Stefan Fredenhagen receives prize awarded to young scientists for excellent teaching methods
The AEI scientist was honoured on 13 January 2015 by the Student Government in Physics (Fachschaftsinitiative Physik) of Humboldt University.
Dr Stefan Fredenhagen has been lecturing at Humboldt University on string theory and the general theory of relativity since 2008. In recognition of the quality of his teaching, he will now to receive the “Nachwuchspreis für gute Lehre”, a prize for young scientists for excellent teaching methods, for 2014. The award was made during a colloquium at the Institute of Physics in Berlin-Adlershof.
The award certificate states, inter alia: “Dr. Fredenhagen, in his consistently outstanding lectures, has been successful in elucidating complex subject matter with great clarity and tremendous enthusiasm.”
“My lectures are a source of great pleasure to me,” said Fredenhagen after the awards ceremony. “I am happy that my teaching is also so well received by the students.”
The Student Government in Physics (Fachschaftsinitiative Physik) of Humboldt University has been awarding the prize for excellent teaching since 2011. To this effect, students fill out questionnaires and give marks for, among other things, the structuring of the lectures and the learning effect, as well as for how prepared the lecturer is.
Stefan Fredenhagen himself was once also involved in the introduction of such a prize at his home university. “In Hamburg, in the winter semester 1996/97, we were among the first in all of Germany to bestow such a prize,” says Fredenhagen. “In the meantime, the evaluation of teaching quality by students has become an established practice at universities.”
Stefan Fredenhagen (b. 1974) studied physics in Hamburg and received his doctorate at the Albert Einstein Institute in 2002. For his doctoral thesis he was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society. After his PhD he spent a year in France at the Ecole Polytechnique in Palaiseau. After additional postdoc positions at IHES in Bures-sur-Yvette and at ETH Zürich he returned to the AEI in 2006, where he has been a researcher in the “Quantum Gravity and Unified Theories” Department with the focus on string theory. He is also currently preparing for his habilitation.
