Vitrine as a memento of Inge Dirmhirn
On International Women's Day 2022, the vitrine in honor of the first female professor at BOKU was ceremonially opened and permanently installed at the Institute of Meteorology and Climatology.
After honourable opening words by Rector Eva Schulev-Steindl, Monika Sieghardt reported on Dirmhirn's life and work. With her international career, Inge Dirmhirn, born in 1925, left her mark in Norway, the Congo, and the United States, where she was appointed professor of biometeorology at Utah State University. After her appointment as the first full university professor at BOKU (1981), she was involved in the establishment of the Institute of Meteorology and Physics (today: Institute of Meteorology and Climatology).
Inge Dirmhirn was a trailblazer for women in a male-dominated discipline while she also promoted young international scientists. She supported women in the field of experimental meteorology and was herself a pioneer in radiation measurement and high-altitude research. Inge Dirmhirn is a pioneer and role model in a scientific field where women are still underrepresented.
The book "Das Strahlungsfeld im Lebensraum" (The Radiation Field in the Habitat) is one of her best-known works, along with a large number of scientific publications, in which Dirmhirn referred to the connection between climate and social responsibility as early as 1964.
As Helga Kromp-Kolb emphasized in her digital message, courage to seize opportunities to shape is still needed today. In light of International Women's Day, this would be once again an appeal to take the current situations of our societies and our planet seriously in its complexity. To seize the opportunities to shape them in the spirit of participation, equal opportunities and foresight.
Inge Dirmhirn is remembered by many employees and friends as an open and courageous person. As a natural scientist, she has inspired numerous colleagues for ideas and brought visionary impulses into implementation. Since 2008, BOKU has awarded the Inge Dirmhirn Prize for gender- and diversity-specific master's theses and dissertations, as well as an Inge Dirmhirn Scholarship to support master's theses.
Mementos attest to the diversity in Dirmhirn's impressive life, which came to an end in 2008.
The display case can be viewed on the ground floor of the Gregor Mendel House in front of the institutes’ seminar room (MENH EG/49).
