The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation awards Humboldt Research Fellowships to scientists from abroad with above-average qualifications. Postdoctoral researchers are supported at the beginning of their academic career with a research stay of 6-24 months in Germany. The projects at German research institutions are funded with a monthly fellowship amount of 2,670 euros.

Dr. Youqiang Yu, from Tongji University in Shanghai (China), was recently awarded a Humboldt Research Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers. Together with his host Prof. Dr. Tilmann, the head of Section 2.4 - Seismology, and other scientists from the GFZ, he is investigating the dynamics of the formation of marginal seas in the West Pacific. For the research project, based on a detailed imaging of the lithosphere and upper mantle in this region, seismic data held in the GEOFON archive and seafloor data from Tongji University are combined.

Dr Youqiang Yu, who has been an Associate Professor at Tongji University since 2019, is an expert in seismological studies of the Earth's crust and mantle in active tectonic regions, with notable contributions to the so-called receiver function method. He received his PhD in geology and geophysics from Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2015.He was an Assistant Professor at Tongji University from 2016-2018 and a Visiting Scholar at Tohoku University in Japan in 2017.