Dr. Monika Winder in Antarctica participating in the NSF training course.
January 2008 - Christchurch, New Zealand - Monika Winder is prepped for her journey. She receives all the necessary protective equipment - most importantly, the thermal red coats, signature of those participating in the National Science Foundation's (NSF ) "Integrative Biology and Adaptation of Antarctic Marine Organisms " training course. She boards a C-17 aircraft where she sits near cargo boxes during the 7-hour flight that lands, finally, on the Antarctic ice sheets. The first thing she sees when stepping off the plane is "white, white, white, everywhere."
Not many people begin their year with a training course that takes them to the Antarctic. But if you're Monika Winder, a research associate in the Tahoe Environmental Research Center at the University of California, Davis, any opportunity to further your research in biology is worth it. And, any time to be outdoors - be it arid, or Antarctic - is time well spent.
Austrian Scientist of the Year Fatima Ferreira at the Austrian Embassy in Washington DC on June 29
bridges vol. 21, April 2009 / News from the Network: Austrian Researchers Abroad
The allergist Fatima Ferreira was elected "Austrian Scientist of the Year 2008" by the club of Austrian journalists specializing in education and science. As in preceding years, the OST invites the laureate to the Austrian embassy in the United States capital city. By introducing her research work to US science colleagues as well as to people just generally curious about science, Fatima Ferreira will serve as an ambassador of Austrian Science this year.
Born in Brazil and immigrated to Austria 20 years ago, Fatima Ferreira's research approach has focused on the treatment of pollen allergies and the development of innovative allergy vaccines. While she managed to establish a Christian-Doppler Laboratory for Allergy Diagnosis and Therapy at the University of Salzburg, the allergy specialist succeeded in developing the first recombinant allergen in cooperation with the Vienna biotech company Biomay.
But Fatima Ferreira, a role model for young female scientists and a shining example of Austria`s increasing internationalization in science, was selected by the jury not only for her outstanding scientific research but also for her ability to communicate her scientific work to the public. In a project called "The Flying Lab"
(" Das Fliegende High-Tech-Labor ") , Ferreira and her colleague Reinhard Nestelbacher mapped out the concept for a mobile immunological lab for schools, allowing students together with their teachers to do allergy-focused experiments themselves.
bridges vol. 21, April 2009 / 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.
Hartmut Häffner
was appointed assistant professor of physics at the University of
California at Berkeley in August 2008 and recently received an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship. He researches quantum information processing with trapped ions.
Häffner worked as senior scientist at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information in Innsbruck, Austria, in the research group of Prof. Blatt from 2001 until 2009. He was part of the group's outstanding success regarding realization of the first quantum bytes and effective teleportation with atoms.
set up her own early-stage medical device company in November 2008 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. LightIntra Technology Inc.'s core technology is the ThromboLUX, invented by Maurer-Spurej in 2006 (Phys Med Biol.2006;51:3747-3758). ThromboLUX is a dynamic light-scattering device to test the quality and function of platelets for transfusion, and will significantly improve patient care.
Maurer-Spurej, a scientist with Canadian Blood Services, also works as a clinical associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia.
received a prestigous Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship for his research on the neuronal mechanisms of long-term memory storage. The two-year fellowships are awarded annually for original projects led by outstanding individuals or teams.
Leutgeb is an assistant professor in the Section of Neurobiology at the University of California at San Diego. Before Leutgeb joined UCSD in August 2008, he worked at the Center for the Biology of Memory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, in Trondheim.
bridges vol. 21, April 2009 / 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 (AustrianScientists 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
Stöckler-Ipsiroglu S.: MAS-Thesis: Das österreichische Neugeborenen-Screening im Spannungsfeld zwischen öffentlicher Präventivmedizin und universitär-wissenschaftlichem Auftrag, 2003
Stöckler S., Holzbach U., Hanefeld F., Marquardt I., Helms G., Requart M., Hänicke W., Frahm J.: Creatine deficiency in the brain: a new, treatable inborn error of metabolism; Pediatr Res. 1994, Vol. 36, No. 3, 409-413 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7808840
Stöckler S., Isbrandt D., Hanefeld F., Schmidt B., Von Figura K.: Guanidinoacetate methyltransferase deficiency: the first inborn error of creatine metabolism in man; Am J Hum Genet. 1996, Vol. 58, No. 5, 914-922 http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1914613
was appointed assistant professor of physics at the University of
set up her own early-stage medical device company in November 2008 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. LightIntra Technology Inc.'s core technology is the ThromboLUX, invented by Maurer-Spurej in 2006 (Phys Med Biol.2006;51:3747-3758). ThromboLUX is a dynamic light-scattering device to test the quality and function of platelets for transfusion, and will significantly improve patient care.
received a prestigous Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship for his research on the neuronal mechanisms of long-term memory storage. The two-year fellowships are awarded annually for original projects led by outstanding individuals or teams.