New professors at the University of Basel

The University Council has appointed Professor Viktor Kölzer as Clinical Professor for Experimental Pathology in the Faculty of Medicine. Kölzer is currently Assistant Professor for Digital Pathology at the University of Zurich and senior physician at the University Hospital Zurich. This position will begin at the University Hospital Basel on 1 April 2024.

Kölzer studied medicine at the Technical University of Munich and earned a doctorate from Ludwig Maximilian University Munich in 2011. Afterwards he worked as a pathologist and research fellow at the University of Bern and the Cantonal Hospital of Baselland. From 2017 to 2018 he was a researcher at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford as part of a SNSF Swiss Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2017, he was officially certified as a specialist in pathology and in 2018, he was appointed Honorary Senior Clinical Researcher at the University of Oxford. In 2019, he became Switzerland’s first professor for digital pathology at the University of Zurich.

Kölzer’s research profile innovatively combines the latest technological developments in tissue analysis, in particular molecular technologies and digital picture analysis in pathology. His key research interest lies in the development of medical diagnostics. He is the coordinator of the Swiss Digital Pathology Initiative within the Swiss Roadmap for Research Infrastructures of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation.

The University Council has selected Professor Antje Prasse to be Clinical Professor of Pneumology at the Faculty of Medicine. This position will begin at the University Hospital Basel on 1 March 2024. Along with her promotion to clinical professor, she will also become Director of the Clinic for Pneumology.

Antje Prasse took her state examination in medicine at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and obtained her doctorate from the same university in 2003. In 2005, she qualified as a specialist in internal medicine and in 2007 as a specialist in pneumology. In 2008, she habilitated in internal medicine at the University of Freiburg. She worked at the Medical Center – University of Freiburg for many years, most recently as managing senior physician at the Department of Pneumology and as a research group leader, before holding a visiting professorship at Yale University from 2013 to 2014. In 2014, she took over as senior physician and Head of Department of the Center for Interstitial Lung Diseases at Hannover Medical School and the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine.

The focus of her methodologically diversified research is in the field of interstitial lung diseases and includes numerous clinical pictures associated with misdirected regeneration and damage to the connective and supporting tissue of the lungs.

The new professor for Latin studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences will be Professor Cédric Scheidegger Lämmle. He will take up his post in the Department of Ancient Civilizations on 1 January 2024.

Cédric Scheidegger Lämmle studied Latin, Greek and modern German literature at the University of Basel and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 2015, he obtained his doctorate with a dissertation on the topic of “Werkpolitik” in antiquity. After finishing his dissertation, Scheidegger Lämmle completed a research stay at the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge as an SNSF fellow. In 2017, he returned to the University of Basel as Lecturer. He continued his teaching and research activities as an Affiliated Lecturer in Cambridge where, in 2021, he took up the post of College Lecturer and Director of Studies and latterly of Senior Lector at Trinity College. He now teaches as College Associate Professor and Fellow in Classics at Downing College Cambridge.

Scheidegger Lämmle has a particular interest in how the "classical" literature of Greece and Rome was read and interpreted, promoted and challenged across the centuries. His teaching and research ranges from ancient drama to late antique figure poems and covers topics as diverse as literary criticism in antiquity, gender studies and the reception of classical literature, from Renaissance editions and commentaries to contemporary cinema. He champions an approach to Latin studies that is not only placed in dialog with the study of modern literary, historical and cultural studies, but is also attuned to wider contemporary debates.

Professor Mirka Henninger will become the new assistant professor with tenure track for statistics and data science at the Faculty of Psychology. She will take up her position on 1 February 2024.

Mirka Henninger studied psychology at the University of Mannheim and the Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich. In 2019, she earned a doctorate at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Mannheim. Since 2020, she has been working as a postdoctoral researcher and from 2023 onward as a senior research associate for psychological methods at the Department of Psychology of the University of Zurich. Besides her research and teaching activities, she has been part of the leadership team of the Section Methodology and Evaluation of the German Psychological Society from 2020 to 2023.

Her research program comprises psychometric modeling, machine learning methods and the modeling of multilevel data. In these areas and their intersections, Mirka Henninger develops and evaluates new statistical procedures. In her research, she investigates psychometric models in order to enhance test fairness and to control measurement error. She also evaluates machine learning methods for their applicability in psychological research, and explores how multilevel data can be analyzed using psychometric models and machine learning methods. Through her research, she facilitates advancements in the assessment of psychological characteristics and the optimal analysis of multivariate data within the field of psychology.

Professor Ines Mürner-Lavanchy will become the new assistant professor with tenure track for youth mental health. She will take on the role at the Faculty of Psychology on 1 March 2024.

Mürner-Lavanchy studied psychology at the University of Bern where she obtained a doctorate in 2014 with a doctoral thesis on brain development in very preterm born children. She then worked in neuropediatrics at the University Children’s Hospital Bern as a postdoc and clinical neuropsychologist before transferring to the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, as a research fellow in 2017. She has been senior academic resident at the University Hospital for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Bern since 2018.

Mürner-Lavanchy’s teaching and research focus on the topic of child and adolescent psychology. Her particular interest is in transdiagnostic symptoms of emotional dysregulation in children and adolescents, such as pathological irritability and self-harm. Her research aims to improve the understanding of the development of mental illnesses through a combination of neurocognitive, biophysiological and everyday approaches, and to contribute to preventing them. Her work is characterized by a holistic consideration of mental health in the context of development and psychiatric and somatic diseases.

Professor Ansgar Kahmen has been associate professor for sustainable land use at the Department of Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Science since 2013 and will be promoted to full professor from spring semester 2024.

The University Council has approved the decision by the Senate to appoint the following adjunct professors at the Faculty of Medicine:

• Dr. Elisabeth Artemis Kappos for plastic, reconstructive, aesthetic and hand surgery
• Dr. Gwendolin Marie Manegold-Brauer for gynecology and obstetrics
• Dr. Philipp Sahrmann for restorative dental medicine and periodontology (with “Umhabilitation”, transfer of authorization to teach)
• Dr. Spasenija Savic Prince for pathology
• Dr. Regina Schläger for neurology
• Dr. Marc Sollberger for neurology
• Dr. Özgür Yaldizli for neurology

Senate awards Venia docendi

On the recommendation of the Faculties of Medicine, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Science, the University Council has awarded five people the Venia docendi and the title of Dr. habil. This authorizes the researchers to use the title of Privatdozent/Privatdozentin (lecturer) and the academic degree of Doctor habilitatus/Doctora habilitata.

Faculty of Medicine

• Dr. Andreas Marco Fischer for geriatric medicine
• Dr. Corina Schuster-Amft for experimental medicine
• Dr. Wolfgang Tobias Vogel for forensic psychiatry

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

• Dr. Patricia Hertel for modern and contemporary history

Faculty of Science

• Dr. Emiliana Fabbri for chemistry