PhD Graduation Ceremony on Schillertag

The lecture will address the question of whether interesting science and social relevance are incompatible or mutually connected. To this end, the history of climate or earth system research will be examined in aspects and it will be shown that there are many aspects that are highly interesting scientifically and relevant to society at the same time. While other issues were initially driven by curiosity, they later turned out to be relevant. Last but not least, socially relevant challenges can lead to interesting scientific questions today, e.g. in the field of artificial intelligence.

Markus Reichstein is Director of the Department of Biogeochemical Integration at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. His main research interests revolve around the reaction and feedback of ecosystems (vegetation and soils) to climate variability from an Earth system perspective. He was lead author of the IPCC Special Report on Climate Extremes (SREX), a member of the German Future Earth Committee on Sustainability Research and the Thuringian Climate Council. Recent awards include the Piers J. Sellers Mid-Career Award from the American Geophysical Union (2018), an ERC Synergy Grant (2019) and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2020).