Verena Winiwarter

Verena Winiwarter (born July 26, 1961 in Vienna) is an Austrian environmental historian. She has held the office of Dean of the Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt since 2010. Her research focus is on the environmental history of agrarian societies and on Austrian environmental history, as well as the philosophy of science of inter- and transdisciplinary research.

Having gained her higher education entrance qualification (Matura) in 1979, Verena Winiwarter completed the College for Industrial Chemistry in Vienna with distinction in 1981. She subsequently worked as a technician at the Institute for Analytical Chemistry, Department of Environmental Analysis at the Vienna University of Technology. In 1986 she commenced her studies of Media and Communication Sciences and of History at Vienna University. She wrote her master’s thesis on the reception of antique agrarian literature during the Early Middle Ages. During the 1990s, she developed her first interdisciplinary projects on the topic of Austrian environmental history within the framework of the “sustainable development of Austrian cultural landscapes” programme launched by the Federal Ministry of Science and Research. From 1993 onwards Winiwarter collaborated on numerous research projects at the Interuniversity Institute for Interdisciplinary Research (now: Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies) at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. Working on the basis of the research programme for cultural landscape research, Winiwarter and three colleagues jointly submitted the first interdisciplinary doctoral thesis in this field at Vienna University, for which she received her doctorate in 1998 (title of the thesis: “Historical and Ecological Processes in a Cultural Landscape. Environmental History as Interdisciplinary Science”). She gained her university teaching credentials (venia legendi) for Human Ecology in 2003 with her post-doctoral thesis (title: “Historical Studies in Human Ecology”) at the Department of Anthropology at Vienna University. Since March 1, 2007, she has held the chair for Environmental History at the Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies. This is the only professorship of this kind in Austria. She has held the office of Dean of the Faculty since January 1, 2010. Verena Winiwarter is married and has two children.

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