Over one hundred people gathered on the evening of December 15, 2008, at the Embassy of Austria for a conversation with Norman Neureiter, bridges columnist and director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy.
Organized as an event in which audience participation would be encouraged throughout the whole evening, an informed audience from institutions such as the Department of State, science offices from other embassies, US agencies such as the National Science Foundation, or the National Institutes of Health engaged in a lively discussion that was skillfully moderated by Warren E. Leary, an award-winning Washington, DC-based science writer and former science correspondent for the New York Times.
The event entitled "The Internationalization of Science - What's in the Future for US Science and Science Policy?" was hosted by the Office of Science
Warren Leary (left) with
Norman Neureiter (right).
The discussion was followed
by a reception with Austrian
foods and wines.
& Technology (OST) as the second in a series of discussions that feature columnists and other expert contributors to its online magazine. "Since bridges is a pure online magazine," said Philipp Marxgut, Austrian science attaché to the United States and director of the OST, in his opening remarks, "the OST believes it's important to bring the "virtual" bridges community together once in a while to meet and greet in person and to exchange opinions face to face on the topics discussed in the magazine."
The evening discussion quickly turned to issues that Neureiter often advocates for in his bridges columns , such as science as a "soft power tool" for foreign relations, as well as an issue that now occupies the minds of many: What will happen to federal - and public - support for science in a tough economy?
bridges vol. 20, December 2008 / 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
OST Scientist Network Activities
Krampus Goes US
Krampussackerl were welcome giveaways among both kids and grown-ups.
The traditional story of Krampus is fairly dark, but not on December 5, when the OST hosted an Austrian event following the tradition, "Krampus Goes US," at the Embassy of Austria in Washington, DC. The event, which has become part of the holiday festivities for Austrian scientists and scholars in the Greater DC Area, provided ample opportunity to meet and great, and to network. Over 50 Austrians attended the informal gathering with their families, and at this occasion the newly elected
ASciNA Greater DC chapter head, Dietrich Haubenberger, was introduced to the guests.
ASciNA Activities
ASciNA Greater Washington, DC
Dietrich Haubenberger
Contact: Dietrich Haubenberger at greaterDC(at)ascina.at
On November 20, 2008, members of ASciNA's Greater DC chapter elected a new chapter president. Dietrich Haubenberger, MD, a clinical neurologist from Vienna, currently on a Schroedinger Stipendium at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS/NIH), was elected as successor to Ruth Pfeiffer, PhD, to coordinate ASciNA activities around Washington, DC.
The popular series of ASciNA talks continued in the last months of 2008 with a lecture by Viennese pediatrician Simona Bianconi, MD, about "Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome," her research topic at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD/NIH). On December 17, past president Ruth Pfeiffer, PhD, presented her work at the National Cancer Institute regarding a risk-prediction model for colorectal cancer.
The year 2009 will start with the traditional ASciNA lunch on January 5, at 1 pm at the level 2 Cafeteria, NIH, Building 10. More info regarding upcoming talks and other activities can be found under the Washington, DC, section on www.ascina.at
bridges vol. 20, December 2008/ 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.
Daniel Grumiller
received the START award of the Austrian Academy of Sciences on November 10, 2008. His project, "Black Holes in Anti-deSitter space, in the universe and in analog systems" will be funded with €1.2 million.
The understanding of black holes is considered to be a milestone on the way towards quantum gravity and has various implications for other disciplines such as cosmology or even solid state physics. This project allows for the establishment of an active and internationally competitive "Viennese School of Gravity."
Daniel Grumiller holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the Technical University of Vienna. He joined the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of Leipzig, Germany, as an Erwin-Schrödinger fellow from 2004 until 2006. In December 2008, after a two-year stay at MIT, he returns to the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Technical University of Vienna.
a native of Graz, has joined the foreign languages department at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, TN.
Baker's academic interests include contemporary German and Austrian literature and film, German-Jewish life-writing, women's studies, madness in literature, and transcultural literature. Recent publications include an article on Binjamin Wilkomirski's memoir, Fragments, and Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt's fictional life-writing. It will be published in Trajectories of Memory: Intergenerational Representations of the Holocaust in History and the Arts (Cambridge Scholars Press) forthcoming in 2009.
"My favorite planet? So far, it's Gliese 581 d," discloses Lisa Kaltenegger, an associated lecturer at Harvard University and a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Kaltenegger, who earns her living by hunting extraterrestrial planets, explains why this planet - unknown to most of us - made it on the top of her list: Gliese 581 d is a planet outside of our solar system that might hold the potential of being habitable.
Re$earch Re$ources: Call for Proposals – € 4.5 Million for WWTF “Mathematics and …” Projects
The Vienna Science and Technology Fund (Wiener Wissenschafts-, Forschungs- und Technologiefonds, WWTF) is a nonprofit funding organization established to promote science and research in Vienna.
In its "Mathematics and ..." thematic program, the WWTF aims to promote scientific projects and endowed chairs in the field of mathematics that pursue an interdisciplinary approach and offer the prospect of medium-term utilization and exploitation.
The "Mathematics and ..." Call 2009 supports projects that strive for innovative mathematical methods that lead to applicable solutions in, and together with, other disciplines. Viennese universities and research institutions, as well as individual scientists, who would like to pursue a perennial scientific project lasting 2 to 4 years are invited to apply. The funding per project has a mandatory minimum of €200,000; the average funded sum in the WWTF "Mathematics and ..." program is €450,000. Funding is granted towards the costs for personnel, traveling costs, expenses for international mobility and cooperation, relocation costs, and other expenses. The WWTF also pays 20 percent of overhead costs.
