Antje Boe­t­ius re­ceives the Fed­eral Cross of Merit

Un­der the motto “Cour­age for the Fu­ture: Tran­scend­ing Bor­ders” and mark­ing the an­niversary of Ger­man Unity Day, the Pres­id­ent presen­ted 25 cit­izens with the Fed­eral Cross of Merit: “These are all people who use their con­vic­tion and cour­age to shape our so­ci­ety and our fu­ture, tran­scend­ing bor­ders to do so.” 

Ac­cord­ing to the of­fi­cial ex­plan­a­tion for her se­lec­tion, Boe­t­ius not only con­trib­utes her re­search in nu­mer­ous in­ter­na­tional com­mit­tees, but also makes the latest ocean­o­graphic find­ings avail­able to a broad audi­ence; her voice com­mands great cre­dence, and is taken ser­i­ously. Moreover: “The on-go­ing de­struc­tion of the en­vir­on­ment and cli­mate crisis show how im­port­ant her com­mit­ment to our fu­ture is: our plan­et’s fu­ture es­pe­cially de­pends on pro­tect­ing the oceans.” 

Antje Boe­t­ius is a Pro­fessor at the Uni­versity of Bre­men, and has led the Al­fred We­gener In­sti­tute, Helm­holtz Centre for Po­lar and Mar­ine Re­search since Novem­ber 2017. At the Max Planck In­sti­tute for Mar­ine Mi­cro­bi­o­logy in Bre­men she heads the HGF MPG Bridge Group for Deep-Sea Eco­logy and Tech­no­logy.