In the 1936/37 academic year, the Leoben Montanistic Faculty was still part of the TU Graz – this year the archive records the first woman working in a scientific capacity at the Styrian university. She taught French and Italian. Hedwig Katschinka completed the first dissertation by a woman at Graz University of Technology in 1926 on the topic “On knowledge of the vapor pressure curves of binary liquid mixtures”. However, the first actual increase in the number of female employees only occurred from 1980 onwards. In 1982, Ulrike Wirschnig was the first woman to complete her habilitation at Graz University of Technology – she received the license to teach in petrography and became the first female associate professor at Graz University of Technology in 1993. The first full professor was Karin Wilhelm at the Faculty of Architecture in 1991.
Today, of the approximately 2,700 scientific employees at TU Graz (including lecturers and study assistants), around 25 percent are female. To represent the outstanding scientific work that women at TU Graz accomplish every day, we would like to highlight a few female researchers and their particular successes:
ERC grants for exceptional research projects
Physicist Birgitta Schultze-Bernhardt won an ERC Starting Grant worth 2.2 million euros in 2020 with her project ELFIS. In the same year she also received the renowned START Prize from the FWF in the field of laser optics. In her two projects, she investigates the interaction between UV light and matter in spectral ranges that have not yet been researched.
Anna Maria Coclite was able to win two ERC grants for TU Graz. In her SmartCore project, she worked on artificial skin and received an ERC Starting Grant for it. After completing the very successful project, she received a Proof of Concept Grant from the ERC for the follow-up project Smart Skin.
Sonja Wogrin received the most recent ERC Starting Grant last year for her project NetZero-Opt “Optimization and data aggregation for net-zero power systems”. In the coming years she will work on innovative data aggregation for decarbonized electricity systems. At the same time, she heads the Institute for Electricity Economics and Energy Innovation, is spokesperson for the newly founded Research Center ENERGETIC and deputy head of the Field of Expertise Sustainable Systems.
Successful inventors
From 2004 to 2024, Graz University of Technology recorded invention reports or participation in inventions by 111 female scientists.
Gabriele Berg, who works at Graz University of Technology in the young research field of human and plant microbiomes, is particularly outstanding. Since 2005, it has reported nine inventions, several of which have resulted in a patent.
With a total of five reported inventions, Anna Maria Coclite is also successful in this area. Just like fluid mechanic Carole Planchette, who took the lead in reporting two inventions in the field of fluid mechanics.
Excellent teaching
The research of computer scientist Maria Eichlseder is in international demand. The crypto algorithm ASCON, which was developed by her working group, was able to prevail in a long-term, international process by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and is now the international standard for lightweight cryptography. She is not only one of two women who were the first female graduates to complete their studies at TU Graz sub auspiciis, but she is also committed to attracting young scientists. Her teaching, in particular her Cryptography course, was awarded the Prize for Excellent Teaching in the 2022/23 academic year.
Melina Amor for “Moleular Diagnostics”, Isabel Landsiedler for “Spanish for Technicians (Level 2)” and Barbara Siegmund for “Food Chemistry and Technology” were also recognized for their excellent teaching in 2019/20. In 2015/16, Heidrun Gruber-Wölfler received the TU Graz teaching award for her course “Pharmaceutical Engineering: Active Ingredients and Processes”.
2024-03-08 08:09:04
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