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Lucia Aronica
1. Please introduce yourself
I am Lucia Aronica, 31 years old and I am a molecular biologist studying how genes
are regulated by endogenous and exogenous factors. I was born in Naples, Italy, and
moved to Vienna to pursue my doctorate studies at the Vienna Biocenter. Since
October 2010 I am a postdoc at the University of Vienna.
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
During my high school years, philosophy and literature had thought me how to
formulate and approach big questions around our existence. For my university
studies I decided to explore science, as a new method to understand the world
around me. What is special and I really enjoy in this method is that it is based on the
uncertainty of every knowledge.
This is the foundation of any well-structured
learning process as Socrates preached more than 2000 years ago: "I know one thing,
that I know nothing".
3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
My family was very enthusiastic about my passion for science. I have three sisters and
one brother. We are all very creative persons, but I was the only one who decided to
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express this creativity in a scientific career. My family was very proud of this decision:
they perceived it as the missing piece in Aronicas’ creativity puzzle!
4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
This is definitely a fundamental aspect in any research area. Science is a team thing,
nowadays more then ever. I myself have collaborations with labs located both in
Vienna and abroad.
5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
I don’t use to precisely plan my future. I usually let life surprise me. I do have a vision
though: I want to give a little but important contribution in the advancement of
science. I know that many surprises are waiting for me on this ambitious path.
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
I would maybe like that you could remember me as the scientist who loves doing
science and talking about it. Any beautiful song must be sung out, and this is also the
case with science. If you have a big passion you should share it to reinforce it and
spread its message and energy all around you!
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
I will show them that science is a very cool thing. It is a way to express and give shape
to your creativity and motivation into something bigger than you. It is like art. It is a
masterpiece.
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Florentine Frantz
1. Please introduce yourself
Florentine Frantz, 20, Physics student at the University of Technology in Graz, Austria
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
I chose an education where I can explore and discover the world -Physics. Physics is
the basic of all scientific research, so it offers a wide bandwidth of specifications for
the later career.
3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
Since I was a little girl I have tried to figure out how things work, I have been
searching for regularities in my closer environment and found creative solutions for
complex problems. That is still my way to face the world. Thanks to my parents I
received a good education and they supported me in all my creative experiments and
ideas I had.
4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
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Of course! Men and women have sometimes different views on the same topic and
different ways to approach to research. No one of them is “better”, it is just different.
So why not?
5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
Win a Nobel prize =) *smile* - Just a joke. In ten years I want to be a person who is
enjoying job, raising a family, is having time for friends, has seen the world and is
simply happy with what she is doing.
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
I found the perfect diet to lose weight. Just eat Italian food.
Because you start with an “Antipasto” and then you eat some “Pasta”. So after the
laws of physics… you haven’t eaten anything =)
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting
natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales. Marie Curie
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Katrin Genser
1. Please introduce yourself
My name is Katrin Genser I am 27 years old. Originally, I am coming from Carinthia,
now I am living and working in Vienna.
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
After finishing school, I decided to study physics. In my last year at school, I didn’t
have physic lessons. So something was missing in my timetable. Of course I was
already interested in science before. During my time at university I liked material
science and solid-state physics most. That’s why I wrote my thesis in this area.
3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
As my sister studied Technical Mathematics, my family was already used to a science
interested daughter. They supported me very much during my study period.
4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
When there is coming up a complicated problem at work or a university, you can
always benefit from people with a different education and experience. Another
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positive point in finding solutions can be a mixed team. Male and female employees
or students have different ways of thinking and so they can bring up different ideas
and ways of solving a problem.
5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
I want to setup knowledge at my work and I want to get more responsibility at Bosch.
Of course, I want to have children in the next ten years. But at the same time, I still
want to work. At my company, it is easily possible to work part-time for some time.
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
I was at a sports school before I decided to study physics. So in my opinion the
educational background from school is not too important for the choice of the field
of study.
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
I want to give them an idea of science and about the work they can do after studying
a science subject. But the most important thing for me is to motivate and inspire
them for science.
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Ilse Krätschmer
1. Please introduce yourself
My name is Ilse Krätschmer. I am an Austrian physicist aged 27. I am currently doing
my PhD at the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
(HEPHY) in Vienna, where I am working with the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron
Collider at CERN in Geneva.
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
I was interested in the concept of small particles and in weird things and
constructions that you cannot immediately grasp. I especially like that I am working
with people from all over the world and that I work in lots of different places and get
to know many people from different nationalities.
3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
I was raised in an academic family and was encouraged to make my own decisions
about my future. My family always supported me.
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4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
Of course, a balanced team is more dynamic and performs better. Also it is more fun
to work in a diverse environment, which again helps performance.
5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
After I finish my PhD, I plan to continue pursuing an academic career, and perhaps
one day I will be the first woman not named Maria to get a Nobel price in physics…
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
Like most scientists, I am not a stereotypical scientist. I am just a creative and curious
person with a passion for b-quarks.
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
Choose your own future. Don´t let stereotypes, society or circumstances stop you
from what you want to do! Watch the Big Bang theory for laughs, not for insights in
the life of a scientist!
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Alexandra Millonig
1. Please introduce yourself
My name is Alexandra Millonig, I am 40 years old and I received my master’s degree
in urban planning from the Vienna University of Technology in 2005. Towards the end
of my studies I focused on transport planning and social sciences, as I gained
growing interest in the determinants of human mobility behaviour. Today I am with
the Austrian Institute of Technology in the Mobility Department, working in the
Dynamic Transportation Systems group, where my work is focusing on the
investigation of mobility behaviour patterns and influence factors, i.e. how different
groups of people are using space and moving from A to B, why they behave in
specific, differing ways, and how it is possible to motivate more sustainable mobility
behaviour and support the transportation disadvantaged.
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
Originally, I selected urban and regional planning for its variety and complexity, as it
combines a mixture of different disciplines and perspectives. I have always been
interested in many different things, e.g. mathematics and statistics as well as social
sciences and psychology, and the topic of urban planning offered the opportunity to
follow holistic and integrated approaches. This is also the most interesting aspect in
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the field of research I am working in: the inclusion of different perspectives and
combination and elaboration of methods for investigating the complexity of human
mobility behaviour makes my scientific life interesting and exciting.
3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
As a little girl, I was fascinated by the universe and the stars and wished to become a
scientist, most likely an astronomer. I always liked to read a lot, particularly popular
science books, and I found it interesting to perform small experiments or observe
how the world is functioning. Although I think my parents were a little surprised
about my interests and they didn’t really envisage a scientific career for me, they
always supported me, gave me the books I wished for as well as chemistry sets or the
like. I also had a time when I started to be more interested in arts and wanted to
become a graphic designer, which was also fully accepted and supported by my
parents. I think that it was extremely beneficial for me that they always trusted me
and believed that I would always make my way, no matter what I would decide to do.
That was the ideal basis for developing my curiosity and creativity, which are the main
drivers of my work today.
4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
Absolutely. I think that for investigating complex problems like human behaviour in
transportation research and for developing efficient and successful solutions it is
inevitable to consider different perspectives and follow creative approaches. This
means we have to include different scientific disciplines, methods and approaches as
well as people with different experiences, lifeworlds and skills; that means we need
people with different characteristics and backgrounds. At the moment it is just still
difficult to have them work together, as most disciplines have developed in relative
isolation and experts from different fields have are not used to using unfamiliar
approaches and find it difficult to understand the languages and methodologies of
other scientific disciplines; the same is true for people with different backgrounds and
personal characteristics. We have to work on methods for facilitating the integration
of such a variety of expertises.
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5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
It would be a great achievement if I manage to build up such an interdisciplinary and
multi-faceted group for investigating human mobility behaviour in a holistic way. My
current projects are already oriented towards more human-centred, integrated and
multi-method approaches, but such efforts are still sometimes met with considerable
reserve by most of the potential contributors, e.g. technicians and social scientists.
But with every additional project and every time I can discuss the benefits of opening
up towards unfamiliar perspectives and approaches with people from different
sectors, I hope that integrated approaches become more accepted in mobility
research.
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
The reason why I did not study astronomy was that I was afraid I might not be
prepared or talented enough, as I went to a girl’s secondary school and I felt I might
be less qualified than people (mainly boys) who completed a school focusing on
technology or engineering. Today I think that it would not have been any problem to
succeed in finishing a master in astronomy. This is also what I’d like to exemplify to
my sons through my own life, so I am trying to support them as much as I can and
encourage them to follow their ideas and endeavours.
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
No matter what you are interested in, try it out and don’t let yourself get
discouraged!
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Anna Moser
1. Please introduce yourself
Anna Moser (DI), 31, architecture, from Salzburg
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
Actually it is also my father's occupation... so I made the decision when I was about
the age of 5... When I was around 17-18, I had a hard time to figure out what I really
wanted to do, but I couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted to study chemistry, or
design, or arts, or mechanical engineering, or something completely different, and in
the end I decided to simply start on architecture and see if I liked it. And then I was
caught in it!
What I like most is to help people to materialize their vision of living, maybe enhance
it in some ways, and to build houses that will help to create a living environment
where everybody is comfortable and still challenged to grow in their social skills.
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3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
Since my father works in the same field, he could hardly have protested, although he
told me only to carry on if I really could not find anything that suited me better. My
mother would have been OK with anything I wanted to do.
4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
Sure! The more diversity and difference on the team, the more creative the outcome.
5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
I have no idea! I don’t plan that far into the future. Probably I will be senior partner in
the office, if it still exists by then, or I will do something entirely different, like making
music or working in the therapeutic field.
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
I don’t think that there are fields of work for men and fields of work for women, but
that everybody needs to choose their career according to their personal interest
without interference from other parties. But since it is true that society often
discourages girls to act out their interest in science and technology, I think it is all
right to get active and confront them with all alternatives open to them.
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
If you have interest and/or talent in science and technology, consider a career in
those fields! Don’t let yourself be held back by prejudices that might not even be
yours.
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Marianne Mukkattukunnu
1. Please introduce yourself
My name is Marianne Mukkattukunnu. I am 23 years old and I am studying in the
Bachelor’s degree program of Electronic Engineering at the University of Applied
Sciences Technikum Wien.
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
I cannot imagine a world without electronic devices nowadays. I think I have to study
electronic engineering as a basis if I really want to understand other types of
technical fields. I am interested in furthering my knowledge particularly in the area of
communication technology and car technology.
3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
I was the one, who helped my father with technical problems at home. Now he asks
me if I can fix things before he asks a specialist e.g. problems with cars, landline and
mobile telephones, computers and the Internet (WLAN). I can definitively say, that my
family supports me completely.
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4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
I believe that the quality of every individual in the field of study is most important for
the results achieved. No matter what gender, religion or origin the person is.
5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
My aim is to get an interesting job, with good working conditions and a pleasant,
enthusiastic atmosphere. The position could be either in or outside of Austria. Last
but not least it should offer a good life with also a degree of security.
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
I believe that life encompasses many interests. In addition to technology I am
interested in culture, particularly music, various sports and Indian dance.
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
If you are interested in technical things and think that you could be talented in this
direction, I would suggest that you go to a HTL. After I started studying electronic
engineering I thought to myself how much easier this course would have been for
me, had I done so.
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Tamara Pinterich
1. Please introduce yourself
My name is Tamara Pinterich and I am 26 years old. I was born in Vienna in 1986. At
the moment I'm working on my PhD in aerosol science at the University of Vienna.
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
I've always been interested in atmospheric processes and their influence on global
climate. What I find particularly fascinating in aerosol science is the investigation of
cloud forming processes in the atmosphere.
3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
Fortunately my family always supported my decisions. Today they are happy that I
studied physics.
4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
Of course.
5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
I hope that I will still be working in science – maybe in a tenure track position.
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6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
Although I come from a working-class family and attended a “Gymnasium”
(secondary school with focus on languages), I decided to study physics at the
University of Vienna.
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
Enthusiasm and staying power are the key to success in science.
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Lucia Plank
1. Please introduce yourself
My name is Lucia, I am 28 years old. I am Austrian citizen, I grew up in Wels were I
visited a humanistic high school (Gymnasium). With 18 I moved to Vienna to study
Geodesy at the Vienna University of Technology, what I finished in 2008 with the
master’s degree (Dipl.-Ing.). Since then I have been working at the Geo-Department
of the Vienna University of Technology as University Assistant with the goal to finish
my doctorate studies (Dr.-tech.) in the next year.
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
I always was interested in Mathematics, Physics and science. I learned about Geodesy
by coincidence, one of my high school teachers suggested it to me. Although I
informed myself a little bit, I hardly knew how extensive the field of Geodesy is and
after starting studying I liked it more and more. Besides the fact that I really had a
good time during my studies as with about 50 people a year we are really a small
field and everything is quite informal, today I like most that because we’re so few
compared to other disciplines and there is so many to investigate, in our international
community everybody supports each other and there is hardly any rivalry or things
like that.
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3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
Looking back, probably the most important thing was that both of my parents were
good at maths and that it was also normal for a girl to be good at mathematics.
4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
In our research unit we’re about 20 people, half of them female. Unfortunately, all
three Professors are male. I think a mix is necessary, especially for a good working
atmosphere. And if you’re doing a creative job like I am, it is important that you like
your job.
5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
At the moment my Ph.D. thesis is my most important project. The next step would be
to find a permanent or at least a job with perspectives, what might also be
somewhere outside Austria. This is not so easy in science. Of course, an important
personal goal is to start a family sometime in (near) future.
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
I like my job and I would be happy to encourage other people to do the same.
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
Trust in yourself, trust in your abilities and talent. Then recognition will come.
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Andrea Ramer
1. Please introduce yourself
My name is Andrea Ramer. I am 54 years old. I am a chemist working in the waste
incineration plant in Vienna. I am from Austria.
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
Chemistry was one of my favorite classes at school. My school teacher, a lady,
encouraged me to study chemistry. What I like most is, that the job of a chemist in
my position is never boring and you get a feeling of achievement very often.
3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
My parents were proud of me, when I told them of my plans to study chemistry. They
could not give me support in form of knowledge transfer but they gave me support
as they trusted me that I would make my way and I could live at home for free up to
the end of my studies.
4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
As a head of a small department I have four women and one man working with me.
This proved to be an excellent combination.
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5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
As I probably will have retired before this time I more or less have accomplished all I
can by now.
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
I love to be a woman working in a “male” job and I love to work with young people.
I am a scout leader and recently I found out, that one of my former cub scouts started
to study chemistry last year. When I asked him why he did so, he told me: “During
some group meetings you made chemical experiments with us. I found that so
fascinating that I decided to find out more about it and started to study chemistry
myself.”
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
In my professional life I changed the employer 5 times for various reasons. I never
had any problem finding a new job.
I have two (now grown up) children and I could easily manage to be a working
mother.
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Veronika Schöpf
1. Please introduce yourself
My name is Veronika Schöpf and I am 30 years old and I grew up in Innsbruck. I am a
mathematician and humanbiologist and I am working as a research assistant at the
Department of Radiology at the Medical University Vienna.
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
At school I liked maths a lot. During my studies of technical maths at the University I
got fascinated with how maths is everywhere – in nature, medicine, etc. And I
suppose this is the reason I decided to stay in this field.
The thing I like most is that work and inspiration never ends – the deeper you get
into the field the more you find things which are unresolved and worth working on.
3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
My parents and sisters are working in different fields not related to science.
4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
Mixed teams particularly in the context of interdisciplinary work are essential.
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5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
As a professor I wish to have a good working group of grad- and postdoc students
who love working in their field. I want to be known for the work I am doing.
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
Rely on your intuition.
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
Science is fun.
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Shirley Werchota
1. Please introduce yourself
My name is Shirley Werchota. I am 27 years old. I am currently studying Computer
Science at the main university of Vienna. I also work for the deans office at the
Institute of Computer Science. I am in charge of the Gender Project and the
Mentoring Project. This mostly involves organization, and teaching.
2. Why did you decide to study your field? What do you like the most in your
domain?
The main reason I study computer science, more specifically scientific computing is
because I was looking for a challenge. I wanted to be in a field that was so evolutive
that I could never get bored, always learning something new and applying it. What I
love about computer science are the multitude of possibilities that this field offers. So
much can be done and it is easy and very possible to be the first to do something
meaningful and creative!
3. How was your interest in science perceived by your family? Did you get
support?
My family knew me as an artist before I started with computer science and they were
all very worried I would not succeed. They did try to motivate me in different
directions until they saw how much fun I had and how good I was. They had never
seen me as a scientist before I started in this field. My family always supports me yet I
mostly need to put up a small fight to convince them.
4. Do you think that mixed teams in your job are beneficiary for your research
results?
I think that diversity in teams is a very good thing. The differences can be cultural,
gender or the specialization of the team members. All these are very important
sources of input that can increase the productivity of a team. There is a saying "Great
minds think alike." I beg to differ for the sake of research. I think that differences and
the challenges that arise from it can be beneficial for good research findings
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5. What do you plan to have accomplished in 10 years?
In ten years time I would like to have accomplished much! I would like to have done a
few research projects, maybe even develop new technologies in the domain of utility
computing. Mostly I would like to teach computer science in an education center for
young adults in Nairobi Kenya, the weather there is fantastic ;)
6. What is the thing you would like us to know about you?
Being a woman in the field of computer science gives me great joy and the rewards
are immense! Not only am I passionate about the field I work in, helping the younger
generations orient themselves in the field of science and technology is something
that I put most of my energy into. If I can help motivate and interest young girls to
learn about computers, that, in itself, would be a great reward.
7. What is the message you will pass to the teenage girls participating in the
event?
Take it in; ask a lot of questions and do not feel shy to share what's on your mind
about sciences and technology with the role models. Science is not just about looking
and observing; it is about doing, making, creating!
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Press material at
http://www.ec.europa.eu/research/wiri-press
www.ec.europa/science-girl-thing
www.facebook.com/sciencegirlthing
www.youtube.com/sciencegirlthing
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