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Members of the University Council

The University Council at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf comprises eight members. The current term of office of the members began in December 2022 and runs for five years.

External members:
Dr h.c. Anne-José Paulsen (Chair), Countess Carola von Schmettow (Deputy Chair), Dr Karl Hans Arnold, Anne-Christin Frister, Professor Dr Karl-Walter Jauch and Professor Dr Elisabeth Knust.

Internal members:
Professor Dr Ricarda Bauschke-Hartung and Professor Dr Joachim Windolf.

Overview of members

Dr h.c. Anne-José Paulsen, born 1952, studied law. Before entering retirement in February 2018, she was President of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court and 1st Vice President of the Constitutional Court for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

In 1982, Anne-José Paulsen was appointed judge at the Düsseldorf Regional Court and in 1987, judge at the Higher Regional Court. In 1996, she was appointed Vice President of the Mönchengladbach Regional Court and in 1998, President of the Bochum Regional Court. From 2002 to 2007, she was Chair of the Advisory Board of the Faculty of Law at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. In March 2002, Anne-José Paulsen became the first female president of a higher regional court in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Faculty of Law at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf awarded her an honorary doctorate in July 2023.

Countess Carola von Schmettow, born 1964, studied mathematics at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and music at the Robert Schumann Conservatory. After her studies, she joined HSBC, working in the Capital Markets Division and Asset Management. She was appointed member of the Management Board of the bank in 2004. From 2015 to 2021, she was CEO of HSBC Germany. She was also member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Association of German Banks (Bundesverband Deutscher Banken), Deputy Chair of the Exchange Council of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Chair of the Exchange Council of Eurex Germany. She has held supervisory board seats at thyssenkrupp AG, the BVV pension organisation for the finance industry and the DBV Winterthur civil servant health insurance association, among others.

She is member of the Supervisory Board of HSBC Continental Europe and also holds positions on the Board of Trustees of the ZEIT-Stiftung charitable foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and as Deputy Chair of the Kaiserswerther Diakonie social, welfare and health care organisation.

Dr Karl Hans Arnold, born 1962, studied economics and business administration at the universities in Nuremberg, Cologne and Munich, and gained his doctorate (Dr. phil.) at the Ruhr University Bochum. As a media manager, he began his career in 1993 at Gruner + Jahr International in Paris, assuming the role of Managing Director of the publishing house. In 1999, he became Managing Director and Editor of the magazine National Geographic France. From 2002 until mid-2011, he was Managing Partner of Rheinisch-Bergische Verlagsgesellschaft/Rheinische Post Mediengruppe and from July 2011 to March 2018, he was Chair of the Board of Directors of the company. He was also Editor of the Rheinische Post daily newspaper from December 2015 to April 2019.

Professor Dr Ricarda Bauschke-Hartung, born 1966, studied German studies and romance languages and literatures in Berlin, gaining her doctorate there in 1995 with her thesis on a work by the poet Walther von der Vogelweide. She gained her venia legendi in the subject “Medieval German Literature and Language” in 2006. Following her first professorship in Freiburg, she took up the Chair of Medieval German Literature and Language at HHU in 2008. She was also Vice President for Quality in Studies and Equal Opportunities at HHU from 2012 to 2014.

Anne-Christin Frister, born 1966, studied law. She is presiding judge at Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court, where she also heads the 3rd Cartel Panel, which is responsible for antitrust matters relating to the energy industry.

Anne-Christin Frister joined the judicial service of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1995. She was appointed judge at the Regional Court in 1999 and judge at the Higher Regional Court at the beginning of 2006. Until the end of 2011, she dealt with antitrust and procurement matters as a member of the 2nd Cartel and Procurement Panel at Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. At the beginning of 2012, she moved to the 3rd Cartel Panel, which is responsible for antitrust matters in the energy industry and which deals with energy industry law proceedings relating to decisions taken by the Federal Network Agency in the electricity and gas network sector.

Anne-Christin Frister is Deputy Equal Opportunities Officer at Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court and member of the Advisory Council of the Düsseldorf Institute for Energy Law (DIER) at HHU.

Professor Dr Karl-Walter Jauch, born 1952, was Medical Director of the hospital at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich until entering retirement on 1 January 2021. He studied human medicine at the University of Freiburg, gaining his doctorate there in 1978.

After completing his doctorate, he worked at surgical hospitals in Munich and Villingen, and served as a doctor in the armed forces. In 1988, he gained his habilitation at LMU with a study on postoperative insulin resistance and how it is influenced by the kinin-kallikrein system.

Karl-Walter Jauch was President of the German Society for Nutritional Medicine (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährungsmedizin – DGEM) from 1976 to 2003 and is a member of various professional associations, foundations and public bodies in Europe. In 2000, he founded the HTCR Foundation for research into human tissue and cell material.

Among other roles, Karl-Walter Jauch was also member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the German Medical Association (Bundesärztekammer) and the Medical Committee of the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat – WR). He is a member of the Leopoldina German National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Dr Elisabeth Knust, born 1951, studied biology in Düsseldorf, where she also gained her doctorate in 1979. She then conducted research in Erlangen-Nuremberg and subsequently in Cologne, where she completed her habilitation in developmental biology in 1988. Following a research stay as a Heisenberg Fellow at the University of Colorado in Boulder, she was appointed as a professor in Cologne in 1990 and then took up a genetics professorship at HHU in 1996. From 2007 until her retirement in 2019, she was Director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. Among other roles, Professor Knust is a regular member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a member of the Leopoldina German National Academy of Sciences and – since January 2023 – a Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA).

Professor Dr Joachim Windolf, born 1960, studied medicine at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, where he also completed his doctorate (1986) and habilitation (1996). He also gained his license to practice medicine and qualified as a specialist for general, trauma and hand surgery and as an orthopaedic specialist in Frankfurt. He then moved from Frankfurt University Hospital to the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, before accepting a trauma surgery professorship at HHU in 2005 and assuming the role of Director of the Department of Trauma and Hand Surgery at Düsseldorf University Hospital. From 2008 to 2016, he was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Düsseldorf.

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