Graduates and award winner honored“You made it!”

11 February 2025, by Miriam Frieß

Photo: Sven Wied

Congratulations on your degrees! Last Friday, the CEN Graduation Ceremony, where more than 50 Master’s and Ph.D. students received their diplomas, took place in the Geomatikum.

“You made it!” said Geography Professor Martina Neuburger, who bid farewell to her graduating Master’s students at the ceremony. All told, 39 Master’s students and 16 PhDs received their diplomas last Friday. Their theses addressed a broad range of topics: pollutants in the Elbe, social transformation in Billstedt, soils in Namibia, or the snow structure in the Finnish Arctic.

After welcome addresses from CLICCS Speaker Prof. Johanna Baehr and CEN Director Prof. Grischa Perino, the graduating Master’s students were presented their diplomas by their respective degree program directors. MIN Dean Prof. Norbert Ritter subsequently congratulated all graduating Ph.D.’s and asked them to name the most important lesson they had learned from their advisors in the course of their studies. In response, Dr. Emilie D’Amico said: “They taught me that, with patience and kindness, any obstacle can be overcome.”

From snowball Earth to supergreenhouse: Dr. Lennart Ramme receives Wladimir Köppen Prize for his thesis

Both the last honoring of the evening and the reception took place amid the fossils – at the University of Hamburg’s Geological-Paleontological Museum. Dr. Lennart Ramme received the Cluster of Excellence CLICCS’s 2023 Wladimir Köppen Prize for his outstanding dissertation, in which he investigated the behavior of the ocean more than 635 million years ago. Back then, the entire planet was covered with ice and snow, but a massive climatic change melted the ice – transforming our world from “snowball Earth” to one with a supergreenhouse climate. Further, his work offers insights into how organisms were able to survive this fundamental climate change.

The graduates and award winners rounded out the evening with their family, friends, advisors and instructors – and with a buffet and beverages. The trio d’Anches heureux provided the musical accompaniment – which also included classics like the Super Mario Bros. theme.