessive sleep, favourite cities and authors, and a whole host of other things that are not directly related to science.
Dr. Melanie Ptatscheck
Dr. Melanie Ptatscheck
© Philip Nürnberger
(22.06.23) Popular music scholar Dr. Melanie Ptatscheck has been at the Music Department of New York University since summer 2022 on a Walter Benjamin fellowship awarded by the DFG. For her research project, she is looking into street music in the city’s extensive subway system and the impact of the pandemic on the living conditions and self-image of street musicians. In her interview with the DFG Office North America, she talked about subjects such as her current research project, the role of drugs in musicians’ biographies, mental health, detours, performing on stage as an ideal, passion in research and weekends behind the counter at her parents’ café in Bielefeld.
Dr. Sarah Grasedieck
Dr. Sarah Grasedieck
© Privat
(30.01.23) Since autumn 2020, life scientist Dr. Sarah Grasedieck has been a Walter Benjamin Fellow at Professor Martin Hirst’s Epigenomics Lab at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, investigating the suitability of vitamin C for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemias (AML). In her interview with the DFG’s North American office she discussed topics such as her unconventional entry into a scientific career, the potential role of vitamin C in the demethylation and re-expression of genes, and the attractive but not exactly affordable conditions for researchers on the North-American west coast.