Federal Minister of Education and Research
Cem Özdemir
Cem Özdemir was born in Bad Urach on 21 December 1965. He is an educator by profession and graduated in social pedagogy from the Evangelische Fachhochschule für Sozialwesen in Reutlingen, Germany, in 1994.
In 1994, he was elected to the German Bundestag for Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (the German Green Party), becoming its first-ever member of Turkish descent. From 2004 until 2009, Mr Özdemir was a Member of the European Parliament, where he served as Spokesperson for Foreign Policy for his political group.
Between 2008 and January 2018, he served as Chair of his party, and was part of the lead candidate duo for the German Green Party in the 2017 general elections. From 2017 to 2021, he served as Chair of the Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure in the German Bundestag.
In the 2021 general elections, he was elected directly to the German Bundestag in the constituency of Stuttgart I. He has been part of the Federal Government in his capacity as Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture since December 2021. He has also been Federal Minister of Education and Research since 7 November 2024. Cem Özdemir is the father of two children.
Parliamentary State Secretary Claudia Müller
Claudia Müller was born in Rostock on 10 August 1981. She lives in the Barth region of the district of Western Pomerania-Rügen and has two children.
She studied international business administration at Hochschule Stralsund - University of Applied Sciences. In 1998/1999 she spent a year abroad in the US. She has also lived in Kristiansand (Norway), Munich and Stralsund.
From 2009 to 2022, she was politically active at local level. She was the long-term Parliamentary Secretary of the Green Party district council group of Western Pomerania-Rügen. She also served as the State Chairperson of the party branch in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and was a member of the city parliament of Stralsund. Since October 2017, she has been a member of the German Bundestag for the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen parliamentary group. Prior to that, she worked as a freelancer in the tourism and cultural sectors.
Claudia Müller is a titular member of the Defence Committee and a substitute member of the Transport Committee. In 2022, she served as the Federal Government Coordinator for the Maritime Industry and for Tourism.
In January 2023, she took office as Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture. Claudia Müller has been Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research since November 2024.
State Secretary Dr Karl Eugen Huthmacher
Dr Karl Eugen Huthmacher was born in Saarbrücken on 9 July 1952. He is a lawyer and earned his doctorate at Saarland University in 1984. From 1980 to 1982, he was Managing Director of the Europa-Institut of Saarland University. After that, he worked at the Secretariat of the Bundesrat until 1986 and then at the Federal Chancellery until 1987.
Between 1987 and 1990, Dr Huthmacher was press spokesperson at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, and thereafter worked as Head of Division and Director until 1997 in the following fields: ecological restoration and development in the new Länder, cooperation with Länder and municipalities, environment and technology, Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, coordination of the supervisory control of the German Environment Agency. He was Deputy Director-General for Radiation Protection at the Federal Environment Ministry until 2010.
Between 2010 and 2018, Dr Huthmacher headed the Directorate-General "Provision for the Future – Basic and Sustainability Research" at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Dr Karl Eugen Huthmacher is married and the father of three sons. He has come out of retirement to serve as State Secretary at the BMBF.
State Secretary Stephan Ertner
Stephan Ertner was born in Neuss on 11 February 1974. He studied sociology, economics and political science in Frankfurt/Main and in Marburg and was awarded a Diplom degree in sociology on completion of his studies. In 1996/1997 he spent a period of study abroad at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. From 2005 to 2007, he completed the “Science Communication and Marketing” part-time master’s programme at TU Berlin.
Between 2001 and 2011, Stephan Ertner worked at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, including as advisor on education and science. Then he joined the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Arts, where he worked as policy and strategic planning advisor and Deputy Head of the Central Office until 2016.
In 2016, Stephan Ertner transferred to the State Ministry of Baden-Württemberg. There he first worked as head of division for government planning and Landtag affairs, then he headed Directorate I (finance policy and budget, human resources, organization, domestic policy, transport policy, judiciary and law, regulatory control council) and most recently Directorate III (coordination between the economic affairs, social affairs, transport, rural affairs, environment, regional development and housing ministries, strategy dialogues and InnoLab BW).
From 2023 he served as Administrative Head of the Representation of Baden-Württemberg to the Federation.
Stephan Ertner has been State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research since November 2024.