Two New Members Elected to the Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz

The Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz has admitted two new members. The biochemist Prof. Dr Johannes Herrmann was elected a full member of the Class of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. The English literature scholar Prof. Dr Dirk Van Hulle was appointed a corresponding member of the Class of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Prof. Dr Johannes Herrmann has been Professor of Cell Biology at RPTU Kaiserslautern since 2026. After studying biochemistry and biology in Bayreuth and Tübingen, he obtained his PhD at LMU Munich under Walter Neupert. He then conducted postdoctoral research from 1996 to 1998 with Randy Schekman at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and worked as a junior research group leader at the Faculty of Medicine at LMU Munich. Johannes Herrmann investigates the biochemical processes through which mitochondria are formed. His research focuses on the intracellular transport processes by which proteins travel from their site of synthesis (usually in the cytosol) to their site of function, where they assemble with other proteins to form functional protein complexes. Johannes Herrmann’s work sheds light on the fundamental processes by which our cells maintain their functionality and prevent disruptions in their protein composition – for example, during ageing.

Prof. Dr Dirk Van Hulle is a Research Professor of English Literature at the University of Antwerp and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. He is Director of the Oxford Centre for Textual Editing and Theory (OCTET), Director of the Centre for Manuscript Genetics at the University of Antwerp, and Project Leader of the ERC project “MARGINAL: Modern Authors Reading: Genesis in Authors’ Libraries” (2026–2030). Together with Mark Nixon, he is co-director of the MLA Award-winning “Beckett Digital Manuscript Projects” (www.beckettarchive.org), editor of the Cambridge University Press series “Elements in Beckett Studies”, and co-editor of the “Journal of Beckett Studies”.

The learned society of the Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz is divided into three classes: the Class of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, the Class of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Class of Literature and Music. Each class comprises up to 50 full and corresponding members. The fourth pillar is the Young Academy | Mainz. In this programme for promoting young talent, 50 members are affiliated with the Academy for a period of four years.

You can find further information about the structure of the Academy here.