TRR 181 member Friederike Pollmann New Professor at Universität Hamburg

Friederike has been closely connected to the University of Hamburg for more than ten years. She completed her PhD at the associated graduate school SICSS within the Excellence Cluster for Climate Sciences, and she later joined the TRR 181 during its initial phase as a postdoctoral researcher from 2018 to 2020. Since 2020, with Phase 2 of the TRR 181, she has served as Principal Investigator (PI). On 15 July 2025, she joined the Alfred Wegener Institute as a group leader in the @DFG's Emmy-Noether program. 

As an oceanographer, Friederike investigates internal gravity waves in the global ocean mainly from theoretical and modeling, but also from observational perspectives. Her motivation is to develop and improve parameterizations of wave-driven mixing, aiming for a physics-based representation of this unresolved process in numerical models with the ultimate goal of improving climate projections. A key focus region of her Emmy-Noether project is the warming Arctic, where she wants to unravel the role of wave-driven mixing for Arctic sea ice decline and how this impacts ocean and climate dynamics within the Arctic and beyond. 

Friederike said: "I'm very happy about this opportunity to stay connected with the UHH and to get involved more in the training of the next generation of oceanographers here at the institute of oceanography. I'm very excited about the prospect of bringing AWI and UHH expertise together through my research and look forward to all the interesting research collaborations that can grow out of this." 

We extend our warm congratulations to Friederike and look forward to continued collaboration on research and teaching within the TRR 181 community.