Dr. Max Tretter

Short CV

Dr. Max Tretter is an Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer (Akademischer Rat a. Z.) at the Chair of Systematic Theology (Ethics) at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg.

Following a one-year program in free church theology in Essen and Nuremberg (2012–2013), he studied Protestant (Lutheran) Theology in Erlangen and Berlin (2013–2019). He completed his doctoral research between Erlangen and Berkeley from 2019 to 2024. From 2016 to 2019, he was a fellow of the FAU’s Leonardo-Kolleg, and since January 2025 he has been supported by the Emerging Talents Initiative.

Throughout his academic career, he has gained extensive experience in project-based and third-party funded research. From 2019 to 2020, he worked in the OwnData project on ethical questions surrounding medical data, data solidarity, and digital sovereignty. From 2020 to 2022, he was a researcher in the collaborative project CwiC, examining epistemic shifts associated with the use of artificial intelligence in clinical contexts and their ethical implications. Between 2022 and 2025, he contributed to the PRIMA-AI project, focusing on the impact of AI-based clinical decision support systems on the physician–patient relationship and shared decision-making. Since 2022, he has been an associated researcher in the Collaborative Research Centre EmpkinS, where he investigates the ethical and social challenges of empathokinaesthetic sensor technologies. In autumn 2023, he was a Visiting Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. Since 2025, he is Principal Investigator in the GeGe4Nephro consortium, leading a subproject on the responsible design of AI in gender-sensitive nephrology.

His doctoral project, completed in July 2024, examined the role of hip hop in the context of the Black Lives Matter protests. Bringing together political theory, hip hop studies, and public theology, the dissertation analyzed aesthetic articulations in the public sphere with regard to their ethical dimensions. The dissertation was published Open Access by Mohr Siebeck in 2025 and received the doctoral award of the STAEDTLER Foundation in the same year.

His current research focuses on applied questions in AI ethics and medical ethics, perspectives in political ethics and public theology, as well as foundational issues in fundamental ethics. This work is complemented by an extensive record of publications, peer review, and academic presentations: he has authored more than 80 scholarly publications, including numerous articles in international peer-reviewed journals, and regularly presents at academic conferences and public events. In addition, he serves as a reviewer for leading international journals, is actively engaged in science communication and public outreach, and contributes to academic self-governance, currently serving as Deputy Representative of the Faculty’s mid-level academic staff.

Main field of research

• Ethics and Theology of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
• Medicine Ethics, Bioethics, and Animal Ethics
• Political Ethics and Public Theology
• Hip Hop Studies and Popular Culture

Selected bibliography

No publications found.