The ECH is proud to announce that five of its members have been awarded full professorships by the University of Vienna. Alice Vadrot, Paul Winkler, Benedikt Warth, Franz Essl and Jillian Petersen are part of a group of 20 newly appointed professors in recognition of their scientific work and dedication.
“Your promotion underlines your academic excellence”, congratulates Co-Director Thilo Hofmann, “and we are particularly proud that, in this very competitive call, five of the 20 professors promoted are ECH members. This achievement is well deserved and we are delighted to have them as full professors within the ECH”.
The ECH Coordinators and Directors send their warmest congratulations and would like to introduce you to the researchers.
Alice Vadrot
Alice Vadrot specialized in political science with a focus on environmental politics and biodiversity governance. She leads the Twin Politics project, that aims at investigating the EUs Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO) initiative and its potential for diplomacy. In 2018, she received an ERC Starting Grant for her project MARIPOLDATA, followed by an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2023. She is also part of the management board of ECH.
Paul Winkler
Paul Winkler is Vice-Director of Studies at the Physics Directorate and Deputy Head at Aerosol Physics and Environmental Physics. His main research areas are heterogeneous nucleation processes and nanoparticle dynamics. He was involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson and continues to work on understanding the properties of this particle.
Benedikt Warth
Benedikt Warth is Deputy Head of the Department of Food Chemistry and Toxicology. His research focus includes the impact of food and environment-related molecules on human health and disease, metabolomics and exposomics. Read more about his research on the effects of pollutants on human health here.
Franz Essl
Franz Essl works at the Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, where he focusses on bioinvasions, global change and macroecology. His main research areas include biodiversity conversation and Neobiota. He has been published extensively on ecological and socio-economic impacts of invasive species and has contributed to global assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services. He has been appointed Scientists of the Year 2022 by the Austrian Club of Education and Sciences Journalists
Jillian Petersen
Jillian Petersen has been appointed Full Professor at the Center for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Sciences (CeMESS). Her main research areas include host-microbe interactions, marine biodiversity, and molecular ecology. In her scientific work, she explores the interactions between marine invertebrates and their microbial symbionts, particularly in deep-sea environments.
