Professor Baerbel Friedrich is currently a Professor Emeritus for microbiology at the Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. Her research field of interest is among other things genetic and molecular design of bacterial metabolism, particularly hydrogen conversion and autotrophic carbon dioxide fixation (for publications please see here).

She studied biology at the university of Goettingen, had a postdoctoral position at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology  ( USA) and started her academic  career as research associate at the microbiology department of the university of Goettingen (1977 – 1984). She was appointed as full professor of microbiology at the free University of Berlin in 1985. After reunification of Germany (1994) she moved to the  Humboldt University of Berlin. She has established the “Krupp Kolleg “, an institute for advanced studies at the university of Greifswald, Germany (2008 – 2018). She has been a member of an ethic panel at the Federal Parliament ( 2003 - 2005 ), served as vice president of the German Science Foundation, DFG (1997 – 2003) and was vice president of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2005 – 2015). She has received a number of honours comprising the Arthur Burkhardt Prize, the Order of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Medal of Merit from the Leopoldina.