Prof. Dr. Hauke Reiner Heekeren is President of the University of Hamburg.
He is a doctor, neuroscientist, and higher education manager. He studied medicine at institutions including Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the University of Münster. Following his doctoral studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and postdoctoral work in the United States, Prof. Dr. Heekeren worked as a doctor in the clinic of neurology at Charité in Berlin. He subsequently headed the Max Planck research group Neurorecognition of Decision-making (2005–2010) and an Emmy Noether research group (2005–2011).
Since 2009, he has been a professor of biological psychology and cognitive neuroscience at Freie Universität Berlin, where he also served as Dean of the Department of Education and Psychology (2015–2018) and Vice President of Teaching, Learning and Academic Development (2018-2021).
Prof. Dr. Hauke Heekeren has been President of the University of Hamburg since March 2022. he shapes and manages the strategic orientation and development of one of the largest universities in Germany. From May 2023 to April 2025, he was spokesperson of the Landeshochschulkonferenz Hamburg (LHK Hamburg), the association of the presidents of Hamburg's member universities in the German Rectors' Conference (HRK).
Prof. Dr. Heekeren received the Rudolf Virchow Award for excellence in research from Charité University Medicine Berlin (2004) and the Teaching Award from the Department of Education and Psychology at Freie Universität Berlin (2015), among others, for his work.