Get to know postdoctoral researchers and their work joys!

They like moomins, are intensely curious, really funny writers and gifted science communicators! This we discovered about our postdoctoral researchers when we asked them to give us written interviews for a special portrait series in the summer of 2024.

Check out their fascinating narratives, detailling career journeys that took them to Graz, what makes their research important and interesting, joys and challenges in their daily work, and what's next for each of them!

Common threads are curiosity to discover new results, the readiness for international networking, support of superiors and mentors which shapes careers, the daily effort put into securing future funding, wearing many professional hats, and negotiating relationships and community when it's uncertain where and when the next contract will be.

Here is the list of available portraits:

1. An exercise scientist's joys and challenges: Pedro Acosta-Manzano, Institute of Human Movement Science, Sport and Health 
2. A hands-on anthropologist’s joys and challenges: Lydia Maria Arantes, Department of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology
3. A tea-loving climate scientist's joys and challenges: Chloe Brimicombe, Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change
4. A curious synthetic chemist’s joys and challenges: Miljan Ćorović, Institute of Chemistry
5. An interdisciplinary German studies scholar's joys and challenges: Angela Gencarelli, Centre for Cultural Studies
6. A ReproducibiliTea-loving psychologist's joys and challenges: Gabriela Hofer, Department of Psychology
7. A collaborative political scientist’s joys and challenges: Laura Jung, Centre for Southeast European Studies
8. A thrill-seeking mathematician's joys and challenges: Zahra Nazemian, Department of Mathematics and Scientific Computing
9. A global historian's joys and challenges: Katharina Oke, Department of History
10. A down-to-earth systems scientist's joys and challenges: Minsu Kim, Institute of Biology
11. A communicative life scientist's joys and challenges: Ariane Pessentheiner, Institute of Molecular Biosciences
12. A creative sociologist's joys and challenges: Zorica Siročić, Department of Sociology

Interview excerpts alongside additional resources to find out more about the researchers are available on the PostDoc Office LinkedIn channel (starting date: August 1, published in aphabetical order). Questions: Johanna Stadlbauer, July 2024.

More content on what makes life as a postdoc joyful, successful, and inspiring can be found on our blog.