We asked two current and two former MATHRIX Assistant Professors about the highlights and opportunities that the programme has offered them. Kristin Gabe, Anna Gusakova, Franziska Jahnke and Aleksandra Kwiatkowska share their experiences.

Prof. Dr. Shirly Geffen, investigator of Mathematics Münster, works in the field of operator algebras, and more specifically, C*-algebras. Since 2024, she has held a permanent professorship at the University of Münster. In this interview, she shares how she discovered her research field, how her academic path led her from Israel to a MATHRIX assistant professorship in Münster, and what she finds particularly beautiful about mathematics. 

Kristin (Courtney) Gabe has received the highly esteemed Inge Lehmann grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The grant recognizes her advanced research in the field of operator algebras, a branch of theoretical mathematics with strong ties to quantum physics. Kristin Gabe is an external investigator of Mathematics Münster and a former MATHRIX professor. Since 2023, she has held an assistant professorship at the University of Southern Denmark.

We are delighted that the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has accepted Franziska Jahnke, MATHRIX professor at Mathematics Münster, as a new Henriette Herz Scout. She has now the opportunity to recommend three postdocs from abroad for a renowned Humboldt Research Fellowship which can be granted directly.

In a new series of videos, the Communication and Public Relations department of the University of Münster presents six academics from a variety of disciplines who are either junior professors or who head a group of junior researchers. A video portrait of out investigator Dr. Theresa Simon was recently published. As a junior professor at the Cluster of Excellence Mathematics Münster, she studies patterns in magnets.

We welcome Anna Gusakova to the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science and the Cluster of Excellence Mathematics Münster. She commenced her appointment as a MATHRIX Junior Professor on 1 September 2021. Her major research area is Stochastic Geometry.

We welcome Aleksandra Kwiatkowska to the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science and the Cluster of Excellence Mathematics Münster. She commenced her appointment as a MATHRIX Juniorprofessorin on 1st of October 2020. She works on the structure and dynamics of separable completely metrizable topological groups.

Assistant professor Dr. Mira Schedensack held the MATHRIX Professorship until 2019 and, looking back, she says, “The MATHRIX Professorship enabled me, for the first time, to carry out research really independently.”

Hours of contemplation, approaching a solution in small steps, and a healthy scepticism towards computer-generated results. In these guest articles, two mathematicians at the University of Münster, Dr. Franziska Jahnke und Dr. Mira Schedensack, explain what mathematical research means to them and what the aim of this research is. Both undertake research and teaching at the University of Münster within the framework of the MATHRIX junior professorships, which were established in 2017 to promote gender equality in mathematics.