New dual leadership management at the Max Planck Society Press Office

The areas Science Communication and Business Communication to be managed separately

As of September 15, 2008, the Press and Public Relations Office of the Max Planck Society has a new double management: Dr. Christina Beck (43) and Dr. Felicitas von Aretin (46) will now divide the tasks and management associated with the areas science communication, and political and business communication respectively. Longstanding office manager, Dr. Bernd Wirsing, has taken over the running of the Berlin office as of September 1, 2008.

Christina Beck obtained her doctorate at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry and joined the press office at the end of 1998 after a period in the Department of Research Policy, Organs and Bodies of the Max Planck Society. There she set up the internal staff communication, developed the Annual Report into a tool for political business communication and created teaching material for pupils - the extremely popular "MAX" series - in the fields of biology, geography and physics/chemistry. In future, Ms Beck will be working as the Head of the Press and Public Relations Office with responsibility for science communication. This includes scientific reporting in the Internet, the science magazine MaxPlanckResearch, multimedia formats, such as podcasts and film, and also the MAX series and web portal max-wissen.de.

The scientific part of the double management will be supplemented by the historian Felicitas von Aretin, who obtained her doctorate from the European University Institute in Florence and, after a period of training at the German newspaper "Berliner Tagesspiegel", initially worked as educational policy editor on another newspaper, "Die Welt", before managing the press office at the Freie Universität Berlin for eight and a half years; she also worked at a Stuttgart agency and is a book author. At the Max Planck Society, Felicitas v. Aretin will take on the role of Press Spokesperson and will head the political and business communication team, which includes event and exhibition management and protocol, as well as internal communication.