On April 1st, Ariane S. Willems joined the Georg-August-University Goettingen as a professor at the Institute of Educational Science. She was appointed to the professorship of School Educational Science with special focus on the Empirical Research of Teaching and Learning.

Previous to her professorship she worked as senior researcher at the Institute for School Development Research (IFS) at the Technical University of Dortmund. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Heinz Günter Holtappels and Prof. Dr. Wilfried Bos she was the leading project manager of the "Study on the Development of All-Day Schools - StEG" (BMBF) and "Co-Teaching International - Teacher Education in Intercultural Dialogue" (DAAD). She also regularly taught as guest lecturer at the Universities of Bamberg and Erfurt.

Ariane S. Willems obtained her PhD at the School of Education at the Technical University of Munich. In her dissertation project "SIGMA - Situational Interest and the Educational Design of Mathematics Instruction" she investigated the relationship between the development of students' situational interest and motivational, cognitive and instructional processes in secondary-level-I mathematics classes.

Currently, her research focuses on the quality and multicriterial effects of full-time schooling. Among others, she investigates in how far participating in subject-specific extra-curricular activities fosters students? competencies in reading, natural sciences and social behavior. Additionally, she conducts research on differential effects of full-time schooling. In particular, she analyses under which circumstances the participation in extra-curricular activities is conducive for socially disadvantaged students.

At the Georg-August-University, Ariane S. Willems is actively involved in the education of future teachers. She offers courses focusing on instructional quality and teacher competencies, school development and school quality as well as diversity and social inequality. She also teaches quantitative research-based projects in which students develop, execute and analyze their own research projects.