Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Ernst Poeppel, ML, MAE
Human Science Center and Institute of Medical Psychology Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich, Germany
Ernst Pöppel has studied psychology and biology and he received his PhD degree in Innsbruck (Austria). Early in his academic career he did research on diurnal rhythms in humans (the “circadian clock”), time perception and visual processing at Max-Planck-Institute in Germany. At the MIT in Cambridge (USA) where he did research for several years he discovered a phenomenon known as “blindsight”. He got a “habilitation” for Sensory Physiology in a Medical Faculty (“Dr. med. habil.”), and another “habilitation” in psychology in a Faculty of Science (“Dr. phil. habil.”). In 1976 he became full professor for “Medical Psychology” in the Medical Faculty of Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU), Munich, Germany. On the basis of his interdisciplinary profile he became Board Member the National Research Center Jülich (Germany); here he founded Centers for the Neurosciences, Environmental Research and Mathematical Modeling. He founded later the “Human Science Center” at LMU, an interdisciplinary center with some 100 members worldwide. Since 2002, he has been a guest professor in the School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences of Peking University, China. In 2009, he founded the Parmenides Centre for Art and Science and has since been its director. From 2016 to 2023, he has been Editor-in-Chief of the PsyCh Journal published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wiley. He has supervised more than 200 doctoral students from more than 40 countries. He has published more than 400 scientific papers and some 10 books for the general public. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in Germany (ML). He is also member of the Academia Europaea, London, UK (MAE), the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, Salzburg, Austria, and the Russian Academy of Education, Moscow, Russia. He received numerous awards like honorary doctoral degrees. On a personal note: Being a victim of World War II, and becoming a refugee, this became his political motto: “Scientists are Natural Ambassadors”. Scientists are the only ones who independent of external constraints (religions, history, political systems, financial opportunities, or gender and age) pursue the path to understand the world around us and the world within us.