The professorship at the Faculty of Human Sciences is linked to the management of Department 1 "Competencies, Personality, Learning Environments" at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi), which Wolter already took over on a temporary basis in 2019.

The psychologist, who has been a member of the LIfBi since 2014, is very much looking forward to the new tasks and challenges: "Continuing and expanding the close links between educational research at the university and at the LIfBi is a particular concern of mine. The focal points of the department "Competencies, Personality, Learning Environments" and the new professorship at the Institute of Psychology are ideally intertwined and offer researchers at both institutions excellent prospects for fruitful collaboration," says Wolter.

The director of LIfBi, Professor Cordula Artelt, compliments the good cooperation with the University of Bamberg, which was also expressed in the work of the two committees in the appointment process: "With Ms. Wolter we have been able to win an excellent candidate for the so important position of department head at LIfBi".

Prof. Dr. Kai Fischbach, President of the University of Bamberg, is also pleased about the nomination: "With Ms. Wolter, we are gaining an outstanding scientist who addresses issues of high social relevance in her research. I am pleased that this will significantly enrich teaching and our research profile in the field of education."

Prof. Dr. Ilka Wolter is a psychologist who works on topics and methods of empirical educational research. Since 2019, she has been acting head of the scientific department 1 "Competencies, Personality, Learning Environments" at LIfBi and is one of the scientific managers in the National Education Panel (NEPS), the largest long-term education study in Germany. In her research, Wolter focuses, among other things, on questions of competence development over the life course and the influence of gender stereotypes and gender-typed educational environments on students' academic development.