Role models seminar

Female Role Models Seminar

Have you ever wondered how to navigate career milestones to become a successful scientist? We bring women scientists to share their career path experiences through informal discussions.

Seminars are open to pre- and post-docs, all genders (non-WoBio members welcome)

Previous Role Models Seminar:

Dr. Margarida Cardoso Moreira

Dr. Margarida Cardoso Moreira

Margarida Cardoso Moreira is a group leader at the Francis Crick Institute in London (UK). Her current research focuses on the evolution of new vertebrate cell types and organs. In particular, she is interested in the evolution of the placenta across different vertebrate species.

Date: Tuesday, November 18th, 2025 at 3:00 pm
Venue: University Biology Building, 3rd floor, Seminar Room 3.1
Target group: All genders and career stages welcome!

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Past Role Model Seminars

Image 1 of 1

In a seminar room, Bea Maas stands behind a desk and talks in a microphone, face to the camera. Eleven women, seen from the back, are listening. They sit on chairs, with their phone, note book or water bottle lying on the table in front of each of them.
On the left side of Bea Maas, an image is projected on the wall, that corresponds to a slide shared as part of a hybrid meeting conducted on Zoom. On the slide, it is written, from the top to the bottom:
Female role model seminar, 20 Jan 2023;
Dr. Bea Maas;
Dpt. of Botany and Biodiversity Research, University of Vienna, AT;
Agroecology Group, University of Göttingen, DE;
Institute of Life Sciences, Sant Anna University Pisa, IT.
On the upper corner of the slide, the logos of WoBio and the University of Vienna are displayed.
Five pictures showing different places where Bea Maas worked are displayed in the lower half of the slide. — Dr. Bea Maas was invited to give a the role model seminar on January 20th 2023. © Magdalena Miklaszewska

Dr. Ortrun Mittelsten Scheid stands on the lower left corner of the picture. Only the upper part of her body is visible. She is looking at the slide projected on a screen.
The slide has a white background, and blue writings, with the title: "Early interest".
There are four pictures on the slide. The two upper pictures are pictures of Ortrun Mittelsten as a little girl, and on the bottom an old-fashioned microscope (left) and a poster of a double helix with the title "James D. Watson - Die Doppel-Helix" (right). — Dr. Ortrun Mittelsten Scheid was invited to give a Role Model Seminar on January 19th 2024. © Magdalena Miklaszewska

17 women and 1 man sitting in a classroom — There were numerous attendees on the Role Model Seminar given by Dr. Ortrun Mittelsten Scheid on January 19th 2024. © Nicole D. S. Grunstra

Preavious Guest Speakers

2025
November 18	Margarida Cardoso Moreira	Group Leader, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
June 27	Sabine Eggers	Professor, Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria
April 29	Aino Hoisa	Associate Professor, University Museum Bergen, Norway
January 22	Kyung Won Kim	Assistent Professor, Hallym University, South Korea
2024
June 26	Beate Apfelbeck	Senior Scientist, University of Salzburg, Austria
Mai 15	Clarisse Palma da Silva	Associate Professor, University of Campinas - Unicamps, Brazil
April 18	Agnes Dellinger	Associate Professor, University of Vienna, Austria
March 6	Carrie Albertin	Assitent Scientist, MBL Woods, USA Hole
February 13	Tracy Kivell	Research Director, MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, GER
January 19	Ortrun Mittelsten Scheid	Senior Group Leader, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
2023
November 15	Lori A. Passmore	Group Leader, Cambridge, Unity Kingdom
October 23	Kirsten Bomblies	Professor, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
June 14	Leslea J. Hlusko	Professor, CENIEH, Burgos, Spain / University of California Berkeley, USA
March 3	Pamela Burger	Project Leader, VetMed Uni, Vienna, Austria
January 20	Bea Maas	Project Leader, University of Vienna, Austria
2022
December 20	Erika Isono	Professor, University of Konstanz, Germany
2021
April 16	Élodie F. Briefer	Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
2020
January 14	Amy Schmid	Professor, Duke Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Durham, USA
March 17	Eva K. Fischer	Assistant professor, University of Illinois, USA
March 6	Katarzyna Retzer	Research associate, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czeck Republic
2019
May 20	Sarah Elton	Professor, University of Durham, UK
2018
November 19	Bibiana Rojas	Research Fellow, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
May 11	Lauren O'Connell	Assistant Professor at Stanford University, USA
February 6	Simona Bonelli	Professor, University of Turin, Italy
2017
December 13	Christina Biasi	Research Director, University of Eastern Finland
November 27	Deborah Charlesworth	Professor, University of Edinburgh, UK
June 30	Cornelia Welte	Assistant Professor, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
March 8	Mihaela Pavličev	Assistant Professor, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, USA
2016
November 9	Nicole Dubilier	Professor, Max Planck Institute, Bremen, Germany