Professor Dr. Heike Oberlin assumed the position of Equal Opportunity Officer at the University of Tübingen on October 1, 2026. Prior to that, she had served as Deputy University Equal Opportunity Officer since March 2024.
Heike Oberlin is an adjunct professor of Indology and the Executive Director of the Department of Indology at the Asia-Orient Institute within the Faculty of Philosophy. She studied Indology and Ethnology at the University of Tübingen and earned her doctorate at the University of Würzburg with a dissertation on the South Indian Sanskrit theater tradition Kūṭiyāṭṭam. In 2013, she completed her habilitation in Tübingen; in 2016, she was appointed Adjunct Professor.
Her scholarly work combines Indology, theater studies, and gender studies. She focuses particularly on actresses and female characters, as well as on issues of gender and social participation in South Asia. She has received numerous awards for her scholarly work and her commitment to German-Indian exchange. In 2008, she received the Ernst Waldschmidt Prize; in 2018, she was named “Scholar in Residence” as part of the Kerala government’s “Erudite Program”; and in 2019, she received the Gisela Bonn Prize from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations for outstanding contributions to German-Indian relations.
For many years, Oberlin is actively involved in academic self-governance and gender equality issues. From 2014 to 2019, for example, she served as the equity officer for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, where she addressed a wide range of gender equity issues—from supporting early-career faculty and work-life balance to addressing sexual harassment and discrimination, as well as ensuring equal opportunity in tenure and hiring processes. From 2021 to September 2026, she served as an elected member of the University Council.
At the heart of her work as the university’s equal opportunity officer is the legally mandated task of promoting gender equality between women and men in academia and higher education and eliminating existing structural disadvantages (State Higher Education Act). This includes, in particular, ensuring fair opportunities for participation and career advancement, transparent procedures, and the appropriate consideration of gender equality issues in appointments, hiring, the promotion of early-career researchers, and university decision-making processes.
Oberlin combines this mission with a comprehensive understanding of equal opportunity. As a “first-generation academic,” she pays particular attention to the question of how structural conditions can enable or hinder academic careers, or render certain potentials invisible. In doing so, she also focuses on the various status groups within the university. Academic achievement and responsibility are by no means limited to professorships; it is precisely among the so-called mid-level faculty that one finds equally high levels of professional qualification, long-standing experience, and institutional commitment—qualities that are often not adequately recognized within existing career and recognition structures. Oberlin therefore associates the concept of “latent excellence” with the task of identifying and fostering scholarly potential even in areas where it is overlooked due to gender, status, institutional hierarchies, or traditional career paths. In this sense, she views gender equality as a contribution to a university culture in which women and men in research and academic studies are afforded truly equal opportunities for participation, recognition, and professional development.
Professor Dr. Heike Oberlin is supported in carrying out her duties by Team Equity (Gender, Diversity, Care).
