Graham Smith is astronom and physicist. In his group, the professor at the University of Birmingham is using observations of gravitational lensing phenomena to probe the big questions in modern physics. In his course on "gravitational lensing" he hopes to inspire students to conceive new questions that soon, with the huge amount of astronomical data, will soon be accessible. Welcome!

In the winter term 2024/25 he teaches Gravitational Lensing in the Rubin/LSST Era.

[To the interview: Using big telescopes to explore new physics]

David Fernández Remolar is a geobiologist concentrating on extreme environments - from Alaska’s permafrost to hyperacidic systems like Rio Tinto or Archean materials in Australia. As a truly multidisciplinary researcher he is on a quest to unravel life’s emergence and evolution on Earth and beyond. Welcome!

In the winter term 2024/25 he gives a course on Astrobiology and an Earth Sciences Field Trip.

[To the interview: Exploring our cosmic origins rooted in Earth's history]

Bethan Davies is a glacial geologist at the Department of Geography at Newcastle University. She concentrates on the interaction between glaciers and climate over multiple timescales, specialising in ice-sheet and glacier reconstruction in temperate and high latitudes and the glacial processes at the ice-bed interface. Welcome!

In the winter semester 2022/23 she teaches a course on "Glaciers and Glaciation".

[See Interview: Melting glaciers and their future]

Heike Egner is a human geographer with a focus on questions of society-nature and man-environment. Her work is based on a systems-theoretical as well as social-theoretical perspective, which also includes aspects of philosophy, conflict research, risk and disaster research, cognitive studies and learning theories. She researched and taught at the universities of Mainz, Frankfurt am Mainz, Kassel, Munich, Innsbruck, Vienna and Klagenfurt. Within the framework of the Ida Pfeiffer Professorship, she deepend her research on the Anthropocene.

[Interview in German]

Adam Tomašových is a paleobiologist focusing on paleoecology, taphonomy, paleobiogeography and conservation paleobiology of deep-time and Holocene-Anthropocene marine benthic communities. He obtained his PhD at the Würzburg Universität (Germany) in 2006. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago in 2006-2011. In 2011, he joined the Earth Science Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. During the summer semester 2020, he gave lectures on stratigraphic paleoecology and advanced paleoecology, and also co-organized an actuopalentological course and the topics in paleontology seminar.

[See Article "Der Meeresgrund und die Korbmuschel" in German]

Oscar Fernandez Bellon is a structural geologist with a broad range of interests. After obtaining his PhD at the Universitat de Barcelona (Spain), he has spent 15 years in the oil industry, but has also been active in research at universities and research centers throughout his career. Within the Earth Science Curriculum he will give a lecture on petroleum, coal and molecular fossils (among others) in the summer semester.

[See interview: “Like a doctor with x-rays or ultrasounds”]

The astrophysicist Daniel Whalen received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He was the McWilliam Fellow in cosmology at Carnegie Mellon University before becoming a deputy research group leader at the Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at Heidelberg University in 2014. He joined the faculty at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth in 2016.  His research interests include the first stars and supermassive black holes, and how water formed in the earliest galaxies and later led to the appearance of life in the universe.

[See article: "Curiosity is what drives me”]

Until the end of November 2018, Gareth Clay from the University of Manchester, was working as Ida Pfeiffer Professor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences, Geography and Astronomy. In this interview he explained, how he expanded his research from peatlands to all kinds of ecosystems, why wildfires might be an issue in Austria and what students should expect in his courses.

[See interview "Research for resilience"]

About Ida Pfeiffer

The Ida Pfeiffer Professorship of the Faculty of Earth Sciences, Geography and Astronomy honors one of the first female explorers, who contributed in a unique way to geographical as well as ethnographical research in the middle of 19th century. The Viennese Ida Pfeiffer (1797-1858) dedicated her second part of life to traveling to foreign countries and undertook independently and with little financial support five journeys, including two journeys around the world, purely driven by curiosity and personal interest. From her expeditions, Pfeiffer brought back new insights into foreign cultures, ethnological and geographical observations, as well as a comprehensive collection of plants, animals like insects, minerals, and ethnographica.

As a devoted traveler as well as an internationally renowned travel writer, Pfeiffer perfectly represents the spirit of our “Faculty for Exploration”, both sharing the dedication to exploring foreign or even unknown territory of our planet. Based on Pfeiffer’s comprehensive travel reports, which were translated into several languages, the early female explorer also gained international attention by a broader public and was highly respected by the two geographers Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter.

Pfeiffer may not have had the opportunity to hold an academic position during her lifetime due to her gender, however nowadays she would be a perfect representative of our Faculty and its endeavour to explore Cosmos, Earth, Environment, and Anthroposhere in greater detail, to cross disciplinary and geographical borders, and to share knowledge with other interested parties.