Humboldt Professorship: Climate Change and Health
Photo: Mattias Pettersson
To study climate change and its impact on global public health with the aid of new research approaches, Prof. Dr Joacim Rocklöv, an eminent epidemiologist, is receiving a Humboldt Professorship worth up to five million euros located at Heidelberg University. As professor for “artificial intelligence in the researching of climate-sensitive infectious diseases”, Joacim Rocklöv will explore the influence of climate and environment on the spread of diseases like malaria, HIV or dengue. The aim is to highlight the impacts of climatic and environmental changes on public health, develop predictive models as early warning systems and come up with possible forms of intervention to counter the spread of climate-sensitive diseases.
Prof. Rocklöv’s interdisciplinary research will be based at the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH) of the Medical Faculty Heidelberg and, at the same time, connect with the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR) – one of the central research institutions at Heidelberg University. Accordingly, Joacim Rocklöv’s Humboldt Professorship is designed as a bridge professorship between HIGH and IWR. For causal studies and field research, Prof. Rocklöv will collaborate closely with Prof. Dr Dr Till Bärnighausen, director of HIGH and likewise a Humboldt Professor. Hence the first AI laboratory in Germany dealing with the connection between global diseases and climate change will come into being at Heidelberg University.
The scientist, who was proposed by Ruperto Carola to receive Germany’s most highly endowed international research prize, is currently working at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine of Umeå University (Sweden). Humboldt Professorships are awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Leading international academics are granted such a professorship in order to conduct long-term, cutting-edge research at German universities.
