New Vice Presidents Elected at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau

The Senate of the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau elected four new Vice Presidents by a large majority at its meeting on January 29, 2025. The term of office for the newly elected members of the Executive Board is four years. The election took place at the suggestion of University President Malte Drescher.

The election is linked to the restructuring of the responsibilities of the members of the Executive Board. The previous dual responsibility for teaching and research by Vice Presidents from both RPTU campuses will be replaced by new cross-campus priorities for which only one member of the Executive Board will be responsible. The new priorities are "Career Development, Diversity and Equality" and "International Affairs, Sustainability and Physical Development". “Research” and “Teaching” will remain, each of which includes other topics such as “Innovation” and “Studies”.

"With the election of the new vice presidents, the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau is taking an important step towards the strategic development of the university and thus strengthening future-oriented fields of action. I congratulate the newly elected members of the university management and am pleased that the University Senate shares my conviction that they are the right people for this responsible task," said University President Malte Drescher.

The elected Vice Presidents, their responsibilities and terms of office:

• Oliver Frör, Department of Natural and Environmental Sciences, will serve as Vice President for International Affairs, Sustainability and Physical Development from March 1, 2025 to February 28, 2029.
• Mandy Schiefner-Rohs from the Department of Social Sciences will serve as Vice President for Education from September 1, 2025 to August 31, 2029.
• Melanie Steffens, Department of Psychology, will serve as Vice President for Career Development, Diversity, and Equity, with a term of office from September 1, 2025, to August 31, 2029.
• Werner Thiel, Department of Chemistry, has been re-elected Vice President for Research to serve a term from March 1, 2025 to February 28, 2029.

Former Vice Presidents Klaus Schwenk (formerly Research), Gabriele E. Schaumann, and Stefan Löhrke (both formerly Teaching) did not stand for re-election.

Introducing the new Vice Presidents:

Professor Oliver Frör (CV in German) (born 1972) studied geoecology at the University of Bayreuth. He received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Albany in 1999. He then worked as a consultant for the New York State Department of Economic Development and taught at Siena College, Loudonville, NY. In 2007, he received his Ph.D. summa cum laude from the University of Hohenheim, Germany. He stayed there as a research associate until 2011. Since 2012, Frör has been Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Koblenz-Landau. From 2017 to 2022, he served as Vice Dean for Research, Young Academics and Internationalization at the Department of Natural and Environmental Sciences. Since 2023 he is Dean of the Department.

Professor Mandy Schiefner-Rohs (CV in German)(born 1980) studied educational science, art history and computer science at Saarland University and received her Ph.D. from the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich in 2011. She worked as a research assistant at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland and at the University of Zurich, where she later became deputy head of the Department of University Didactics. After a postdoctoral period at the University of Duisburg-Essen, she was appointed Professor of Education with a focus on school development at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern in 2013. In 2019, she was appointed University Professor of Education with a focus on school pedagogy. From 2020 to 2023, she will serve as Vice Dean of the Department of Social Sciences.

Professor Melanie Steffens (CV in German) (born 1969) studied psychology at the University of Bonn and received her Ph.D. from the University of Trier in 1998. She was a Visiting Fellow at Yale University in 2001, and habilitated at the University of Trier in 2004. From 2004 to 2013 she was a professor at the University of Jena.Since 2013 she is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Landau.From 2017 to 2020 she was Dean of the Department of Psychology. Her research focuses on group-related attitudes, social diversity, and discrimination, with an emphasis on gender. She served as Associate Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology (2021-2023) and has been a member of the DFG Psychology Review Board since 2024.

Professor Werner R. Thiel (CV in German) (born in 1961) studied chemistry at the Technical University of Munich, where he received his doctorate in 1990.From 1990 to 1991 he was a Feodor Lynen Fellow at the Université de Bordeaux I. In 1997 he habilitated at the Technische Universität München.From 2000, he was Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Technical University of Chemnitz, before taking up a professorship at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern in 2004. From 2006 to 2016 he was head of the Center for Teacher Training and from 2008 to 2020 he was spokesman for the State Research Focus NanoKat. From 2017 to 2020, he was Dean of the Department of Chemistry, and then Vice President for Research and Technology at the TU Kaiserslautern until 2022. Since 2023, he has been Vice President for Research at the RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau.