On 1 December, Sascha Brune, previously head of a Helmholtz Young Investigators Group, will become the new head of the GFZ section Geodynamic Modeling. He will take over from Stephan Sobolev.

Sascha Brune has already worked as a PhD student at GFZ and from 2009 to 2013 as a PostDoc in the Geodynamic Modeling Section. In 2007 he was a visiting scientist at Texas A&M University in the USA and from 2013 as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sydney, Australia, before returning to GFZ in 2016 as working group leader. His Helmholtz group CRYSTALS focuses on the geodynamics of continental rift systems. As Section Leader, he will extend his research into the fields of seismic cycle, fault networks, and the interaction between tectonics and surface processes.

Stephan Sobolev has been active at GFZ since 1997, following his doctorate and research activity in Russia, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship at Geophysical Institute at Karlsruhe University and a visiting professorship in France. Until 2007 he was Senior Research Associate at GFZ, since then he has founded and became the head of the Geodynamic Modeling Section. In addition, he has been Professor of Geodynamics at the University of Potsdam since 2015. From 2020 to 2026, he will develop Earth System models to explore the evolutionary history of our planet within his recently acquired ERC Synergy project MEET. (pb)