On Thursday 26 January, Mr Manu Sareen, Denmark’s Minister for Gender Equality, presented a L’Oréal and UNESCO ‘For Women in Science Fellowship’ to Brigitte Städler, a postdoctoral scholar at Aarhus University.
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Fellowships were also awarded to two other young female researchers for having shown special innovation skills and the determination to complete a research project.
Dr Städler is just returning from maternity leave. She comes from Switzerland, but has now settled in East Jutland, where she works as a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Centre (iNANO), Aarhus University. She leads her own research group in the hunt to find more efficient and gentle ways to deliver medicine to the parts of the body where it is required. In 2010, the Danish Council for Independent Research granted Dr Städler DKK 8.2 million (approximately EUR 1.1 million) for the same project, as part of the Sapere Aude (Dare to know) research career programme.
This is the fifth time that the For Women in Science Fellowship has been awarded in Denmark. Previous recipients at Aarhus University include Rikke Louise Meyer, iNANO, and Hanne Poulsen, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics.
The fellowship is accompanied by an amount of DKK 100,000 (approximately EUR 13,000), and the recipients also become front runners for a new generation of female researchers. The Women in Science programme was launched by the United Nations organisation UNESCO and L’Oréal in 1998, and more than 1200 female researchers in 103 countries have been awarded prizes, scholarships and fellowships to attract more women to research and to recognise outstanding results. Two of these prize winners have subsequently received the Nobel Prize.