Felix Augustin and Jonas Preine to receive award at the annual meeting of the German Geo-logical Society in Berlin in mid-September

Felix Augustin and Jonas Preine to receive award at the annual meeting of the German Geo-logical Society in Berlin in mid-September

Doctoral researchers Felix Augustin (Tübingen) and Jonas Preine (Hamburg) are to receive the 2023 Bernd Rendel Prize by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) for their promising and original geoscientific research prior to obtaining a doctorate. They were selected by a jury made up of members of the DFG’s review boards in the geosciences.

The prizewinners will each receive €2,000 from the Bernd Rendel Foundation, which is administered by Stifterverband, a joint initiative started by companies and foundations and dedicated to the promotion of science and the humanities in Germany. The prize money is intended to enable them to pursue academic activities such as attending international conferences and meetings. The prize will be awarded at the annual meeting of the German Geological Society, which will take place from 3 to 7 September 2023 in Berlin.

Felix Augustin deals with the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates in the Mesozoic era: he studies the taxonomy, palaeoecology and phylogeny of turtles, crocodiles, dinosaurs, pterosaurs and mammals. In his dissertation project, he focuses on the Upper Cretaceous vertebrate fauna of the Hateg Basin in Romania. Augustin has already published 14 articles in renowned journals as first author. In addition to his ongoing involvement in theory, he has also gained research experience in the field. He plans to use the prize money to finance trips to Romania to examine as yet undescribed items from the collections in Cluj-Napoca and at the University of Bucharest and present his findings at specialist conferences.

Jonas Preine’s research focus is marine geophysics. His research career began when he won the national science award for young people Jugend forscht in 2012. This was followed by numerous voyages on research vessels to the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Red Sea – in some cases acting as a tutor, shift leader or manager. His doctoral thesis deals with the Christiana-Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field in the Aegean Sea, an area that is highly relevant in terms of volcanic risk in Europe, too. He draws on a wide range of geophysical methods to look at the spatial and temporal evolution of the volcanic field and extension basin. Jonas Preine would like to use the prize money to undertake further work in the Aegean.

The DFG has awarded the Bernd Rendel Prize every year since 2002 to graduates in the geosciences who have not yet completed their doctorate, enabling them to pursue research activities such as attending international conferences and meetings. The prize money is administered by Stifterverband. Bernd Rendel was a geology student who died at a young age; the foundation named after him was established in his memory by his family.

Further information

For further information about the Bernd Rendel Prize and previous prizewinners, see:

• www.dfg.de/rendel_prize

Media contact:

• DFG Press and Public Relations
  Tel. +49 228 885-2109
  presse@dfg.de

Contact at the DFG Head Office:

• Dr. Ismene Seeberg-Elverfeldt
  Geosciences
  Tel. +49 228 885-2825
  ismene.seeberg-elverfeldt@dfg.de