TUM Graduate Council
Technical University of Munich

Call for Nominations: Supervisory Award 2024

By | TUM Supervisory Award
Präsident Thomas Hofmann & 2023 Winner Prof. Dr. Jens Foerderer; Foto: Andreas Heddergott/TUM

In 2024, the TUM Supervisory Award will be awarded for the seventh consecutive year. All doctoral candidates who are currently members of the TUM Graduate School and all alumni who left the TUM Graduate School during the previous year are called to nominate their outstanding supervisor until March 31th, 2024. As part of the TUM Supervisory Award a prize money of 5,000€, funded by the Bund der Freunde der TUM e.V. will be awarded to the winning supervisor. The supervisor must spend the prize money for the benefit their doctoral candidates according to the public budget law e.g. by organizing workshops, supporting research stays abroad, buying relevant software or updating the chair’s library. This is your chance to help honor outstanding supervision and to motivate all supervisors to strain themselves to become even better. To nominate your supervisor, you and up to 2 of your fellow doctoral candidates need to fill out the nomination form found here!

Meeting with TUM President Thomas Hofmann

By | TUM Graduate Council
Graduate Council Speakers with Präsident Thomas Hofmann; Foto: Andreas Heddergott /TUM

How can TUM future-proof itself as an attractive and innovative choice for pursuing a doctorate among global top universities? What is your vision for the next decade? – some big questions asked by TUM president Prof. Thomas Hofmann in our first meeting. Big questions that we will make sure to carry back home to the TUM Graduate Council to collect some rich feedback by July 2024.

As newly elected speakers of the TUM Graduate Council, Leon Chryssos and Stuart Daniel James were introduced to Prof. Hofmann by their predecessors Anna Christina Jäkel and Ayesha Müller-Wolfertshofer. As first speaker Stuart will represent all doctoral candidates at the TUM Senate and TUM Board of Trustees for the coming year. Leon will take on a formative role at TUM Graduate School meetings as second speaker.

107th Graduate Council Meeting & Christmas Party

By | TUM GC Meeting

The 107th Meeting of the TUM Graduate Council was held on the 7th of December in the Building of the TUM Graduate School Management Office in Garching, followed by a Christmas Party. The meeting changed from in-peron to a hybrid format because of the strike announced for the same evening. We began with an introduction about the Graduate School by Zizheng Zhang, the Deputy Managing Director of the GS, who also used the opportunity to thank the current GC Speakers – Anna Christina Jäkel and Ayesha Müller-Wolfertshofer – for their term in office. Anna and Ayesha then presented the report for their work in 2023, were discharged from their positions, and the new Speakers for 2024 were elected. We would like to congratulate Stuart Daniel James and Leon Chryssos for being elected to the positions of first and second speaker respectively. The TUM GC Christmas party then commenced, which included the prize distribution for the TUMblue 2023 photography competition and the distribution of certificates to associate members.

TUMblue 2023

By | Uncategorized

TUMblue 2023 was a huge success. We had over 750 registrations!

We are delighted about the resonance of TUMblue 2023. A big thanks to everyone who was part of this sensational night!

Looking forward to the next time

Photo credit: Ayesha Mueller-Wolfertshofer

105th Graduate Council Meeting

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The 105th meeting of the TUM Graduate Council took place on the 27th of July in the Senatssaal of the Main Campus. It was the last meeting of the term before the doctoral representatives’ elections in 2023. This in-person meeting was an excellent opportunity to discuss current issues and say farewell to those who will no longer be part of the Graduate Council in the upcoming term. We also welcomed five new associate members to our team: Sankalp Choudhuri and Jawad Tahir in WG PromVerBund as well as Vladimir Shitov, Vanessa Bolivar, and Ashish Mangalore in WG TUMblue.

Meeting with President Hofmann

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The speakers of the Graduate Council, Anna and Ayesha, had a pleasant and productive meeting with president Hofmann on June 1st to discuss the concerns of doctoral candidates at TUM. To be able to do justice to all the problems and possibilities available, we ask all doctoral candidates to get in touch with the representatives of their schools, or if necessary, the Speakers directly. You are also invited to join the meetings of the Graduate Council to get informed about current proceedings: https://gc.gs.tum.de/

Photo Credits in the post: Ulrich Benz

Die Sprecher des TUM Graduate Council Anna Jaekel und Ayesha Mueller-Wolfertshofer bei Praesidenten Prof. Thomas Hofmann ; abgebildete Personen(v.l.n.r.): Ayesha Mueller-Wolfertshofer ; Prof. Thomas Hofmann ; Anna Jaekel ;Copyright: Uli Benz / TUM
Die Sprecher des TUM Graduate Council Anna Jaekel und Ayesha Mueller-Wolfertshofer bei Praesidenten Prof. Thomas Hofmann ; abgebildete Personen(v.l.n.r.): Anna Jaekel ; Prof. Thomas Hofmann ; Ayesha Mueller-Wolfertshofer ; Copyright: Uli Benz / TUM ;

103rd Graduate Council Meeting

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The 103rd Meeting of the TUM Graduate Council took place on the 20th April 2023. Meetings take place almost every month, once in-person and once online according to the circumstances. These meetings are very helpful in discussing all the issues that face Ph.D. candidates during their studies from every graduate center reported by their representatives, also submitting reports from all working groups within the graduate council.
Our next meeting (104th) will take place on May 31st, 2023.
As always, all doctoral candidates from all Graduate Centers and other members of the TUM family are more than welcome to join the meeting!

102nd Graduate Council Meeting

By | Uncategorized

On March 02nd, the Graduate Council (GC) had another meeting. The meeting was held online due to the strike. Within the meeting, the GC discussed the current state of the school transition, the planned activities of the Graduate Council in 2023 and the current projects of its working groups.

Most importantly it was a good time to update each other on what is going on in the different schools and working groups and get to know each other.

New Graduate Council Speakers Team 2023 Elected

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On January 18th, the Graduate Council gathered online for its 101st meeting to vote for the new speakers of the 2023 term. We are happy to announce that Anna Christina Jäkel (Physics of Synthetic Biological Systems, TUM Department of Physics), former second speaker of the Graduate Council, was elected as first speaker of the Graduate Council. Ayesha Müller-Wolfertshofer (Urban DesignDepartment of Architecture) was elected as the second speaker. Anna Christina Jäkel is a doctoral representative in the Graduate Center of Physics since 2021 and since the foundation of the School of Natural Sciences. Ayesha Müller-Wolfertshofer is a docotral representative of the School of Engineering and Design since 2022. As of the 18th of January, this team will officialy be the voice of the Graduate Council and thus, represent all docotoral candidates at TUM. Feel free to get in touch with the Gradtae Council and the Speakers Team of Anna & Ayesha via e-mail

95th Graduate Council Meeting

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95th Graduate Council Meeting at TUM Downtown Campus

On Wednesday, May 04th, the Graduate Council (GC) had the first in-person meeting since October 2021. The meeting was held at the TUM Downtown Campus and the GC welcomed the newly elected representative of the International Helmholtz Graduate School for Plasma Physics (HEPP) as well as a new member from the School of Engineering and Design. Within the meeting, the GC discussed the current state of the school transition, the planned activities of the Graduate Council in 2022 and the current projects of its working groups

Most importantly, the GC discussed the new draft of the higher education act, which was published shortly before the meeting. The next meeting will be held on June 1st at TUM Campus Garching. All interested persons are invited to join. Please contact the speakers via email if you want to join.