The award winners were announced via recorded video, taken as part of the University’s first-ever International Days event in early October, of the honorees receiving the corresponding certificates from Prof. Dr. Birgit Ulrike Münch, Vice Rector for International Affairs. “The government-presented state awards and the DAAD Prize are superb instruments for the University to promote the advancement of high-achieving, up-and-coming researchers in early stages of their development. They are presented both in recognition of achievements and as an incentive to pursue further work in science and academia,” Vice Rector Münch explains.
The Queen’s Prize, endowed by Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, on the occasion of her visit to the University of Bonn in 1965, is awarded for outstanding achievement in English studies. This year’s recipient was Kathrin Zander, advised by Prof. Dr. Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp, for her master’s thesis titled Revisions of Maximilien Robespierre in Late Twentieth-Century Anglophone Historical Fiction.
The King of Spain’s Premio Rey de España award is presented at the opening of the academic year for exceptional research in the field of Ibero-Romance philology. Awarded to two individuals in recent years, Alexandra Becher is one of this year’s recipients for her master’s thesis titled Contemporary Language Didactical Discourse on Internal Differentiation in Textbook Spanish Lessons in ¡Arriba! Nuevos enfoques para ti and ¡Vamos! ¡Adelante!: Areas of Potential Improvement, advised by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Sarah Dietrich-Grappin.
The other recipient was Anja Larissa Brüll for a master’s thesis titled El pan ordinario de esta tierra es la yuca - Crops and Meaning Creation in Jesuit Colonial Reports from Mojos, Bolivia, A Lexicological-Semantic Analysis, advised by Prof. Dr. Franz Lebsanft. Miriam Thurow received a “Mencion” or honorable mention from the Spanish Embassy for her bachelor’s thesis titled The Representation of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America at Sepúlveda: a Decolonial Analysis. Dr. Hanna Nohe was adviser on the paper.
The Prix de la République Française was awarded this year to Luise Margarete Jansen for her master’s thesis Queen Gerberga von Westfranken: East Franconian Familial Interests, West Franconian Imperial Interests, advised by Prof. Dr. Matthias Becher.
Lastly, the DAAD Prize of the German Academic Exchange Service was presented, the recipients of which are chosen for special academic achievement in connection with noteworthy dedication to social/societal and university-internal issues as foreign students at the University of Bonn. This year’s winner is Brenda Mariana Huerta García for her exceptional work in helping create an online community for students in her degree program in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Brenda Mariana Huerta García was nominated by Prof. Dr. Mathias Becker, director of the international master’s program Agricultural Sciences and Resource Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ARTS) offered by the Faculty of Agriculture.