icon-symbol-logout-darkest-grey

Olympia Morata ProgrammeOn the Way towards a University Career

28 July 2022

Olympia-Morata-Programm der Universität Heidelberg: Förderung für vier junge Wissenschaftlerinnen

Four young female researchers, who are working on their habilitation or a comparable academic qualification, are being funded in the context of Heidelberg University’s Olympia Morata Programme. After their applications were successfully reviewed, the following were selected for funding: Dr Corinna Assmann from the Department of English, Dr Maria Bartosova from the Medical Faculty Heidelberg as well as Dr Julia Elrod and Dr Anna Hohneck from the Medical Faculty Mannheim of Ruperto Carola. The university’s aim is to encourage more women to embark on a university and academic career.

In her habilitation project in the Department of English, Dr Assmann is working on the British novel from the 18th to the 21st century. Her research focuses on the spatial and social positioning of literary figures. With her investigative approach, Dr Assmann links methods of literary analysis with gender and queer theories in order to highlight different ways of being-in-the-world.

Dr. Corinna Assmann

At the Center for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine of the Heidelberg University Hospital, Dr Bartosova is organising an international biobank with over 500 samples of blood vessel tissue. The samples come from children with healthy kidneys or with chronic kidney diseases; some come from children undergoing peritoneal dialysis and others from children after a kidney transplant. Patients with kidney damage run a high risk of developing cardiovascular diseases at an early age, according to the scientist. Using innovative molecular methods in her habilitation project, Dr Bartosova is investigating the molecular mechanisms of early vessel damage with the aim of identifying new approaches to treatment.

Dr. Maria Bartosova

In the Department of Pediatric Surgery at University Hospital Mannheim, Dr Elrod is studying how wounds heal, for example after severe scalding and burns or skin transplants. Her habilitation project explores the way in which the innate immune system influences healing processes. In this connection, she is examining the positive effects that can be achieved through treatment based on a differentiated intervention in the immune system, known as immune modulation.

Dr. Julia Elrod

Dr Hohneck, a research staff member at the First Medical Department of University Hospital Mannheim, is focusing her habilitation project on intestinal cancer patients who, along with conventional chemotherapy, also receive music therapy. In so doing, she intends to examine consequences such as the reduction of side-effects or impacts on quality of life. Furthermore, she is pursuing the question as to who or what, in the context of such therapy, exercises the stronger influence – the music or the therapist?

Dr. Anna Hohneck

Funding in the Olympia Morata Programme presupposes that the researchers have already achieved independent research results after obtaining their doctorates. To further their university career they are granted posts for a period of two years in the context of Heidelberg University’s equal opportunity policy. The support programme is in memory of Olympia Morata, an Italian poet and humanist scholar, who died in Heidelberg in 1555.