Angela D. Friederici is director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in Leipzig, Germany. She is founding director of this institute which was established in 1994. Additionally, from 2014 to 2020 she was vice-president of the Max Planck Society. She is honorary professor at the University of Leipzig (Psychology), the University of Potsdam (Linguistics) and the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Neurology) and holds a Doctor honoris Causa from the University of Mons, Belgium. She graduated in linguistics and psychology in Bonn (Germany) and spent a postdoctoral year at MIT (USA). Prior to joining the Max Planck Society as a director, she was professor for Cognitive Sciences at the Free University Berlin. Her research focusses on the neural basis of language and language acquisition. She received a number of scientific awards and is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Member of the German Academy of Sciences ‘Leopoldina’ and Member of the Academia Europaea.