LFUI - Guest Professors
PhD Affiliated Lecturer Bill Addis from Cambridge University is an expert in the field of model statistics and was a LFUI guest professor at the Department of Architectural Theory and History of Building in April and May 2016. He is a lecturer in Building Structures and Construction History, a member of the British „Construction History Society“ and co-editor of the „Journal of Construction History“. During his guest professorship he dedicated himself to the development of a scientific proposal on the history of model statistics. The aim of the project was to develop an international research proposal on the history of model statistics together with the University of Innsbruck and other countries with which Bill Addis is establishing close contacts.
Prof. Dr. Young-Ae Chon, lyricist and professor of German literature at Seoul National University, was a LFUI guest professor at the Department of Languages and Literatures in January and February 2016. She is one of the most successful Germanists in East Asia and was head of the German department of Seoul National University, vice president of the Korean Society for Comparative Literature and president of the Korean Goethe Society. During her guest professorship in Innsbruck Young-Ae Chon dedicated herself to her research projects "Sich erbittend ew'ges Leben - Studies on Goethe's ‚West-östlichem Divan‘“ and "Johann Wolfgang Goethe: ‚Faust‘ - philologically founded translation. Young-Ae Chon translated Goethe, Kafka, Rilke and Celan, published several volumes of poetry and was awarded the Golden Goethe Medal in 2011. In a lecture on "Translation Borders", which she gave at the University of Innsbruck in January 2016, the South Korean professor dedicated herself to the translation of Faust. Her stay in Innsbruck strengthened the relations between the University of Innsbruck and Seoul National University and a partnership agreement was signed between the two humanities faculties. Young-Ae Chon's visit was not only an enrichment for the Institute for Languages and Literatures, but also for the Institute for German Studies, the Brenner Archive Research Institute and the Institute for Translation Studies.
Dr. Philipp Ainslie, Canada Research Chair in Cerebrovascular Physiology in Health and Disease, is a professor in the School of Health and Exercise Sciences at the University of British Columbia and Co-Director of the Centre for Heart, Lung & Vascular Health. His research is directed to the integrated mechanisms, which regulate human cerebral blood flow in health and disease with specific areas of interest including fundamental mechanisms of cerebral blood flow regulation, influence of environmental stress on cerebrovascular. Due to his expertise and research focus, he attended the Department of Sport Science of the University of Innsbruck as a LFUI guest professor in winter semester 2018 and summer semester 2019. He collaborated within a research project aimed to identify under what conditions and through which mechanisms whole body hypometabolism occurs in hypoxic and cold stressed humans.
Prof. Dr. Benedict Anderson from the University of Technology in Sydney was a LFUI guest professor at the Department of Design in the summer semester 2016. He is professor of interior design and his research focuses on the interrelations between body and space. During his stay at the University of Innsbruck he did research on his project "Embodied Landscapes". In his current publications he deals with the topic of "Buried Cities" and his latest book, "The City in Geography", was published in July 2018.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nils Anfinset from the Department of Archaeology, History, Religious and Cultural Studies at the University of Bergen is an ethnoarchaeologist and was LFUI guest professor at the Department of Archaeology in March and June 2016. He specializes in cultural heritage, political archaeology, Neolithic and Bronze Age and is involved in projects in Norway, Tanzania, Nepal and the Middle East. In Innsbruck he was able to participate in excavations in a prehistoric copper mine near Radfeld together with other scientists, including Assoz.-Prof. Dr. Gert Goldenberg from the FWF Special Research Centre HiMAT, and he conducted a field experiment in Fiavè for one week. The focus was on traditional copper mining in remote Nepalese mountain regions according to the "Nepal process" researched by Nils Anfinset.
Dr. Christopher Michael Bales is a professor of energy and environmental technology at the Dalarna University in Sweden and was the LFUI guest professor at the Department of Structural Engineering and Material Sciences in the field of energy-efficient construction, from May to June 2019. His extensive expertise in the modelling and simulation of complex heating systems was particularly useful in the context of the research project "energy sponge". Thanks to Christopher M. Bales' many years of experience with web-based teaching, new valuable impulses were provided in terms of modern teaching and learning methods.
Richard David Bardgett is British ecologist and professor of Ecology at The University of Manchester. From mid-January to mid-March 2020, he was LFUI guest professor at the Department of Ecology. Richard Bardgett’s research focuses on understanding the role of interaction between plant and soil communities in regulating the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems and their response to global change. His research visit aimed at exploring how both land use and climate change influence soil microbial communities as well as their functioning and biogeochemical cycles in alpine grasslands. This work built on an ongoing collaboration with scientists at the University of Innsbruck, supported by the Alpine Research Station Obergurgl, which was testing in situ how soil microbial communities and biogeochemical cycles respond to shrub encroachment and snow cover changes.
Wissenswert article (p. 4 - 5), "Hochsensibles Berg-Ökosystem"
Dr. Gian Pietro Basello is a professor of the Elamite Language at the University L’Orientale in Naples and from May to June 2019, he was a LFUI guest professor at the Department for Ancient History and Ancient Oriental Studies. As an expert in philology and due to his many years of teaching experience, he gave two courses in the master's degree program, in which unpublished texts from the Louvre were translated and the history of the Elamites was taught. He also gave a public lecture about his current research project " Regime change in 1st millennium BCE Iran".
Guest lecture by Prof. Basello: "In Iran before the Persians: A journey to ancient Elam"
Dr. Khalid Bekkaoui is professor of English Studies and Cultural Studies at the University of Fez in Morocco and was a LFUI guest professor at the Department of American Studies in November and December 2014. He is head of Cultural Studies in Morocco and deals with the relations between the Islamic world and the West. In his project „Piracy, Diplomacy and Cultural Circulation in the Mediterranean“ to which the Moroccan professor was also able to contribute the views of the North African people, he worked together with Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Mario Klarer M.A. and other researchers of the Institute for American Studies on Islamic piracy in the early modern era on the basis of slave reports. With his research, Khalid Bekkaoui not only wants to reappraise the past, but also refer to current conflicts between the Islamic and European world.
Guest lecture by Prof. Bekkaoui on "Muslim Discovery of America"
Shajay Bhooshan, B.Arch, M.Arch, M.Phil is the co-founder of CODE, Zaha Hadid Computation and Design Research Group. He also works as a studio master at the Design Research Laboratory Master’s program at the Architectural Association (AA) in London and as a researcher at ETH Zurich (Philippe Block Research Group). In summer semester 2021, Shajay Bhooshan was a LFUI guest professor at the Faculty of Architecture, where he collaborated on the Special Research Project "Computational Immediacy", led by Stefan Rutzinger and Kristina Schinegger, and contributed his profound knowledge in generative design and its application in architectural practice to the SFB project.
SFB PROJECT - COMPUTATIONAL IMMEDIACY
Prof. Matteo Borzaga is an university lecturer in labour and comparative labour law, social law as well as European and international law, researched and taught at the University of Trento and Bolzano and was able to continue his research work at the University of Innsbruck in May and June 2017 as LFUI guest professor. He participates in the development of euroregional projects which should facilitate cross-border cooperation and thus strengthen the cohesion of the European region. During his guest professorship at the Department of Labour Law, Social Law and Legal Informatics he gave lectures on "The multifaceted crisis of the EU and the fate of the European social model".
Arch. Andy Bow,
architect and senior partner at Foster + Partners, was LFUI guest professor at the University of Innsbruck in the summer semester 2021. Due to the pandemic, his three courses took place exclusively online, with Andy Bow supervising both bachelor's and master's and doctoral students. Over the course of his career, the architect has worked on a wide range of projects, including Queen Alia International Airport in Jordan, Ilham Baru Tower in Kuala Lumpur or Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, Cathay Pacific Lounges in Hong Kong and Battersea Power Station Masterplan in London.
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Bow
Prof. Dr. David Bowling, biogeosciences scientist and head of the Biogeosciences Research Group at the Department of Biology at the University of Utah, worked in August and September 2016 as LFUI guest professor at the Department of Ecology. He specializes in biogeosciences and his research focuses on the influence of biological, physical and chemical factors on organisms and how organisms affect their environment. The cooperation with Mag. Dr. Univ.-Prof. Michael Bahn, who heads the research group "Plant, Soil and Ecosystem Processes", was mainly used to test and evaluate various instruments in the field of laser spectroscopy during experiments in the Stubai Valley. Among other things, the biogeoscientist used his stay to plan a future project on the seasonal effects of snow cover on exchange processes in ecosystems. David Bowling finished his research time in Innsbruck with a lecture on "Implications of Climate Change for Montane Conifer Forests with Seasonal Snow Cover".
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Bowling
Dr. Henning Börm, is professor of Ancient History at the University of Konstanz and taught as a LFUI guest professor at the University of Innsbruck in the winter semester 2019/2020. He studies cultural conflicts from the historian's perspective and discusses cultural antinomies within a society. His research focuses on civil wars in antiquity and Hellenistic Greece, cultural contacts between ancient Iran and the Mediterranean world, Greek historiography and the Roman Empire in the Principate and Late Antiquity. In particular, at the University of Innsbruck he collaborated with the research center Ancient Worlds Studies and Archaeologies (AWOSA).
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wolf-Dietrich Bukow from the University of Siegen is one of the most renowned contemporary migration researchers and was nominated as LFUI guest professor in the summer semester 2017 for research and teaching in the field of migration, mobility, diversity and regional development at the Department of Educational Sciences. His research focuses on everyday urban life, migration, mobility, diversity and interculturality and his latest work focuses on the topic "Inclusive City". He is the founder of the Research Centre for Intercultural Studies (FiSt) and the Center for Diversity Studies (cedis) at the University of Cologne and has held a research professorship at the Research College of the University of Siegen (FoKoS) since 2011. In the summer semester 2017 Wolf-Dietrich Bukow took over two courses and gave several lectures.
Invitation to guest lecture by Prof. Wolf-Dietrich Bukow on "The Inclusive City"
Dr. Hilary Joy Cremin is one of the leading representatives of British peace research, lecturer at Cambridge University and was LFUI guest professor at ULG Peace Studies in February 2017. Her research focuses on education, conflict and peace in schools and comunities. She has worked as a teacher, educational consultant and project coordinator, is head of Studies for Education at Fitzwilliam College and head of the master's programme at the Faculty of Education at Cambridge University.
Dr. Till Dembeck is a professor of German literature and media didactics at the Université du Luxembourg and was a guest professor at the Department for Languages and Literature in May and June 2019. At the University of Innsbruck, he dealt with the focal points of literary multilingualism, poetry and language research of the 19th century. These topics represent his main research interests and are also closely pursued at the University of Innsbruck in various disciplines (including linguistics, literary studies and history). In addition to the productive exchange and the strengthening of research, Till Dembeck gave the lecture "The Languages of Romanticism and Europe of Today" as part of the discussion round "Everyday Multilingualism?".
Conference programme: "Mehrsprachigkeitsmai"
Dr. Peter Domokos, head of the Budapest Quantum Optics Group at the Wigner Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, conducted research as LFUI guest professor at the Department of Theoretical Physics from February to April 2016. During his guest professorship in Innsbruck he worked on his project "Ultracold Atoms in Optical Resonators" and gave a lecture on "Laser Spectroscopy and Laser Cooling". Peter Domokos was a Marie Curie Scholarship holder in Innsbruck from 2001-2003, which led to close cooperation between the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Innsbruck and the Budapest Quantum Optics Group.
Dr. Irma Eloff is professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and worked as a LFUI guest professor at the Department for Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Innsbruck from May to July 2018. From 2001-2020 she was an associate visiting professor at Yale University and gave lectures around the world on topics relating to psychology and intervention, inclusive education, and HIV/AIDS. In 2012, she was one of the top three “Most influential women in business and government in South Africa”. In 2014, she received the international prize for excellence for her research into HIV, in relation to children in Melbourne. As well as teaching various seminars in Innsbruck, Irma Eloff also conveyed her inputs and visions as well as valuable experience in the practical use of diversity and inclusion to other scientists and students.
Prof. Dr. José Ignacio García-Plazaola from the University of the Basque Country was LFUI guest professor at the Department of Botany in May and June 2015. As a botanist, he dedicated himself to the study of plant metabolism and, together with Mag. Dr. Univ.-Prof. Ilse Kranner and other researchers, pursued the goal of developing non-invasive methods for the diagnosis of stress in plants. José Ignacio García-Plazaola is an expert in botanically oriented ecophysiology and is particularly interested in photosynthesis research.
Doc. PhDr. Oľga Gyarfášová, PhD is a sociologist, assistant professor at the Comenius University in Bratislava and analyst at the Institute for Public Affairs, an independent centre of public policy research and analyses. In her work, she focuses on public opinion, electoral behaviour and political culture in Central Europe with focus on Slovakia as well as minority rights and gender studies. Between February and March 2017, she attended the University of Innsbruck as a LFUI guest professor. With colleagues from the Department of Political Science, she worked on a project aimed to investigate the changes in political competition in the European arena, Slovakia and Austria in a comparative perspective.
Prof. Edward Harcourt has been a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, since 2005. He is currently Director of Research, Strategy and Innovation at The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). His research is in ethics, in particular in moral psychology, and he has published on topics including neo-Aristotelianism and child development, the ethical dimensions of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, the moral emotions, love and the virtues, Nietzsche‘s ethics, the philosophy of mental health and mental illness, literature and philosophy, and Wittgenstein. At the Department for Christian Philosophy of the University of Innsbruck, he enriched research and teaching in the summer semester 2021 and gave public lectures as well as guest lectures in courses.
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Harcourt
Prof. Heeok Heo from the Department of Computer Education at Sunchon National University in Korea was LFUI guest professor at the Department for Teacher Education and School Research in January and February 2015. She specializes in e-learning and heads the Center for Information Systems and Technology in Korea. During her stay in Innsbruck, the Korean professor wanted to show the students how modern information and communication technologies can be used meaningfully in schools. Heeok Heo was a guest at the University of Innsbruck for the fourth time and was able to establish contacts for further research projects during her last stay. This means that the partner universities Suncheon and Innsbruck, which have been exchanging students and lecturers since 2011, will continue to work closely together.
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Heo
Prof. Dr. Albert A. M. (Bert) Holtslag from Wageningen University was LFUI guest professor at the Department of Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences in June and July 2016. Among other things, the scientist used his stay to prepare a GABLS (GEWEX Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study) intercomparison study. Furthermore, Bert Holtslag participated together with 26 other scientists in the 1st Interdisciplinary Climate Workshop at the University Centre Obergurgl in order to exchange questions on climate and climate change. The aim of the workshop was to strengthen interdisciplinary exchange and the relations between researchers. During the three-day workshop, on the one hand challenges in the future were discussed, on the other attempts were made to identify common research interests in order to facilitate cooperation across institute boundaries.
Prof. Dr. Ulf Karsten is an expert in Applied Ecology and Phycology, lecturer at the University of Rostock and conducted research from May to July 2017 as LFUI guest professor at the Department of Botany. He specialises in the study of algae and devoted himself in Innsbruck mainly to the study of adaptation strategies of alpine algae. In cooperation with Andreas Holzinger, Ilse Kranner, Anja Hartmann and Markus Ganzera, the bioscientist from Rostock has achieved groundbreaking results. The researchers have succeeded in isolating sun protection substances from algae that could also be used in skin protection products. The algae "Klebsormidium“, researched by Ulf Karsten and Markus Ganzera, was named Algae of the Year 2018 by the German Botanical Society (DBG).
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Karsten (p. 48)
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Frank N. Keutsch from the University of Wisconsin-Madison did research at the Department of Ion Physics and Applied Physics. In collaboration with Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Armin Hansel and Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Thomas Karl he dedicated himself to reasearch about the earth’s atmosphere in order to find possible solutions for the continuous global warming. In May 2016 Frank N. Keutsch gave a lecture in which he presented his approaches about Geoengineering.
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Keutsch
Prof. Dr. Bernd Kirchheim was a guest professor at the Department for Mathematics at the LFUI from February to April 2019. After professorships at the University of Düsseldorf and the University of Oxford, he has held the chair "Analysis" at the University of Leipzig since 2012. In addition to his well-known work on partial differential inclusions, he has made fundamental contributions to geometric dimension theories in the metric and infinite dimensional context. Expertise and research background contributed to progress within an FWF project and the opening of an international exchange by for example, supervising theses together with the University of Leipzig. In addition to this, Bernd Kirchheim gave public lectures, where the combination of abstract mathematics and its scientific applications was brought to broader circles at the University of Innsbruck and beyond.
Dr. Christine Klapeer from the University of Göttingen (Gender Studies) was a LFUI guest professor for the MA Gender, Culture and Social Change at the University of Innsbruck in the summer semester 2020. Here she studied Political Science and Gender Studies and received her PhD with a dissertation on the complex relationship between heteronormativity, gender and citizenship. As a guest professor and expert in the field of queer politics and LGBTIQ* movements, heteronormativity critique and racism in transnational and postcolonial perspectives, she taught courses with a social science-feminist focus and was a great asset to the interfaculty master's program as well as to the Gender Studies Research Platform.
Flip Klijn, PhD, is a research group leader at the Institute for Economic Analysis (IAE), a research centre of the Spanish Council for Science CSIC in Barcelona. He is one of the leading European experts in mapping algorithms and worked as a LFUI guest professor at the Department for Economic Theory, Policy and History from September to October 2018. Together with the Innsbruck research group around Prof. Markus Walzl, Flip Klijn examined the influence of algorithmic details on the behaviour of users. Particular attention was paid to the organization of entry-level labour markets, the allocation of university courses, the design of an EU-wide regulation for refugee admissions and the matching of content on social networks.
PD Dr.-Ing. habil. Ulrich Knufinke M.A. was a LFUI guest professor at the Department of Architectural Theory and History of Architecture in May and June 2017. He is a lecturer at the University of Stuttgart and a research assistant at Bet Tfila - Research Centre for Jewish Architecture in Europe at the Technical University of Braunschweig. During his research stay in Innsbruck Ulrich Knufinke wanted to explore construction in Palestine between the First World War and the founding of the state of Israel. In a guest lecture on "Wilhelm Ze'ev Haller (1884-1956) Architecture in Germany and Israel" he dedicated himself to the German-Jewish-Israeli architect Wilhelm Haller, whose architectural works were pushed into the background by National Socialism.
Invitation to guest lecture by Prof. Ulrich Knufinke
Prof. Sandra Lavorel is one of the world's most renowned scientists on questions of social-ecological research in mountain areas, head of the Laboratory d´Ecologie Alpine at the Université Joseph Fourier and was a LFUI guest professor at the Department of Ecology from February to April 2017. In 2009 she was already involved in an international school in Obergurgl on the topic "Alpine Ecology and Global Change", where she gave a lecture on "Using plant functional traits to assess ecosystem services at the landscape scale". During her stay in Innsbruck Sandra Lavorel was particularly engaged in the research area "Alpine Space - People and Environment" and, based on comparisons between the French and Tyrolean Alps, investigated how resistant the grasslands are to climate and social change. With her expertise she was of great help to the Faculty of Biology, especially in the field of mountain research, she was able to participate in courses of master studies and, through her experience as an author, she supported the publication activities of numerous PhD students.
Regarding the guest professorship of Sandra Lavorel (p. 48)
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Lechner from the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserlautern worked as LFUI guest professor at the Department for Experimental Architecture in the field of Structural Engineering as a representative for Transsolar KlimaEngineering in the winter semester 2016/17. He is professor of Building Physics, Building Material Science and Climate-Friendly Building, head of the Institute for Sustainable Building and Design (INBG) and co-founder and partner of Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH in Stuttgart. During his guest professorship Thomas Lechner held various lectures and worked on the research topic of the "Active House". In order to benefit from the expertise of several experts, Thomas Lechner was accompanied by three other members of Transsolar. The team consisting of Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Auer, Prof. Volkmar Bleicher and Dipl.-Phys. Stefan Holst was able to build a bridge between university and industry.
Dr. Dominik Markl is professor of the Hebrew Bible at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and was a LFUI guest professor at the Department for Bible Studies and Historical Theology at the University of Innsbruck during the 2018 summer semester. His main fields of research are the first five books of the Old Testament. He also deals with the political dimension of religious texts in collaboration with the American Academy in Rome. After completing his doctoral thesis in Innsbruck and his habitation as a scholarship holder of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Munich, he taught in London, Nairobi and Berkeley before beginning his work at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 2013.
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Markl
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexander Marynych works at the Faculty of Computer Science and Cybernetics of the Taras-Shevchenko University in Kiev researching stochastics and the probabilistic analysis of algorithms. Mr. Marynych's outstanding academic achievements have led to the winning of well-known national awards. From May to July 2018, Alexander Marynych was a LFUI guest professor in one of Univ.-Prof. Matthias Meiners (Institute for Mathematics) initiated projects in the field of "Big Data". Alexander Marynych made a decisive contribution with his specialist knowledge of the theory of convergence of stochastic processes.
Prof. Dr. Štefan Matejčík from Comenius University Bratislava conducted research in October and November 2014 as LFUI guest professor at the Department of Ion Physics and Applied Physics. The Slovakian scientist has already visited Innsbruck several times, which has resulted in many years of cooperation between the University of Innsbruck, especially the Institute of Ion Physics and Applied Physics, and the University of Bratislava with numerous joint publications. During his guest professorship Štefan Matejčík investigated the electron ionisation of organometallic substances in ultracold He droplets.
Prof. David M. McEvoy from Appalachian State University was LFUI guest professor at the Department of Public Finance in June and July 2016. During his guest professorship he did research on his project "International Climate Agreements on Mitigation and Adaptation". On 16 June 2016, in a lecture at the University of Innsbruck, he examined the climate treaties from an economic perspective and spoke about the economic aspects of international climate agreements.
Interview with Prof. McEvoy on "The Economics of International Climate Agreements"
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ricardo A. Medina, Ph.D., P.E. from the University of New Hampshire (USA) is an expert in Earthquake Engineering and was LFUI guest professor at the Department of Basic Sciences in Engineering Sciences - Unit of Applied Mechanics in the winter semester 2014/15. The American expert is mainly concerned with the question of earthquake protection and the development of safer construction methods. Ricardo Medina taught at the University of Innsbruck and gave a lecture on "Protecting Lives and the Built Environment Through Research in Earthquake Engineering". Furthermore, he dedicated himself to his research project "Vertical Seismic Demands Experienced by Mechanical, Electrical and Architectural Components in Buildings", intensified the already existing cooperation with Prof. Christoph Adam and enabled PhD students to deepen their knowledge through direct exchange.
Prof. Dr. Aki Mikkola is an expert in the field of mechatronic simulation and worked as LFUI guest professor at the Department of Mechatronics in March and June 2017. He is professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Lappeenranta in Finland and head of the research team of the Laboratory of Machine Design. During his guest professorship Aki Mikkola gave two lectures and published a journal together with Prof. Gerstmayr. In a lecture entitled "Real-time simulation and online teaching of mechanical engineering subjects" he presented his research work and went into simulators for ship cranes and his online teaching methods.
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Mikkola
Prof. David Muir Wood from the University of Dundee was a LFUI guest professor at the Department for Infrastructure in the field of geotechnics and tunnel construction from January to June 2016. Born in the UK, he is an expert in soil mechanics, has published numerous papers (including around 100 journals, 12 books and hundreds of articles, reviews and lectures) and has worked with researchers from around the world. In Innsbruck he dedicated himself to his research project "Calibration of Advanced Soil Models" and participated in the EUROMECH Colloquium 572 "Constitutive Modeling of Soil and Rock", where he gave a lecture. During David Muir Woods' stay it was possible to intensify the already existing cooperation with Prof. Dimitrios Kolymbas and his team and to give PhD students the opportunity to deepen and expand their knowledge.
Dr. Juan Pablo Murga Fernández is a professor of Spanish civil law and comparative law and was a LFUI guest professor at the Department of Italian Law in January and June 2019. During this time, he gave a lecture cycle on “Property from a Comparative Perspective. The transfer of goods from a European comparative perspective ". This took place in English and gave the students who were planning a semester abroad in Spain the valuable opportunity to get an overview of the Spanish legal system.
Dr. John Norris from the Educational Testing Service in Princeton is a TBLT (Task-Based Language Teaching) expert and was LFUI guest professor at the Department of Didactics in April and May 2017. He has written several books and articles in journals, focusing on language acquisition, language testing, research methods and Task-Based Language Teaching. John Norris led several seminars during his guest professorship and gave a lecture on "Recent Advances in Task-Based Language Teaching Towards a Researched Pedagogy". His expertise was a great help for students and staff of the Institute of Didactics as well as providing input for a new doc.team.
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Norris
Dr. Yukihiro Ozaki is a professor of Spectroscopy, Physical and Analytical Chemistry at the Kwansei-Gakuin University in Japan and was a LFUI guest professor at the Department for Analytical Chemistry and Radiochemistry in the summer semester 2018. Yukihiro Ozaki is a worldwide pioneer in the field of analytical chemistry with a focus on vibration spectroscopy. He has also published more than 1000 relevant publications and has been honoured with national as well as international awards.
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Ozaki
Dr. Christiane Opitz, neurologist and cell biologist at the German Cancer Research Center, seeks to understand complex metabolic processes in order to open up new possibilities for cancer therapy through an immuno-oncological approach. In 2019, she worked at the Department of Biochemistry and focused on the connections between NAD metabolism and signalling networks. This research work was conducted with Kathrin Thedieck during her two-month research stay as part of the LFUI guest professorship funded by the Circle of Supporters – Förderkreis 1669 of the University of Innsbruck.
Prof. Marjorie Gabriele Perloff is one of the best-known female literary scholars of the present and was the first professor to visit Innsbruck in April 2016 through the LFUI - Wittgenstein guest professorship program. The native Jewish Viennese, who had to emigrate to the USA with her family in 1938, is professor emeritus at Stanford University and the University of Southern California, was the president of the largest international literary and linguistic society as well as of the Modern Language Association and chairman of the American Comparative Literature Association. Throughout her life she wrote numerous books and scientific essays and researched American poets and Austrian literature of the interwar period. The "Originally Wienerin" was awarded for her scientific work an honorary doctorate in philosophy by the University of Innsbruck on 26 April 2016.
Regarding the Wittgenstein guest professorship of Prof. Perloff
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Alois Pichler is is one of the most renowned experts in the field of Wittgenstein research and was a LFUI – Wittgenstein guest professor at the Brenner Archive Research Institute in April 2017. He is professor of philosophy at the University of Bergen, director of the Wittgenstein Archive in Bergen and is known for editing the digital edition of the Wittgenstein estate. During his guest professorship in Innsbruck, Alois Pichler gave numerous lectures at the Brenner Archive and the Faculty of Theology and participated in seminars and lectures. In his last works he dealt intensively with the discipline "Digital Humanities", which is why he also used his stay in Innsbruck to exchange new ideas and collaborations between the two archives with Wittgenstein researchers from the Brenner Archive.
Regarding the Wittgenstein guest professorship of Prof. Pichler
Ass. Prof. Dr. Clara Portela from the University of Valencia is an expert on EU foreign policy and spent two months as LFUI guest professor at the Department of Political Science in December 2014 and January 2015. Her research focuses on sanctions, including the sanctions regime of the European Union, and previous studies have addressed the question of how and why sanctions work. Since 2011 she has been the winner of the THESEUS Award for Promising Research in European Integration. Clara Portela used her stay at the University of Innsbruck to exchange ideas with the EU researcher Prof. Andreas Maurer and Mag. Martina Fürruter and to develop joint research projects. She also did research on her project Projekt „Europe’s defence integration seen from Southeast Asia: A discourse-analytical approach to ASEAN Leaders‘ Perception“. Another highlight of her guest professorship was her lecture on "Sanctions of the European Union: Impact and Effectiveness".
Regarding the guest professorship of Prof. Portela
Prof. Dr. Till van Rahden is the holder of the Canada Research Chair in German and European Studies at the Université de Montréal and operated from May to June 2018 as the LFUI guest professor at the Department for Contemporary History. His main area of research is European history Post- Enlightenment. He is particularly interested in the tension between the idea of equality and the ubiquity of cultural diversity. As a fellow, he visited the Research College for Human Sciences, Bad Homburg, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the Morphomata College in Cologne, and the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. His study on “Jews and other Germans: Civil Society, Religious Diversity and Urban Politics in Wroclaw, 1860–1925” (Madison, 2008) was awarded the “Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History”.
Dr. Steven Saxonberg is a professor of sociology at the Comenius University in Bratislava and was a LFUI guest professor at the University of Innsbruck from May to June 2018. His research interests cover political sociology with a focus on democracy research, social policy, gender roles, civil society and populism. During his stay in Innsbruck, he conducted research on Premodernity, Totalitarianism and the Non-banality of evil and presented several guest lectures.
Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Seiler from the Department of Multimedia Communication and Signal Processing at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg conducted research as LFUI guest professor at the Department of Mechatronics in the summer semester 2016. During his guest professorship, he dedicated himself to the design of hardware-adapted algorithms for non-regular scanning with the aim of achieving higher image quality despite the same number of pixels. Jürgen Seiler is now author or co-author of more than 50 publications in internationally renowned journals and many of his publications have received awards. Through his stay, it was possible to intensify the already existing cooperations with Prof. Clemens Zierhofer, Prof. Thomas Ußmüller and their teams and to give PhD students the opportunity to deepen and expand their knowledge.
Prof. Blaž Stres from the Department of Animal Science at the University of Ljubljana was a LFUI guest professor at the Department of Microbiology in June and July 2015. He is an expert in the field of bioinformatics and during his last short stays in Innsbruck he was able to inspire with lectures and exercises as well as bring new, helpful knowledge with him. During his guest professorship he dedicated himself to his research project "Analysis of Data in Amplicon Metagenomics: Biogas Communities of Bacteria and Archaea".
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Martin Strobel from the University of Maastricht conducted research in the summer semester 2015 as LFUI guest professor at the Department for Economic Theory, Politics and History. He is an internationally renowned scientist in behavioural economics and experimental economic research and has published in important journals of economics, political science and neuroscience. During his guest professorship, he dedicated himself to his research project entitled "Learning to network - theory and laboratory experiments for coordination in social networks".
Dr. Jochen Strobel, professor of Modern German Literature at the Department of Modern German Literature at the Philipps-Universität Marburg, was an LFUI Visiting Professor at the Department of German Studies from mid-February to mid-April 2021. As part of the visiting professorship, he took part in the virtual conference “Digitalisierung – Erzählen von einer Zäsur” with the lecture "Agency im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung?" and in a workshop on graph technology in the Digital Edition, which was developed in close cooperation with the Research Center Digital Humanites and the Transkribus working group. As an expert in the field of digital humanities, Jochen Strobel enriched his own discipline through his stay in Innsbruck and provided valuable impulses overall for digitisation processes in the Research Area.
Conference programme: "Digitalisierung – Erzählen von einer Zäsur"
Dr. Cemal Tosun is professor of Islamic Religious Education at the Faculty of Theology of the Ankara University. As a LFUI guest professor, he taught and researched at the Department of Islamic Theology and Religious Education from March to April 2019. His research focuses on religious education and new approaches to religious education. As part of his stay, Cemal Tosun gave a public guest lecture on "Religious Education: Perspectives from Turkey" which offered an overview of the historical development of religious education in schools in Turkey and presented current discourses and possible approaches for the future.
Dr. Martin Treml from the Centre for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin was an LFUI guest professor at the Faculty of Educational Sciences from October to December 2018. During his stay, he taught two courses which dealt with classical and current texts of cultural theory on the one hand and illuminated the role of martyrs as religious-cultural figures on the other. For Martin Treml, religions are large repositories of cultural symbols and cultural forms. In a public lecture, he presented the concept of religious cultures. With this concept, he approaches the coexistence of cultures and religions that is characteristic of our society from a cultural studies perspective.
Dr. Hans Weiher is a professor in the field of mammalian genetics and human genetics and took up his post in March 2018 as the LFUI-Wittgenstein guest professor at the Institute for Biomedical Aging Research. In the course of his academic career, he has worked at internationally renowned centres and made a name for himself as a distinguished expert in genetically related kidney diseases. At the Institute for Biomedical Aging Research at the University of Innsbruck, he made a significant contribution to supporting research activities and teaching.