bridges vol. 26, July 2010 / News from the Network: Austrian Researchers Abroad
The European Union's 7th Framework Program (FP7) is the largest cooperative research program globally. With its total budget of approximately €50 billion for 2007 until 2013, FP7 provides funding for research- and technology-oriented projects of universities, research organizations, and companies. FP7 addresses research teams located in Europe, but is open to cooperation with entities all over the world, including the United States.
bridges vol. 26, July 2010 / News from the Network: Austrian Researchers Abroad
The seventh Austrian Science Talk (AST) will meet in Vancouver, British Columbia, September 18, 2010. Held in Canada for the first time, AST will bring together Austrian scientists and scholars in North America with a delegation of Austrian experts in science, research, and technology policy.
Audience at the Austrian Science Talk 2009, New Orleans.
Considering the effects of globalization on S&T landscapes around the world, the topic "The Globalization of Science and Technology - Chances and Challenges in Austria" is designed to encourage discussions on how countries, including Austria, respond to the associated challenges. The event also provides an excellent opportunity for networking with fellow scientists and for discussions on new policy developments and opportunities in Austria and North America.
For almost 300 years, there have been discussions of whether the immune system is capable of fighting cancer. The first indications that this might be possible were in the 18th century, when it was noted that feverish infections in cancer patients were occasionally associated with cancer remission. In the 1890s the New York surgeon William Coley began to seriously investigate this phenomenon. He discovered that an infection with the bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes caused a severe inflammation, which could lead to a remission of cancer. He injected heat-killed Streptococcus cultures ("Coley's Toxin") directly into the tumor tissue and observed regression in some cases. With this method, he could achieve a cure rate of at least 10 percent. Despite this success, many scientists believed that it would be impossible for the immune system to recognize and respond to its own malignant cells. It took almost 100 years and the persistence of visionary scientists like Lewis Thomas and Sir MacFarlane Burnet, who enunciated the "Tumor Immunosurveillance Theory" to reach the present awareness that the immune system IS capable of fighting cancer. This knowledge is now utilized for the development of cancer vaccines, and the Austrian Angelika Riemer is among the top researchers worldwide in the field of cancer vaccination.
Born in Salzburg in 1976 as the oldest of three girls, Riemer already knew as a teenager that she didn't want a nine-to-five job for her professional life, but something more challenging. Thanks to her brilliant intellect, her encouraging family - which always affirmed that there is nothing a girl can't do - and her excitement about learning new things, she made her way through her
medical studies with excellent grades and finally graduated sub auspiciis. Only a graduate who achieves an A average from high school through the achievement of a doctoral degree is honored sub auspiciis. As she first came in contact with immunology in the course of a pathophysiology lecture, she was intrigued by the subject and knew that this was the field in which she wanted to do research. This was the reason that Riemer chose to take an undergraduate course in immunology during her exchange semester at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. There she had to write a final paper and, out of several different topics to choose from - and even back in 1999 - she chose cancer vaccines. But why was she so fascinated by immunology and cancer vaccines in particular? She explained it as follows: "I really believe that there is a lot to be achieved if we learn enough about the immune system to stimulate it into eradicating cancer. Research in this area is fascinating and also satisfying. More and more people suffer from cancer and if you just imagine that one day you could help them through vaccination! I think it is a rewarding field of research."
5:53 a.m., May 27, 2006, Yogyakarta - On the Indonesian island of Java, a 6.3-magnitude earthquake shook the ground. More than 5,000 people were killed, 38,000 were injured, and as many as 600,000 people were displaced in the Bantul-Yogyakarta area. Over 127,000 houses were destroyed and an additional 451,000 were damaged in the area.
Daniel Petz in front of the Brookings Institution.
Daniel Petz was in the room he rented while working as a guest lecturer for international relations at the Center for Security and Peace Studies at Gadjah Mada University (CSPS-UGM). His house was sufficiently far north from the epicenter of the earthquake. "There were minor damages to the house I was living in. But, the house I was planning to rent in a few days had major damage and six people in that neighborhood lost their lives," said Petz, recalling the experience.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, during any given year as many as 50 million people are displaced due to natural disasters. Petz, senior research assistant on natural disaster at the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement in Washington, DC, monitors natural disasters and the responses regarding displaced persons, and protects vulnerable groups by advocating for their rights.
History, Peace & Conflict
Born in Güssing, Austria, Petz is the son of teachers - his mother a history teacher and his father a science teacher. His parents' profession would come into play during his life as he discovered that he enjoyed history, philosophy, and teaching.
In his high school years, Petz was enrolled in a school for tourism management ("Modul") in Vienna, Austria. While working several hospitality and travel internships and preparing for university, Petz changed his mind and decided to leave tourism management for international economics studies at the University of Vienna. Afterwards he entered the Erasmus Program in Contemporary History Studies at the University Paris IV in La Sorbonne, France, and finally earned a degree in philosophy and history from the University of Vienna.
Outreach: Petz worked as a coordinator for askaDOL, a post-disaster reconstruction program in the education sector at CSPS-UGM after the May 2006 earthquake in Indonesia (click image to enlarge).
The Aftermath: A local school in Bantul, Yogyakarta a week after the May 2006 earthquake in Indonesia.
Circling Together: Petz and the children in the emergency education program.
An Indonesian Wedding: Petz and his wife, Diah Kusumaningrum, at their wedding ceremony.
Signs of Peace: A peace exhibition at CSPS-UGM (click image to enlarge).
Through his interest in politics, Petz also became interested in conflict resolution and in 2004 went on to receive a master's degree in peace and conflict studies at the European University Center for Peace Studies in Stadtschlaining, Austria. "There were people there from all over the world at the Center for Peace Studies, and from many different fields of study," said Petz. "In the western media, you often see reports on the negative things that are going on in the world, but very little of the positive things. This can make you feel cynical and powerless to change society. Studying there really opened my eyes to see that many people are out there doing very good things and I wanted to be a part of it; and studying there showed me ways to do that."
While Petz was opening his eyes to new things and people he happened to see his future wife, Diah Kusumaningrum. The couple was married in December 2006.
After graduation, Petz followed his future wife to Indonesia, where she continued working as a lecturer at the Department for International Relations and researcher at CSPS-UGM. Pursuing his enjoyment of teaching and subsequently following in the footsteps of his parents, he was accepted for a position at Budi Mulia Dua International Senior High School in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where he taught a course on "civics and globalization," and designed the course curricula. Petz felt in the year he was there that he, the school, and the children all "grew up together."
"It was very tough for me because my Indonesian wasn't very good at that time and the students' English was not that developed yet, so sometimes we used a lot of hand signs or a mixture of both languages. I found it very interesting that the high school approached me for the position - me as a foreigner teaching civics and globalization and designing the curriculum," said Petz, "but it was a very interesting experience and I got to have my hand in deconstructing the national curriculum and incorporating peace issues, conflict resolution, the ideas of global citizenship, projects, and debates. It was very rewarding."
While Petz was working at the high school, he also was a guest lecturer and research assistant at the CSPS-UGM in Yogyakarta where he worked more than three years and coordinated a week of activities for the International Day of Peace. After the position at Gadjah Mada University, Petz moved along with his wife to New Jersey where she is pursuing her Ph.D. in political science at Rutgers University as a Fulbright fellow. While his wife was working toward her degree, Petz applied for his current position at the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, and began working there in January 2010.
Born in 1974 in the Weinviertel, Lower Austria, Christoph Tagwerker has been concerned about the environment since his early childhood. At a time when the concept of “sustainability” had only started to gain some relevance in the world, he had already told his parents to recycle more carefully and not to use the family car that often. “I have no clue where my knack for the environment really originated from,” says Tagwerker, “but I simply always cared for environmental issues.”
Due to this interest, Tagwerker decided to study process engineering, a mixture of mechanical and chemical engineering, which was a new academic field in 1995 at the Vienna University of Technology where he focused on equipment, plant engineering, and environment. With the goal of broadening his horizons, Tagwerker joined the European student mobility program, Erasmus . He attended the University of Santiago de Compostela in
"The Erasmus year had a huge impact on my life; actually that is why I am here at the IDB."
Spain for a year, and got hooked on the Spanish culture: “People are so friendly and much more relaxed, it is easy to make relationships and, moreover, the culture and food is fantastic and they have the best soccer team, FC Barcelona.” So when Tagwerker learned by coincidence that a position for a Spanish-speaking energy efficiency expert at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) , was being announced at the Ministry of Finance in Vienna, it was a no-brainer for him to apply. At that time, Tagwerker was already working for a Viennese consulting company in the area of energy efficiency. In September 2006, Tagwerker left Vienna for the IDB headquarters in Washington, DC, for a two-year stint as energy efficiency specialist working on Latin American and Caribbean countries.
bridges vol. 26, July 2010 / News from the Network: Austrian Researchers Abroad
In its “moves & milestones” section, bridges presents career steps and other outstanding events in the professional lives of Austrian scientists and scholars in the US and Canada.
Guenter P. Wagner
was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Wagner is the Alison Richard Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University and an expert on the genetics of development and the uses of mathematical modeling to understand complex molecular adaptations of organisms. He served as the first chair of Yale’s Department of Ecology and Evolution from 1997 to 2002 and 2005 to 2008.
He has been the recipient of numerous awards (MacArthur Prize,1992; Humboldt Prize, 2005) and is also a corresponding member of Austrian Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
After his undergraduate education in chemical engineering, Wagner studied zoology and mathematical logic at the University of Vienna, where he received his Ph.D. in 1979.
together with his colleague Ignacio Cirac, was awarded the 2010 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics for their theoretical proposal and experimental realization of the first device that performs elementary computer-logic operations using the quantum properties of individual atoms. Previous award laureates include Albert Einstein, Rudolph Diesel, Marie and Pierre Curie, Thomas Edison, Jane Goodall, Orville Wright, Stephen Hawking, and Jacques Cousteau, just to name a few.
Zoller is research director at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information and teaches at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Innsbruck. He was recently elected a foreign associate by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). From 1990 to 1994, Zoller was a researcher at JILA in Colorado. He has also held guest professorships and lecturer positions at the University of Leiden, Harvard University, and Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Peter Zoller earned his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Innsbruck in 1977.
was appointed assistant professor at the Institute of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry at the University of Ulm and received the Craver Award of the Coblenz Society.
Mizaikoff’s research focus is infrared optical sensor systems, using scanning electrochemical microscopy for the characterization and optimization of chemical recognition interfaces and molecularly imprinted polymers. Previously, he was director of the Focused Ion Beam Center at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is an author/co-author of over 130 peer-reviewed publications, holds 14 patents, and has made numerous invited contributions at scientific conferences.
Dr. Mizaikoff holds a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the Vienna University of Technology.
has received the venia legendi (habilitation) in psychology at the University of Munich and recently published an article in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry reporting results from a study on the cognitive processing of stressful/traumatic experiences in children affected by the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
Sprung is currently at Harvard University on an Erwin-Schroedinger Fellowship from the Austrian Science Fund, working on a study that further investigates how children exposed to stressful/traumatic events process these adverse experiences and how this is related to children’s cognitive developmental level.
Sprung holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Salzburg.
bridges vol. 26, July 2010 / News from the Network: Austrian Researchers Abroad
The OST network of Austrian scientists & scholars abroad was
established by the Office of Science & Technology (OST) at the
Austrian Embassy in Washington, DC, and focuses on the outreach of
government-related agencies to Austrian scientists in North America.
Its main objective has been to support the scientific community with
information and specific advice wherever necessary and requested.
Encouraged by the OST, an independent association - ASciNA (Austrian
Scientists and Scholars in North America) - was founded in 2002 with
local chapters being established throughout the US and Canada. For
further information about ASciNA please visit: www.ascina.at
ASciNA Now Accepting Applications for the Mentoring Cycle 2010 / 2011
By Susanne Pangratz-Fuehrer, head of the ASciNA Chapter Bay Area, California
ASciNA passed a major milestone in its Mentoring Project earlier this year: the inaugural “ASciNA Mentoring Kick-off Meeting.” The coldest weekend this winter didn’t stop all ASciNA mentors and mentees from meeting up for a two-day program in Boston. During these two days, the value of mentoring relationships for effective career planning was discussed. ASciNA received some useful feedback on its program that will help improve ASciNA Mentoring during the next mentoring cycle, which will start in October 2010.
Three months into the pilot phase of ASciNA Mentoring, ASciNA was eager to hear about the experiences of its first mentors and mentees. All the mentees were excited about the opportunity to discuss their career choices with their mentors and get an unbiased second opinion on career plans from an experienced scientist outside their immediate field. Mentors, on the other hand, were highly energized to support their mentees in any way they could, offering advice on general career development strategies or getting down to the nitty-gritty details of planning experiments and data analysis. This feedback was a huge motivation for the ASciNA board to continue working on ASciNA Mentoring and to make it the best mentoring program for young Austrian scientists and professionals.
Philipp Marxgut, of the Office of Science and Technology, made his way to Boston from Washington, DC, while Stefan Eichberger and Melanie Csida of our partner, brainpower austria, flew in from Austria. They worked hard interviewing mentees and learning about their research. Thanks to brainpower austria and the Office of Science and Technology, mentors and mentees were also invited to a brunch that topped off the great two-day program.
ASciNA Mentoring is accepting applications for the 2010/2011 mentoring cycle from NOW through July 15th
The next mentoring cycle will start October 2010 and run through September 2011. In collaboration with brainpower austria and the MUW Alumni Club, ASciNA Mentoring provides financial support, allowing long-distance mentoring pairs to travel across the US for person-to-person meetings.
Application deadline: July 15, 2010
Matching Mentor/Mentee: August 15, 2010
Kick-off Event: September 18, 2010
Start Mentoring Program: October 1, 2010
For more information on ASciNA Mentoring please visit: www.ascina.at or contact us at: mentoring(at)ascina.at
bridges vol. 26, July 2010 / Re$earch Re$ources Just over three years after its launch, the European Research Council (ERC) offered its 1000th grant on June 24, 2010, to perform innovative blue-sky research in Europe, highlighting the dynamism and growing importance of this relatively new institution in the European research system.
ERC's next call for starting grants is slated for publication July 20. An official note on the ERC Web site, providing the details with links to the calls documents, will be posted on that date. This call will have three different deadlines, all in Autumn 2010, each focusing on a different scientific domain.
In February this year, at the AAAS 2010 annual conference in San Diego, ERC had organized a workshop and a press conference to inform North American scientists and researchers about research opportunities in Europe. Also, several ERC representatives visited the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Davis, and Stanford University to promote the ERC and its funding possibilities.
The ERC opened its doors in February 2007 as the first European funding body, which gives generous grants to top talent in frontier research. Created by the European Union and financed by the European Commission under its 7th research Framework Program (FP7), the ERC has a 2007-2013 budget of €7.5 billion. Its main aim is to stimulate scientific excellence in Europe by supporting and encouraging truly innovative researchers to explore new opportunities and directions in any field of science. Thus, ERC can be seen as a new research funding body with several characteristics that, when combined, make it quite unique: It focuses on frontier research, it is bottom-up and science-driven, it is open to researchers of all nationalities, and it delivers generous and very flexible grants to both young and experienced researchers.
From basic to frontier research
Taking notice of the fact that emerging areas of science and technology today often cover substantial elements of both "basic" and "applied" research, and that the distinction between the two has become blurred, the European Research Council adopted the term "frontier research" to describe its activities and clearly express the fact that they will be exclusively directed towards fundamental advances at and beyond the "frontiers" of knowledge. The creation of an institution at the European level entirely devoted to fundamental research shows the strong commitment of the European Union to supporting this type of research and its belief in the benefits it can bring to society.
Because of this inclination towards frontier research, ERC particularly encourages proposals of an interdisciplinary nature which cross the boundaries between different fields of research, pioneering proposals addressing new and emerging fields of research, and proposals introducing unconventional, innovative approaches. ERC then assesses these proposals on the significance of their expected impact.
A bottom-up system, open to researchers from all over the world
As a logical consequence of this emphasis on innovative research, the ERC's approach is bottom-up, or investigator-driven, in nature. It aims at allowing researchers to identify new opportunities and directions in any field of research rather than following priorities set by politicians or administrative authorities. This approach should ensure that funds are channeled into new and promising areas of research with a greater degree of flexibility.
Hence, ERC accepts proposals in all fields and doesn't exclude any specific topic as long as the project deals with frontier research. This is illustrated by the diversity of projects that have been funded so far and are reflected in this "1000 ERC Striking Projects" document.
In full coherence with its acknowledgement of the fundamental role of frontier research in the innovation process and in the non-linear nature this process can take, ERC does not provide grants for predefined research outputs or well-specified deliverables, but leaves the grantees free to follow the paths on which their research guides them and gives them the opportunity to modify their research direction as they consider appropriate.
Moreover, ERC doesn't set any requirements concerning the nationality of the principal investigators (PIs) making the proposals, nor concerning the nationality(ies) of the members of his or her research team, nor are its decisions to award the grants affected by the origins of the candidates. Scientific excellence is the sole criterion for evaluating the proposals and researchers from all over the world can receive a grant if their projects appear to be the best.
The European Union's 7th Framework Program (FP7) is the largest cooperative research program globally. With its total budget of approximately €50 billion for 2007 until 2013, FP7 provides funding for research- and technology-oriented projects of universities, research organizations, and companies. FP7 addresses research teams located in Europe, but is open to cooperation with entities all over the world, including the United States.
was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
together with his colleague Ignacio Cirac, was awarded the 2010 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics for their theoretical proposal and experimental realization of the first device that performs elementary computer-logic operations using the quantum properties of individual atoms. Previous award laureates include Albert Einstein, Rudolph Diesel, Marie and Pierre Curie, Thomas Edison, Jane Goodall, Orville Wright, Stephen Hawking, and Jacques Cousteau, just to name a few.
was appointed assistant professor at the Institute of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry at the University of Ulm and received the Craver Award of the Coblenz Society.
has received the venia legendi (habilitation) in psychology at the University of Munich and recently published an article in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry reporting results from a study on the cognitive processing of stressful/traumatic experiences in children affected by the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
Three months into the pilot phase of ASciNA Mentoring, ASciNA was eager to hear about the experiences of its first mentors and mentees. All the mentees were excited about the opportunity to discuss their career choices with their mentors and get an unbiased second opinion on career plans from an experienced scientist outside their immediate field. Mentors, on the other hand, were highly energized to support their mentees in any way they could, offering advice on general career development strategies or getting down to the nitty-gritty details of planning experiments and data analysis. This feedback was a huge motivation for the ASciNA board to continue working on ASciNA Mentoring and to make it the best mentoring program for young Austrian scientists and professionals.
Philipp Marxgut, of the Office of Science and Technology, made his way to Boston from Washington, DC, while Stefan Eichberger and Melanie Csida of our partner, 