Professor Dr. Franziska Jahnke
Franziska Jahnke is a professor at the Mathematical Institute and the Institute for Mathematical Logic and Foundational Research, her area is the model theory of fields. Her work combines mathematical logic with applications in algebra.
The aim of her research is to employ the model theory of henselian fields to bridge between arithmetic geometry and Shelah's classification theory, in particular the Stable Fields Conjecture. The methods used range from classical valuation theory via the study of rational points on curves and varieties to infinite combinatorics.
What are the most beautiful aspects about being a mathematician for you?
I love to delve into the world of pure mathematics and to leave everything else behind. Once I have started to develop insights into a problem, it often takes a firm hold of me - in this stage of deep concentration, I can forget almost anything else around me.
However, it is not just the intellectual challenge of solving problems that keeps me interested but also the secondary virtues of being a researcher: I also very much enjoy interacting with the international model theory community, be it at conferences or via video calls. In particular, I really like exchanging ideas with my colleagues both here in Münster and far away, many of whom have become my close friends over time.
Franziska Jahnke, born in 1985, studied mathematics at the University of Freiburg and received her doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2013. From 2013 to 2023, she conducted research at the University of Münster since then, first as a research assistant and, since 2017, as a Mathrix junior professor. She then became professor at the interdisciplinary Institute of Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam.
Since September 2024, she has been a professor at the University of Münster. In 2023, she was selected as a Henriette Herz-Scout by the Humboldt Foundation: Dr. Floris Vermeulen started his 2-year postdoc in September 2024 in her group and is the first of three postdocs supported by the Humboldt Foundation that will work under the supervision of Franziska Jahnke in the coming years.
Looking back, what were the most important moments in your career?
For many different problems that I solved in the past few years, I still remember the precise moment when I had the key idea. For my PhD, the main idea came to me when hiking in the alps, for my recent work on NIP fields, the two biggest breakthroughs began with insights I had while on a playground and at the stables. Even though I work a lot attempting to organize my thoughts with pen and paper, the main steps forward always seem to happen in the great outdoors.
However, having good ideas on how to drive one's research forward (and persistence when nothing seems to move forward for a long while) is of course not everything necessary for being successful! Also crucially important for me were the chances I received during my career, from the offers for a PhD scholarship in Oxford and a postdoc position and the junior professorship in Münster to the professor positions in Amsterdam and Münster, as well as many invitations to present my work at conferences all over the world.