New professorships assigned
Helmut Haberl
New Professorship in the Department of Social-Ecological Metabolism
As a doctor of natural sciences, Helmut Haberl earned his habilitation in 2001 at the University of Vienna in the field of human ecology. Since then he has worked as an associate university professor first at the IFF, later at the Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt and since 1998 at BOKU.
After working at the Austrian Ecology Institute for Applied Environmental Research in Vienna, he became a university assistant and deputy head at the Faculty of Research and Advanced Training (IFF). As a board member of the Institute for Social Ecology he was involved in the negotiations for the transfer of the institute from AAU to BOKU.
Helmut Haberl contributed as lead author to the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as to the Global Energy Assessment of IIASA and to various reports of the Leopoldina. He was and is chairman of numerous scientific committees and advisory boards.
Alfred Strauss
New professorship in the Department of Alpine Systems Engineering
Alfred Strauss has been appointed to the professorship of Alpine Systems Engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering and Natural Hazards as of 01.01.2022. After his Habilitation in Structural Mechanics and Natural Hazards and during his Assoc. Professorship, he was a Visiting Professor with research and teaching appointments at Ghent University, Brno University of Technology and Lehigh University.
After graduating as a civil engineer from the Vienna University of Technology, he worked as a project engineer for bridge construction at Schimetta Consulting Engineers in Linz from 1996 to 2000. In 2004, he received his PhD from BOKU on the topic of "Stochastic Materials and Modeling of Structures".
His main research interests are the development and application of probabilistic concepts and methods in engineering and for protective structures against natural hazards.
Gerald Striedner
New professorship in bioprocess engineering
After earning his PhD in food and biotechnology, Striedner worked first as a post doc, later as a senior scientist at acib (Austria Center of Industrial Biotechnology). In 2008 he became a university assistant at the Department of Biotechnology and subsequently head of the fermentation technology group as well as subject coordinator for biotechnology in the ERASMUS program.
After positions as a key researcher in the K2 competence center acib and a research stay at the Technical University of Denmark, he founded the companies Novasign and Engenes Biotech. In 2015, he completed his habilitation in bioprocess engineering. Since 2020 he has been working at the Institute of Process Engineering, most recently as Institute Director.
The rectorate wishes them all the best!