Dr. Claudia Stern receives honorary professorship at TU Braunschweig

Professor Stern is an internationally recognized scientist in the field of aerospace medicine. In her work at the institute, she researches medical diagnostics and the monitoring of eye changes in order to improve the health of people in space and on Earth. In her studies and experiments at DLR, she primarily researches eye changes in astronauts and conducts research projects not only on the International Space Station, but also in DLR's NASA bed rest studies. At DLR, she has been involved in the medical aptitude assessment and care of astronauts and aviation personnel since the beginning of her career. Here she also headed the psychological and medical aptitude selection project “The First Female German Astronaut”. She is a member of the Aeromedical Waiver Committee at the German Civil Aviation Authority.

Professor Dr. Jens Jordan, Director of the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine, is delighted about the award for Claudia Stern: “Dr. Claudia Stern has made outstanding international contributions, particularly in the field of aerospace ophthalmology. She not only contributes to the health of flying personnel, but also to safety in aviation and space travel. I very much welcome the fact that the honorary professorship will build a further bridge between DLR and TU Braunschweig.”

In aviation medicine, Claudia Stern has gained international recognition for her research into the physiology of perception. She is Executive Director of the European Society of Aerospace Medicine Academy, a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association and an elected member of the International Academy of Aviation and Space Medicine, as well as Past President of the German Society of Aerospace Medicine (DGLRM). She recently received the DGLRM's highest award, the Golden Badge of Honor.

About the person

After studying human medicine at the University of Bonn, Dr. Claudia Stern completed further training in ophthalmology at the University Hospitals of Bonn and Hamburg. At the same time, she began her aeromedical training, for which she had prepared during her studies, at the Air Force's Aeromedical Institute. Between 1990 and 1993, she supervised an experiment on the first German MIR mission and the German-American D2 mission and took part in various parabolic flights as part of this. This was followed in 1995 by a scientific research stay at the Air Force Human Systems Center in San Antonio, Texas. In 1996, she completed her doctorate on the subject of “Visual requirements in the workplace: Experimental studies on the visual acuity of air traffic controllers”. Since then she has been working at the DLR in Cologne and heads the Department of Clinical Aerospace Medicine at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine.

Since 2015, she has been a lecturer at the International Space University, Strasbourg, as well as a lecturer for the TU Braunschweig, giving lectures on aerospace medicine. She has been teaching at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich since 2017.