New Professors

Prof. Dr.-Ing.

Ribana
Roscher

Machine Learning in Agriculture
 

Professor Ribana Roscher has been Professor for Machine Learning in Agriculture at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation since October 1, 2025. After obtaining her degree in Geodesy from the University of Bonn, she stayed on to do a doctorate under the supervision of Professor Wolfgang Förstner. She then went on to work as a research associate at the Julius Kühn Institute (JKI)—the Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants in Germany—and at Freie Universität Berlin before spending time as a visiting researcher at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences in the Canadian city of Toronto and at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles in the US.

Professor Roscher returned to the University of Bonn in 2015 to take up an Assistant Professorship for Remote Sensing, which she held until 2022. She also covered the Professorship for Semantic Technologies at Osnabrück University between 2019 and 2020 and was a visiting professor in the “Future Lab AI4EO: Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation – Reasoning, Uncertainties, Ethics and Beyond” at the Technical University of Munich in 2021. From 2022 to 2025, she held the post of Professor for Data Science for Crop Systems at the University of Bonn and led the group of the same name at Forschungszentrum Jülich. She has also been an Honorary Professor for Data Science at the University of Nottingham in the UK since 2023.

Within the new Professorship for Machine Learning in Agriculture, Professor Ribana Roscher is investigating how artificial intelligence (AI) can help make agriculture more sustainable and efficient. She is combining computer science, geodesy and agricultural science to obtain insights into plant performance and the influence of environmental conditions from a wide range of sensor data. This involves developing explainable, uncertainty-aware AI models that make their decision-making behavior transparent and supply reliable forecasts. She is also studying how high-quality data and adaptable “foundation models” can form the basis for versatile AI systems in agriculture.

Prof. Dr.

Thomas
Hartinger

Animal Nutrition
 

Since April 2025, Thomas Hartinger has been Professor of Animal Nutrition at the Institute of Animal Science, University of Bonn.

He studied Agricultural Sciences at the University of Hohenheim (B.Sc. and M.Sc.) and subsequently earned his doctorate at the University of Bonn on the conservation of legumes and their effects on rumen metabolism and the microbiome, complemented by a research stay at Wageningen University. He then joined the Centre for Animal Nutrition and Welfare at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, first as a DFG fellow and later as an assistant professor. In 2024, he completed his habilitation in Animal Nutrition there.

His research focuses on demand-oriented and sustainable nutrition of livestock, particularly ruminants. In addition to ‘classical’ approaches in animal nutrition and feed science, he employs microbiological and molecular biological methods. The overarching goal of his work is to use interdisciplinary research to enhance animal health and performance as well as resource efficiency and sustainability in the production of animal-derived food, thereby contributing to a future-proof and resilient agriculture.

Prof. Dr.

Melanie
Braun

Soil Protection and Ecosystem Health

Since April 2025, Melanie Braun has held the newly established Professorship for Soil Protection and Ecosystem Health.

Ms. Braun studied Geography at the University of Cologne and completed her doctorate in General Soil Science and Soil Ecology at the University of Bonn. She served as an academic advisor at the University of Bonn from 2021, following her role as coordinator of the nationwide BONARES project "Soil3".

Her academic career has included international research stays in countries such as Vietnam (in cooperation with UNU-EHS), Zambia, Mozambique, and Mexico, among others.

Ms. Braun’s research focuses on the behavior of environmental pollutants in soils. This includes residues of pesticides and antibiotics, combustion by-products, and plastics. She is particularly interested in the detection of nanoplastics in soils and the question of whether these particles are taken up by plants, potentially entering the human food chain.

In her practice-oriented teaching, Ms. Braun equips students with the fundamentals of pollutant assessment and guides them in conducting independent research projects—from proposal writing to publication.