New ECDF Executive Board Elects Tabea Flügge and Michelle Christensen as Co-Leaders

Tabea Flügge and Michelle Christensen will continue to lead the ECDF as co-leaders. Christensen succeeds Martin Gersch. The Board of Directors elected the two at its inaugural meeting on October 30, 2026.

"Until March 2028, our primary focus on the Board will be on the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary vision for the future of the Einstein Center Digital Future and the sustainable development of the next generation of researchers. We are very much looking forward to working together on the Board, especially as a team with former and new colleagues,’ said Michelle Christensen. ECDF professors Andrea Cominola and Philipp Staab were elected as deputies to the two co-chairs.

The ECDF Board of Directors consists of a total of six ECDF professors from various Berlin universities, supplemented by five representatives of the associated researchers. A member of the State Conference of Women’s and Equal Opportunity Officers at Berlin’s universities also serves on the governing body.

 

The following have been officially elected by the ECDF members:

Prof. Tabea Flügge (Spokesperson), Professor of Digital Technologies for the Reconstruction of Complex Facial Defects, Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, as representative for the ECDF professors

Prof. Andrea Cominola (Deputy Spokesperson), Professor of Digital Water Systems, Technische Universität Berlin, as representative of the ECDF professors

Prof. Philipp Staab (Deputy Spokesperson), Professor of Sociology of Work, Economy, and Technological Change, Humboldt University of Berlin, as representative of the ECDF professors

Prof. Daniel Fürstenau, Professor of Business Administration, IT Management, and Digital Transformation, Freie Universität Berlin, as representative for the ECDF professors

Prof. Felix Biessmann, Professor of Machine Learning at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences, as representative of the ECDF professors

Dr. Michelle Christensen (Spokesperson), Berlin University of the Arts, as representative of the ECDF associate researchers

Prof. Martin Gersch, Professor of Business Administration, Information, and Organization at Freie Universität Berlin, as representative of the ECDF’s associate researchers

Dr. Fabian Braesemann, Lecturer at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, as representative of the ECDF’s associate researchers

Dr.-Ing. Elias Grünewald, postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Medical Informatics at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, representing the ECDF’s Associated Researchers

Rahel Gubser, research associate at the Institute for Medical Informatics at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, representing the ECDF’s Associated Researchers

Dr. Christine Kurmeyer, Central Officer for Women and Gender Equality, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, appointed by the State Conference of Women’s and Gender Equality Officers at Berlin’s Universities

 

New Research Priorities and Continuity Beyond 2028

The new Board of Directors will guide the ECDF through the remainder of the second funding phase, which runs through March 2028. The members of the Board represent a cross-section of the various academic disciplines at the ECDF, reflect the new priorities of the second funding phase—Transforming Communities, Sustainable Cities, and Digital Health—and represent the various universities and stakeholder groups involved in the ECDF. At the same time, the Board of Directors is working to ensure the ECDF’s continuity beyond 2028.