New professor of hydrogeology

Oliver Schilling will take up the tenure track assistant professorship in hydrogeology on 1 March 2022. The professorship is shared jointly between the University of Basel and Eawag, the water research institute of the ETH Domain. Schilling will also chair the Applied and Environmental Geology research group that develops application-oriented principles in geology, hydrogeology and geotechnics for northwestern Switzerland and neighboring countries.

Oliver Schilling studied environmental sciences at ETH Zurich and received his doctorate in hydrogeology from the University of Neuchâtel in 2017 with a thesis titled “Advances in characterizing surface water – groundwater interactions: combining unconventional data with complex, fully-integrated models”. Postdoctoral stays took him to Université Laval in Canada and Flinders University in Australia before he returned to the University of Neuchâtel as a research associate and coordinator of the Swiss Doctoral School for Water Earth Systems.

In his research, Schilling develops innovative tracer methods that he combines with numerical modeling approaches to better understand hydrogeological transport and reaction processes in surface and groundwater.

Two promotions

Professor Sabine Huebner will be promoted to full professor of ancient history in the spring semester of 2022. Huebner was appointed tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Ancient Civilizations in 2014 and promoted to associate professor in 2016. She has been successful in establishing Basel’s Ancient History department as a worldwide center for the social history of Greco-Roman Egypt and papyrology, where much-discussed research perspectives (climate history, digital humanities) are currently being pursued.

Professor Sébastien Gagneux will be promoted to full professor of infection biology as of the spring semester 2022. Gagneux became an SNSF assistant professor at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) in 2010 and has been an associate professor at the Faculty of Science since 2016. He specialists in tuberculosis research, with a focus on the ecological and evolutionary aspects of this disease of poverty, particularly in the area of antibiotic resistance.

Three adjunct professorships

The University Council has approved the decision by the Senate to appoint the following adjunct professors:

Faculty of Medicine

• Professor Julia Bohlius for cancer epidemiology (with simultaneous “Umhabilitation”, transfer of authorization to teach)
• Professor Oliver Faude for sports science

Faculty of Business and Economics

• Professor Sébastien Kraenzlin for monetary economics and financial market infrastructure

Two approvals

Finally, the University Council has approved the two new clinical professorships of pathology and experimental pathology, both at the Faculty of Medicine.