Award Heidelberg Medical Student Receives DAAD Prize
19 February 2025
Kuralay Aman from Kazakhstan is honored for her social engagement and academic achievements
Kuralay Aman from Kazakhstan has been awarded the DAAD Prize for international students. The prize granted by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) pays tribute both to outstanding social commitment and to special academic achievements. The prize-winner is an “extraordinarily gifted medical student”, who is also active in different ways in human rights issues, according to the statement of reasons for selecting her. Kuralay Aman is studying medicine at Heidelberg University and currently working on her doctoral thesis. Prof. Dr Marc-Philippe Weller, Vice-Rector for International Affairs and Diversity at Ruperto Carola, presented the prize at a small ceremony.
After completing her schooling, Kuralay Aman first took the preparatory course at Freie Universität Berlin and then enrolled at Heidelberg University. There, in the 2019/2020 winter semester, she began studying medicine at the Medical Faculty Heidelberg, also spending a study period abroad at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). Since October 2023, Kuralay Aman has been working on her thesis in the Clinical Cooperation Unit Neuroimmunology and Brain Tumor Immunology, a department bridging the Medical Faculty Mannheim of Heidelberg University and the German Cancer Research Center. Prof. Dr Michael Platten, who heads this cooperation unit, was impressed by Kuralay Aman’s academic performance. He particularly appreciated the fact that she had acquired remarkable scientific expertise in her doctoral project in a very short time. Prof. Platten is her supervisor and proposed Kuralay Aman for this year’s DAAD Prize.
At the prize-giving, Vice-Rector Marc-Philippe Weller underlined Kuralay Aman’s involvement in social concerns. The prize-winner has organized many events in her capacity as federal coordinator of the Medicine and Human Rights Working Group, which operates under the umbrella of the Federal Association of Medical Students in Germany. Furthermore, she has taken courses run by the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations to become a trainer for human rights issues. Besides her active role in Heidelberg University’s Buddy Program to support international students, she has advocated for initiatives such as the vaccine-promoting “Impfdich” campaign or the sexual education project “Safely in love”.
“I am very pleased to receive this award and am grateful to those who have supported me along the way. It is no easy task to study medicine in a foreign language in a foreign country and calls for adaptability and openness on the part of everyone. I hope that my international and national fellow students will receive the support they need and will dare to have ambitious dreams,” Kuralay Aman underlined. The prize granted by the German Academic Exchange Service is worth 1,000 euros.