Dr. Joachim Mähnert, born in 1967, studied history and chemistry at the FU- and HU-Berlin and received his PhD in 1994 with synchrotron radiation experiments on van der Waals clusters and unimolecular reactions. After 10 years as deputy museum director at the Berlin open-air museum Domäne Dahlem and teaching "Museum Studies" at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, he became director of the East Prussian Regional Museum in Lüneburg in 2009.
Under his leadership, the museum was fundamentally renovated and expanded to include a German-Baltic section. He is currently responsible for an upcoming construction phase and a permanent exhibition for Immanuel Kant and the "Spirit of Enlightenment".