🍁Fall HACA Newsletter 2025🍁


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Fall HACA Newsletter 2025

Welcome to the HACA Newsletter!

As the year draws to a close, join us to reflect on recent milestones at Uni Heidelberg and to look ahead to upcoming opportunities for collaboration and exchange.

We hope you enjoy these updates and we look forward to staying connected with you.

Best wishes,

Katja and Melanie
Dr. Katja Simons, Executive Director & Melanie Grossmann, Program Officer
Heidelberg University Association

News from Universität Heidelberg

Insitutional Partnership between Harvard and Heidelberg

Heidelberg University and Harvard University signed a Memorandum of Understanding in August 2025 to deepen and expand their cooperation. The state of Baden-Württemberg is providing the sum of ten million euros to support this Heidelberg initiative. The funding is part of the state’s “Global Partnership in Science” activities. Learn more here

Hospital Merger Heidelberg and Mannheim

The two university hospitals − Heidelberg and Mannheim – will be merged early next year, creating the preconditions for Heidelberg University to combine the two Medical Faculties January 2027. This will result in one of the biggest medical faculties in Germany, which will offer outstanding conditions for basic research, the training of medical personnel and transfer. Learn more here

New Center for Ethics

In order to advance cross-disciplinary and societal dialogue on ethical issues, Heidelberg University has founded a Center for Ethics. The new Camilla and Georg Jellinek Center for Ethics aims to strengthen ethical reflection in research and teaching across all disciplines and to constructively accompany social debates through dialogue with the public. Learn more here

Newsroom

Stay up to date via the Heidelberg University Newsroom

You can find recordings of lectures at hei_ONLINE - Universität Heidelberg

(for example, the James W.C. Pennington Award 2025 Lecture, and soon also the Ruperto Carola Lecture Series “Human and Algorithm – Whose Future?”)

News from Heidelberg Alumni International (HAI)

Save the Date for 30 Years of HAI

July 23-26, 2026 in Heidelberg

Registration starts on February 1, 2026!

Have a sneak peek of the program here

Celebrate 30 years of HAI with us and come together as HACA in Heidelberg!

New Scholarship: Athena. Thanks to generous donations by alumni, HAI has launched a new program, which supports doctoral students from the Humanities with a partial scholarship. The scholarship is aimed at doctoral candidates who need temporary financial support, for example because they have unexpectedly found themselves in an emergency situation or need a temporary grant in order to be able to concentrate fully on their doctoral project or on their final phase of the doctorate. Learn more here.

Heidelberg Talks Online are offered on a regular basis on a wide range of topics from medicine and psychology to philosophy, literature, politics or history to natural sciences or environmental issues. You can find future talks here.

Interesting news about HAI activities, new mentors, and the university can be found on HAI's current topics page.

To be announced soon: HACA Meetup in Toronto end of January 2026. Katja Simons from the New York Office will be visiting Toronto and is looking forward to meeting alumni and friends of Heidelberg University.

Meetup with US and Canadian students in Heidelberg

Heidelberg – In July, we met with current students from the US and Canada to connect them with HAI and HAUS and HACA, enjoying great conversations and a glittering sun on the Neckar River.

Looking back: HAUS 17th National Meeting

It was a treat to welcome 40 attendees to our HAUS 17^th National Meeting in Chicago. We kicked off the weekend with a welcome dinner at the legendary Berghoff Restaurant! At our Jahreshauptversammlung in the Goethe-Institut Chicago, members heard updates from the HAUS President and gained fresh insights from Heidelberg, including remarks by Vice Rector Prof. Dr. Marc-Philippe Weller and flash talks by early career researchers from Heidelberg on corporations and sustainability. The Chicago River Architecture Tour on Saturday afternoon was another highlight—we admired the city’s stunning skyline from the water.

Our Evening Celebration at the David Rubenstein Forum at University of Chicago featured a welcome drink sponsored by American Junior Year (AJY) at Heidelberg University, opening remarks by Deputy Consul General Dirk Schulz, and a talk by Prof. David Wilson, PhD (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) on the dynamics of urban change and gentrification in Chicago. We all had a splendid time together and a weekend full of connection and Heidelberg spirit—until next time!

Watch our HAUS National Meeting recap video clip on Facebook here.

Scholarships for Students

We are proud to work together with alumni to support study and learning at Heidelberg University for students from the United States. The HAUS Scholarships are supported entirely by the HAUS community and demonstrate our continued commitment to providing the opportunity to experience Ruperto Carola. This summer several students participated in the International Summer School of German Language and Culture and this winter term three students embarked on their studies in Heidelberg. Read more here: HAUS Scholarship for American Students

News from the New York Office

In the past months and weeks, we were busy supporting Heidelberg University’s transatlantic academic partnerships and promoting study and research in Heidelberg.

We participated in the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Heidelberg and Harvard in Cambridge, MA with Rektorin Prof. Dr. Frauke Melchior end of August and supported the renewal of the MoU between Heidelberg and University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, IN together with Vice-Rector Prof. Dr. Marc-Philippe Weller in early October.

During our visit to Heidelberg this summer, we contributed together with heiInnovation, the DWIH New York and the Health + Life Science Alliance Heidelberg Mannheim to a conversation on Transatlantic Research and Innovation: Competition or Collaboration? with speakers from industry and academia. Learn more here.

Right after Labor Day, we were pleased to bring alumni of Heidelberg University who contributed their expertise in tech and innovation to the Future Forum on Global Health organized by DWIH New York at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA.

We participated in several in-person and virtual events in late summer and fall promoting study and research in Heidelberg. From the research career conference GAIN (including supporting the visit of Rektorin Frauke Melchior in Boston) to the virtual Grad Fair to the Career Booster at the Goethe Institut in New York and the Pathways to Germany info session for students, we did not miss an opportunity to speak about the many good reasons for studying and doing research in HD. Our intern Lea organized an info session on studying in Germany for students in the upper school at German International School New York in White Plains.

Upcoming Events

January 22, 2026 at noon | Virtual Heidelberg Lecture: From Heidelberg to Baltimore: What Johns Hopkins University Owes the Oldest German University; with speaker: Mackenzie S. Zalin, PhD, MSLS; Librarian for Classics, Comparative Thought and Literature, Jewish Studies, and Modern Languages and Literatures | Academic Liaison; Johns Hopkins University.

End of January 2026 - HACA Meetup in Toronto (tbd)

January/ February, 2026 (tbd) | Virtual Kaffeeklatsch

Invitations will be sent in early January

View our events here.

Scholarships for Teachers of German

This year, we partnered again with the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) and the German-American Scholarship Association (Quadrille Fellowship Program) to offer three scholarships for the teachers’ workshop at the International Summer School for German Language and Culture at Heidelberg University. Heidelberg University provides a generous stipend to support travel and accommodation and the German-American Scholarship Association covers the program course fee. The next call will soon be announced on AATG’s website.

Max Kade Visiting Professorship

at Universität Heidelberg

We are grateful to the Max Kade Foundation for supporting each year a visiting professorship in Heidelberg for many years. This summer, the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) hosted Dr. Ted Beatty, Professor of History and Global Affairs, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame. The Call for the Max Kade Visting Professorship 2026 has been announced here and hosts in Heidelberg are encouraged to apply.

Last month, we hosted a Virtual Heidelberg Lecture with former Max Kade Visting Professor Dr. David Kaplan, Hilldale Professor & Richard L. Venezky Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin – Madison. He explored how countries around the world are progressing toward the UN Sustainable Development Goal of Attaining Minimum Proficiency in Reading and Math.

Do you have something to share? Tell us! We know that our alumni are doing a lot of interesting things in the world. Please let us know if you have had a recent achievement, visit to Heidelberg, or other event that could be of interest to the HACA community, and we may choose to share your story on social media or in the next issue of HACA News.

Contact information updates The New York office staff is always updating alumni contact information. If you move, change your email address, or your phone number, please contact Melanie at mgrossmann@heidelberguniversity.org.

Heidelberg University Association

871 United Nations Plaza

New York, NY 10017

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