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Seven University of Hamburg teachers awarded 2025 Hamburg Teaching Prize
22 July 2025, by Anna Priebe
Photo: Kirstin Hammerstein, Ministry of Science, Research and Equality
Dr. Tobias Vlćek, Dr. Manuel Becker, Dr. Patrick Ziegelmüller, Stella Mercedes Fingas, Maryam Blumenthal (science senator), Prof. Dr. Lars Hummel, Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Allgoewer, and Prof. Dr. Kira Weber (from left) at the award ceremony for the Hamburg Teaching Prize
In addition to the University of Hamburg, the Ministry of Science, Research and Equalities also honors particularly excellent university learning opportunities every year. This year’s awards took place on 21 July 2025 in the State and University Library Carl von Ossietzky. Seven University of Hamburg lecturers also received awards.
The €10,000 prize is awarded annually for especially committed teaching as well as for innovative teaching methods and concepts. While all University members can nominate teaching staff for the University of Hamburg Teaching Prize, only students nominate teaching staff for the Hamburg Teaching Prize. Internal faculty juries discuss the nominations and choose the prizewinners.
Prof. Dr. Natalia Filatkina, vice president for studies and teaching at the University of Hamburg: “I am delighted that we once again were able to honor outstanding teachers at our University with the Hamburg Teaching Prize. This prize is an important acknowledgment of the extraordinary commitment with which our teachers design their teaching: research-oriented, innovative, and always in conversation with their students. Their work contributes significantly to making research dynamic and enabling students to understand and shape the complex challenges of the day. I thank all prizewinners and congratulate you on this well-earned award.”
Our winners:
Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Allgoewer
Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences
Awarded for her course Die Krisen der Zwischenkriegszeit im Spiegel der Wirtschafts- und Theoriegeschichte
Up to 300 bachelor’s students regularly sign up in their first semester for the lectures in Die Krisen der Zwischenkriegszeit im Spiegel der Wirtschafts- und Theoriegeschichte. My main goal is to awaken their curiosity about the many facets of the still unknown (for most of them) field of economics. The heterogeneity of students’ prior knowledge and abilities in their first semester is a major challenge that I also keep in mind when preparing the course. This is why I regularly use the Particify tool in my course. This gives me feedback on which topics need to be addressed again and deepened. Despite the size of the large lecture hall, many students participate, thereby supporting their classmates and further developing their own abilities. The course even inspired a few students to voluntarily offer a tutorial. By their third semester, the tutors have usually settled into their studies. As peer instructors, they go through the material with new students and offer new learning strategies, survival strategies in daily university life, and more as they go.
Prof. Dr. Lars Hummel
Faculty of Law
Awarded for teaching on financial and tax law
For the past 3 years, I have headed the area of tax law and financial reporting and I am delighted that the number of students who have chosen this specialty has steadily risen in the past few years. Both in the different lectures and in seminar and exam preparation classes, I try primarily to transport my own enthusiasm for the field. The questions and challenges in financial and tax law are very dynamic, which is why I dismantle various hurdles and always want to direct attention to problems and developments that arise in practice. To do that, I regularly organize excursions to law practices, governmental offices, and courts and I design moot courts. This way, students can use what they have learned in their own argument strategies, question jurisprudence, and develop their own opinions. At the same time, it’s important to me to go over and over the systematic and methodological connections and to remain alert to students’ concerns.
Stella Mercedes Fingas
Faculty of Psychology and Human Movement Science
Awarded for the graduate seminar Coaching: Crafting Research in Crafts Industry
The seminar topic in the field of work and organizational psychology was identifying gaps in the research and developing interventions for health-promoting work environments. We focused above all on employed people who are often overlooked, for example, in crafts jobs or in nursing care. When I develop my seminars, I place value on students learning from experience. To bridge theory and practice, I use, among other strategies, coaching exercises to combine theory and critical reflection within the scope of collegial case discussions. Moreover, at every session, expert practitioners and researchers attended as guests to discuss the relevant, applicability, and challenges of academically sound interventions. I had the great fortune, both in the university context and during my training, to encounter inspiring teachers. And my parents always encouraged my love of learning and curiosity. I would like to pass on this privilege in my own multifaceted and inspiring teaching.
Dr. Patrick Ziegelmüller
Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences
Awarded for the module Biochemische Analytik consisting of lecture, practical courses, and internship
The module is required in the Bachelor of Science in Molecular Life Sciences and it focuses on practical biochemical work in the lab. For example, it looks at the cleaning and characterization of proteins; the analysis and manipulation of DNA; and the production of transgenic organisms. Above all, students should gain an understanding of the principles of the methods and techniques so that they learn what they need to focus on to ensure the success of or optimize an experiment. In the lecture, it’s important to me that it is interactive, for example, by using Particify. Auf der Lernplattform OpenOLAT gibt es zudem mit Selbsttests, vielen Lernbeispielen und einem Wiki, das zum Teil von den Studierenden selbst entwickelt und befüllt wird, eine Menge Material für das Selbststudium. Bei den dazugehörigen Übungen soll das Wissen aber nicht einfach nur reproduziert, sondern angewendet werden. Dabei werden die Studierenden alle in einem ähnlichen Maße gefordert – und dabei gefördert. Am allerwichtigsten ist es, Wissen auf Augenhöhe zu vermitteln und Studierende für die Thematik zu begeistern.
Dr. Manuel Becker
Faculty of Humanities
Awarded for her seminar Musik in Videospielen, Summer Semester 2024
When conceiving this seminar, it was important to me to integrate interdisciplinary perspectives and to give students the opportunity to pose their own research questions. Video game music is especially ideal for questioning traditional ways of thinking and to adapt established methods to a comparatively new research field. Because analyzing video games requires what is known as “analytical play,” I initiated cooperation with the console and game developer Nintendo so that all of my students had free access to current devices and games. Another central aspect was exchange outside the classroom. Guest lectures facilitated through the Innovation Fund for Studies and Teaching gave students practice-oriented insight into the music production side of video games. At the end, students had an opportunity to make their research findings publicly available. Initial contributions, for example, a study on the representation and purpose of musical instruments in the Hogwarts Legacy game, could be retrieved, including image and video material.
Prof. Dr. Kira Weber
Faculty of Education
Awarded for the seminar Gesund bleiben im Studium durch Resilienz und Stressbewältigung
I got the idea for the seminar because I have been looking at the mental health of teachers for years. Research has shown us that even teacher training students are often dealing with psychological stress and hesitate to seek professional help. So in this seminar, we took an intensive look at the topics of resilience, coping with stress, self-management, focusing on strengths, regulating emotions, values, and mindfulness. We worked on self-reflection exercises but also exchanged ideas in tandems and in the planning sessions. When developing the seminar, it was important to me to create a safe space where students felt secure and respected and they could share their emotions, thoughts, and experiences freely, without fear of rejection or prejudice. At the end of each session, they formulated their own individual take-home messages that they presented at the end of the seminar in the form of a vision board. I would like the seminar to strengthen students and to contribute to destigmatizing mental health problems.
Dr. Tobias Vlćek
University of Hamburg Business School
Awarded for their lecture Applied Optimization
In this lecture, students learned practical applications of mathematical optimization procedures, which is why we looked at real-world problems in our research. After an introduction to programming, each lecture focuses on a new topic, for example, safely organizing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca or planning large sporting events. In the accompanying practical courses, students work in group to develop their own solutions. The concept is based on what would have interested me as a student. Although programming might at first seem intimidating, I purposely keep the introduction simple. Being interested in logical connections and mathematics is thoroughly sufficient to be successful and to achieve something. I try to present more complex connections for different types of learners: I explain a lot using illustrations and simple examples. Many of the lectures are as interactive as possible and include many of the students’ questions. They gain greater understanding when they apply ideas themselves.
