Dr. Nadine Thiel is a post-doctoral researcher at the Leibniz Institute DSMZ – German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Culture. She is part of the SOARiAL (Spread of Antibiotic Resistance in an Agrarian Landscape) project which involves an interdisciplinary team of professionals working in microbiology, veterinary, meteorology and agricultural engineering. This project involves 4 different Leibniz Institutes (ATB, ZALF, TROPOS and DSMZ) and the FU Berlin. Together, they develop models to study bacterial dispersal and the risk of wind-borne transmission.

Mrs. Anne von Fallois is a political scientist with a large expertise in political management at public service. From 1994 to 2013 she worked at the Federal President’s Office where her tasks involved innovation policy, science and education, and partnership-based project development. One of her main contributions while leading political foundations at the Federal Ministry of education was the coined concepts for the “House of the Future” project (now: Futurium), which is a public-private platform for networking and dialogue between spheres of politics, science, business, arts and society. Since 2014 she is the representative of the Kienbaum Group, where the management between public and third sector are part of her tasks.

Prof. Dr.-ing. Matthias Kleiner is the President of the Leibniz Association since 2014. He graduated in mechanical engineering at the University of Dortmund where he is also Professor of Forming Technology. Prof. Dr.-ing. Kleiner is a member of the German Academy of Engineering Sciences (acatech). Since 2006, he is a member of the Leopoldina and the Academia Europaea and a member of numerous collaborative research centers. From 2007 to 2012 he was President of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Among several prizes, Prof. Dr.-ing. Kleiner was awarded with the Leibniz Prize and received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. As current president of the Leibniz Association, Prof. Dr.-ing. Kleiner represents the common interests of all members of the Leibniz Association towards the federal government, other scientific organizations and the community.

Prof. Dr.-ing. Lutz Mädler is director of the Process & Chemical Engineering Division of the Foundation Institute of Materials Science (IWT) at the University of Bremen.  He graduated in physics by the Technical University of Zwickau and holds a doctorate in Process Engineering from the University of Freiberg. After a habilitation at ETH Zürich, he worked as a lecturer and Senior Research Associate at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2017, he was awarded with the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize for his groundbreaking research on gas phase nanoparticle formation technology. At IWT, Prof. Dr.-ing. Mädler leads the research group of Reactive Spraying which is also part of the Collaborative Research Center 1232, an integrated research training group that aim to support the technical qualification of doctoral researchers via cooperation between the faculties and institutions at the University of Bremen.

Dr. Christian Stein works at the Herman von Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Techniques of Humboldt University Berlin where he focuses on architectures of knowledge. His life as a researcher is dedicated to interdisciplinarity as he is doing research directly on the subject itself and its application in science. That includes topics of working behaviour or the use of space and communication. Finally the results contribute to identify favourable team formations for successful interdisciplinary research projects. During his education, Dr Stein was on the interdisciplinary track as well studying linguistics as well as computer sciences. He is also a member of the Junge Akademie, the worldwide first academy for young researchers and a frontrunner in promoting interdisciplinarity.