Astrid Lorenz is Professor of German and European Politics and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy at Leipzig University. Her main research interests include democracy, participation, constitutional change, politics in multi-level systems (federations, European Union) and transformation processes. She graduated at the Free University of Berlin with a Diploma in Political Science (1997) and a Magistra Artium in Eastern European Studies (1998). From 1998 to 2001 she received a scholarship from the German Research Foundation (DFG) as a Graduate School member. After working as a research assistant at Humboldt University, she was appointed as Juniorprofessor (assistant professor) there in 2006. In 2008 she acquired the venia legendi with her habilitation thesis “Constitutional Amendments in Established Democracies”, which was awarded the Best Postdoc Study Prize by the German Association for Political Science in 2009. In 2011 she was appointed to the Leipzig University.