Born in 1973, he has been Rector of the University of Cologne since 1 October 2023.

Joybrato Mukherjee graduated in 1997 with a degree in English, Biology and Education from RWTH Aachen University. He is a fully qualified teacher for lower and upper secondary levels. In 2000, he was awarded a PhD from the University of Bonn; he also completed his habilitation in English Philology there in 2003. In the same year, he was appointed to the Chair of English Linguistics at Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU).

Professor Dr Mukherjee served as President of JLU Giessen from 2009 to 2023. Prior to this, he had already served on the Executive Board as First Vice-President. From 2012 to 2019, he also held the office of Vice-President of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD); since 2020, he has been Honorary President of the DAAD. He is a member of a number of academic advisory boards and boards of trustees, including those of various non-university research institutions.

Joybrato Mukherjee’s main areas of research are computer-assisted corpus linguistics, applied linguistics, English syntax and variety studies. Numerous research and teaching visits have taken him to various universities abroad.