The Peter Gänßler Fund was established in 2023 through a generous donation to the Australian Association of von Humboldt Fellows (AAvHF) by Professor David Pollard. David is a PhD Graduate from the Australian National University who, as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow, was mentored by his host at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Professor Peter Gänßler. That experience laid the foundation for his subsequent career as a Professor of Statistics (and later, Data Science and Statistics) at Yale University. David is extremely grateful for all the help and advice he received during his stay in Bochum.
Professor Gänßler (1937-2015) subsequently moved to the Ludwig Maximillians University in Munich. The aim of the Peter Gänßler Fund is to provide support to promising and aspiring Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvHF) postdoctoral fellowship applicants from the Oceania region outside Australasia (Australia and New Zealand), focussing on Micronesia, Melanesia, and western Polynesia (with specific inclusion of independent territories, particularly Tonga, Samoa, and the Cook Islands, but exclusion of American Samoa, the Hawaiian islands and French Polynesia).
The Fund is administered by the AAvHF Awards Sub-Committee (reporting to the Executive).
AAvHF Peter Gänßler Awards
The aim of the Fund is to give encouragement and support to intending AvHF postdoctoral fellowship applicants with worthy track records from a region whose researchers have previously had difficulty in gaining access to AvHF schemes. To this end, the Fund provides up to two (2) AAvHF Peter Gänßler Awards within each biennial conference period with financial support (each valued up to AUD$1,500) to enable early career researchers from the region to attend the biennial conference of the AAvHF as well as to assist with appropriate mentorship towards an AvHF postdoctoral fellowship application.
Award Guidelines
Awards under the Fund will cover the cheapest return economy airfare with an additional amount towards accommodation and expenses. Any registration fee for the particular biennial conference would also be included.
Applications are open to all researchers within the designated parts of Oceania, who are eligible to apply for an AvHF postdoctoral fellowship award (potential applicants should consult the relevant eligibility requirements at https://www.humboldt-foundation.de). Applications should be made using the Application Form available on the AAvHF website and will be assessed by the AAvHF Awards sub-committee according to both academic potential and prior academic performance. Some consideration may be given to the availability of other resources to the nominee where appropriate. The emphasis will thus be on junior researchers and researchers who otherwise have more limited access to funding.
An Expression of Interest process for potential applicants will begin in January of the year of each biennial conference, with a deadline for submission of applications being 31st March of that year. Assessment of applications will take into consideration evidence of an interest to undertake research at a German institution (a brief specification of the potential project, including likely institution and potential academic supervisor, is to be supplied with the application) and especially the academic quality and potential of the applicant. Application should be made using the relevant form (available on the AAvHF website) and should include a current curriculum vitae (with an up-to-date list of research publications) and two references from senior colleagues in the research field of the applicant. Successful applicants can expect to be notified by the end of May for attendance at the subsequent biennial conference, the latter normally being held in November. Successful applicants will be connected with potential mentors in their particular research fields from amongst the membership of the AAvHF.
The AAvHF publicises the Award through the existing Humboldt networks, through direct communication and publicity addressed to universities across the region, and through any other connections that may be available to the AAvHF.
2025 Peter Gänßler Award
Miss Bindiya Rashni is a passionate tropical wetland scientist with over a decade of experience. Bindiya’s PhD at the University of the South Pacific (USP) is in the field of Freshwater Ecology and she is the world’s first Pacific Island female freshwater ecologist.
Bindiya hails from the Garden Island of Fiji, Taveuni. She attained her Bachelor’s degree in Marine Science in 2009 following which she was one of the awardees of the inaugural United States Institute on Environment Fellowships at the East West Center, Hawaii. Then she returned to Fiji and received a Masters Scholarship at USP and graduated with a Masters degree in Marine Science with a speciality in Freshwater Ecology in 2015. For three years thereafter, she served as a Freshwater Ecologist at the Institute of Applied Science at USP. Then she spent a semester (2017) at Xiamen University in China with research centered on River phycology. She returned to Fiji in 2018 and served as the Ecosystems Program Conservation Officer at Nature Fiji-Mareqeti Viti (NFMV) for a year. Later she served as a Consultant Lecturer and Assistant Lecturer at USP. In 2020, she was awarded the Pacific Scholarship for Excellence in Research Innovation (PSERI) doctoral scholarship.
Along her PhD journey, Bindiya was also the recipient of the inaugural United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service’s International Forestry Fellowship (IFF 2022) at the International Institute of Tropical Forestry in Puerto Rico, for designing the first NbS-TEK riparian restoration model for Fijian agricultural riverine systems.
Outside of academia, Bindiya serves as a national expert for freshwater invertebrates on the IUCN Species Survival Committee and contributes to IUCN Red List Assessments. She also holds the post of the Oceania Regional Coordinator of the Freshwater Biodiversity Observation Network group of the Global Earth Observation Network. She has over a decade of experience in freshwater biodiversity assessments in the Melanesia region. Her research interest is centered on Small Island freshwater ecosystem biodiversity, EIA, biomonitoring, NbS-TEK restoration models and climate resilience capacity building for the indigenous riverine communities.
Despite a lack of modules in River science in the Fiji education curriculum, Bindiya has developed first ever River citizen science toolkits and programs over the years, to make science/taxonomy accessible to the locals. These toolkits are age-, education- and cost-friendly, to make River science more accessible to the general public.
Miss Rashni hopes to see the establishment of a Pacific Rivers Institute in the near future.