Press Release, 01. June 2026

Change at the Top of the UFZ

Dr Sabine Matthiä becomes Administrative Director

Biologist Dr Sabine Matthiä will take over as Administrative Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) on June 1, 2026. She succeeds Dr Sabine König, who retired in April after seven years at UFZ.

“With Sabine Matthiä, we are welcoming an exceptionally creative, experienced, and successful Administrative Director,” says Prof Dr Katrin Böhning-Gaese, the Scientific Director of UFZ, adding: “She has exactly the background and skills we need for our societally highly relevant tasks. I am extremely looking forward to our future collaboration.”

“I am looking forward to the wide range of options to shape my new role at the UFZ. The Center’s research topics are more relevant and significant than ever. Close collaboration between science and administration, between innovative research and professional management, is essential so that the UFZ’s particular strength – the development of systemic solutions – can flourish. Actively facilitating and helping to shape this is my personal goal,” says Dr Sabine Matthiä.

Sabine Matthiä studied biology at the Universities of Jena and Marburg, and her thesis focused on the relationships between metabolic physiology and behavioral ecology in the hibernation of the Alpine marmot (Marmota marmota). A native of Dresden, she completed her doctoral degree at the Primate Research Center in Göttingen, focusing on reproductive biology in the white-handed capuchin monkey (Callithrix jacchus).

She began her professional career in 2001 as managing partner of an event and media services agency. Starting in 2004, she worked at the Office for Economic Development of the State Capital of Dresden to establish biotechnology as a strategic economic policy tool for the city. In 2006, she became Administrative Director of the Biotechnology Center and Administrative Coordinator of the DFG Research Center for Regenerative Therapies at TU Dresden. In 2016, she moved to Leipzig, where she served as Managing Director of the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle–Jena–Leipzig until 2024.

Further information

UFZ press office

Susanne Hufe
Phone: +49 341 6025-1630
presse@ufz.de